Dumbed Down by Educational Institutions?

So what do you think of our educational institutions? I am part of the system....have been in it for more than 15 years. I am also a product of that system..one of yesteryears, for 13 years and then another 4 years at one of the local tertiary institutions. So I have spent more than 30 years in this system. Did I get a good deal? I thought so. Had great teachers who inspired me!

So are our kids getting the best instructions in these instituitions now? Are our schools preparing them for life, to be part of the society in a meaningful way? I used to think so but I'm not so sure any more.

Classrooms today are for the most part rather chaotic, unless you are in one of those premier or chosen schools but these schools are not the norm. There are greater numbers of disruptors in the classrooms (problem in the enforcement of discipline??) and they affect majority of the children, indirectly turning them into victims. Kids write off teachers as useless and very often parents and society condone it too. Can't blame them because at one time, majority of those who came into the teaching profession were those who could not find a good positions in the private sector. The best were not encouraged to take up teaching and neither did they want to because of the negative perception. One would be almost ashamed to admit that he/she was a teacher when asked. The failure of our political masters was that they failed to ensure that our institutions be manned by competent and dedicated people.

External rewards and punishment is the order of the day now. Internal acts of conscience is not something that is actively inculcated. We may have more religious classes but for some reasons they don't seem to translate into the expected. How do we know? Social ills involving the young are on the rise.

We push our kids for education excellence. We pump them with knowledge but not bring them up to have wisdom. The goal of education these days seems to be scoring A(s) and not shaping the person holistically...though our National Education Philosophy does espouse that but I think we have fallen short of its ideals. We idealise about JERI (jasmani - emosi - rohani - intelek) or physical, emotional, spiritual and intellectual development but we abandon them in the name of good results. It's all about numbers - the number of passes. Our kids are grilled in school and sent for extra tuitions.....the race for A(s).

There was one year in a rural school in Kedah, the teachers replaced some Standard 6 students with Standard 5 kids to sit for their UPSR. The former were students who were really weak in their subjects. They were quarantined so that no one would know. However, the scam was found out. If that was not a crime, what is? Teachers were the ones who hatched this whole thing out..... Such shame. We were willing to stoop that low. What are we teaching the kids?

Then the crunch comes...they have the A(s) but seem to lack that something. And all of us then lament how unready the young people are to face the world, or how they don't seem to meet the market needs...the list goes on. Classroom lessons are more about memorizing facts than actually meaningful learning. Active literacy and writing skills are on the way down. Walk into most classrooms today and you will find that kids can't even string sentences together let alone, speak well. Critical thinking is a rarity. Yet they can still pass....cos they've been groomed from the mill to pass these standardized tests and elastic adjustment of results.

There was another year that I came across a boy who could not read. He could copy words but they made no sense to him. Guess what? When he sat for his PMR, he passed his Maths. Here, you have a boy who cannot even read, let alone count. Yet he passed his Maths in a standardized test. There are many who can attest to such kind of examples. It's easy...if it's an objective exam, all you need to do is just tell the student to shade just one choice. 60 questions of 4 choices...you will get at least 15 answers right. And the passing grade is so shamefully low that in the end the likelihood of passing is very real. Then these people move on to the next level and find that they still cannot cope. Nothing changes for them but for the teachers and school, a new level of indiscipline takes root.

I would say our educational system is in a rather critical state. We mass produce without much thought to the uniqueness of each individual. We put everyone through the same mill expecting that every product which comes out will be the same. And that is where we failed. We are forcing those with no academic inclinations to stay in school right up to Form 5. They cannot cope with the subjects and become a liability to the school, themselves and by the time they are out in the world, they are set like concrete already. They are dumbed down by the system because many of them would have done reasonably well had they been given the opportunity to learn a skill that they are passionate about. I truly believe in that. There are vocational subjects such as Domestic Wiring, Landscaping, Catering being offered in normal day schools now and these are meant for those who are not so academically inclined. And these students do perform better in such subjects....but places are limited and there are so many more languishing in the academic stream....this is one of the flickers of hope that I see.

All it takes is just one disruptive student to affect another 29 students. And that is happening! Not too long ago, one Education Minister stripped the vocational schools out of our education system and the normal day schools are now saddled with babysitting these non-academically inclined people. It's nightmarish trying to handle such16/17 year olds misfits. So aren't the generation of today being dumbed down by our educational institutions??? My two sen worth!!!