An Education in Education Reforms that Matter

By Holly McCarthy

There are few things in life that matter as much as a good education does. And that is why parents place so much emphasis on going to school initially and to college thereafter. For those of you who argue that life is the best teacher and that experience is the best lesson one could learn, I won’t disagree with your way of thinking. But there are things that a formal education can teach, not the least of which is good communication skills and the ability to get along with your peers, superiors and juniors alike.

The grouse that most people have against formal education and the reforms that are supposedly taking place in it is that the reforms don’t seem to be having their intended effect. We want to build a nation of talented youngsters who are not just academically brilliant, but also critical thinkers, independent achievers, and most important of all, morally upright and upstanding citizens.

Unfortunately, our educational system is not convivial to encouraging us to push our brains beyond a certain limit, to explore new options even though they are difficult or to keep trying until we succeed. Instead, there’s an unbearable pressure to score high grades at any cost, so much so that many students resort to unethical means to achieve their ends. And so we hear of students cheating in tests and assignments, students using their wiles and guiles on susceptible teachers, and even students outsourcing their homework and assignments to other countries where professional writers or brilliant students from Eastern countries make a few bucks out of the process.

Is the focus on high grades making cheats out of us all? If so, what kind of reforms can be effected to ensure that education pertains to all-round development rather than just a question of high grades? How can we move from an assessment based on grades to one that’s based on the qualities that do matter? And the most important and difficult question of all – how do we quantify the qualities that really matter?

Practical tests are a solution, but then, the assessments are based on the perceptions of the examiners. And this means we need teachers and examiners who are exceptionally good at what they do. With education not being as lucrative as many other fields, it’s hard to find dedicated teachers who value their calling more than the money it pays.

At the end of the day, it’s the students who are really interested in improving themselves who gain all-round skills and are able to analyze critical problems and take decisive action. The rest just do as they’re told because they want the grades or, in the case of the majority, they just want to get through high school!

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