Recently, I came across my friend's blog, the one talking about the education state in our country. He was talking on how the quality of education in our country is deteriorating, how students in our country are memorizing and spilling them out again during exams. No doubt that this is in fact reflects the larger population of the student world at this moment. But, I cannot resist to make a number of points here in which I hope that he will take time to consider the truth of life and that there's no point stating how frustrated you are.
In my country, the general idea would be gauging a person's clever levels / success in education / future success in life is based on your achievements in exams (especially in public exams). This happens also in other countries such as in China, Japan and more severely in Singapore. The question here is: What do you expect from the students? We can't just blame the student for memorizing, or the tuition centers or the ministers. The fact is that: The society rules all!
The society dictates what is success. The society says that their language is not given the proper treatment. The society says that so and so shall be the yardstick to measure a person's value. Everything is on the society...If they don't change, why should the government or the students?
And in our country, the education system is exam-oriented. The system do not encourage creative thinking (they have got strict marking schemes to follow to check on public exams). It does not even encourage thinking. Who is to blame? Us - the society.
The education system in the country in fact does not encourage learning for the sake of learning. If you learn for the sake of learning...you'll probably be an outcast of the society. In my country, ask anyone on the streets...have you ever ever read notes from school, right before exams, just for the sake of learning and not for the exams. Don't be surprised, not even one will give you a 'yes' answer. Exams in my country is the one of the measures for success, the more "A's" you get, the more people would look up on you...even if your personality is blacker than coals...
Furthermore, the environment in class is in fact never conductive. Try to talk and the teacher would reprimand you for talking during lessons. Which is why students could not give an answer to a teacher when he asks his students. Nobody wants to be wrong or reprimanded wouldn't they? And the daily routine of classes are notes and more notes to copy. Teachers cram pages and pages into a 1-hour period and expects them to copy them without even explaining what is it all about. How would students want to study? Interests of topics beyond what is taught in class is quashed by the "follow the syllabus" rule. How would this encourage learning? We are being taught to be robots in class and therefore, this is also being brought into the outside world.
A student who is not keen on studying but more on practicalities, is being labeled as "stupid" and "useless". Humans are born with different personalities each, but the education system demands that he does well or suffer the consequences in later life. People without education are considered to be the bane of the society. What justice is there for us to label them as such? Should we blame the students for having a class that does not promote learning? The person to point the fingers at would be us - The Society. It is us that dictates how the future shall look like...
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