Fixing the education problem

IT IS TIME that we face the disconnect between education and the “real” world. We don’t encourage reading or support enough literature in school beyond textbooks, which is absurd because reading is the foundation of all education and the most important tool we need in life.

We continue to teach subjects rather than concept-based learning, and facts rather than reasoning, and we see no need to teach values like empathy, respect, kindness and accountability. We’re clueless about teaching loyalty. For lessons in that, we need to consult gang leaders who have mastered instilling that skill in poor, marginalised teens.

Ultimately, formal education should lead to better job prospects so what we teach in school should be giving our children a better chance at landing a good job. Let’s see how our education system measures up to developing the traits that the work world values.

Grades or passes, which we value the most in our schools, never register on such lists. A recent American (US) Association of Colleges and Universities survey found that the top five traits employers look for are drive/work ethic (65 per cent), ability to take initiative (63 per cent), self-confidence (62 per cent), persistence (58 per cent) and self-awareness (55 per cent).

In another article written by Jennifer Herrity that appeared on Indeed, a popular US online job site, she listed 15 traits employees look for: ambition, communication, confidence, critical thinking, determination, eagerness to learn, flexibility, honesty, loyalty, positivity, problem-solving, self-reliance, teamwork, and an exemplary work ethic.

These articles read like a shopping list of traits we are not teaching. Walk into many business places and any government office in this country and find workers with no drive.

I don’t know how you develop self-awareness, confidence, critical thinking and communication skills in children who don’t read. Our school drop-out rate measures the lack of self-confidence that poor and marginalised teenagers feel.

In the workplace, we reward the opposite of every one of these traits. Look within the government service and tell me how many people in high positions are true leaders and how many make employees' lives miserable. Dishonesty, poor leadership and a lack of communication skills get rewarded in the public service, and when it catches up with employees, they just get transferred to another office or division.

Our performance in teaching skills, values and traits in schools and implementing them in the workplace is shamefully poor. We’re not thinking about the state of education in this country, how many students it marginalises and loses, or how ill-prepared students are for jobs and life.

We’re not bothered that the education system caters to about 20 per cent of the population, namely the college-bound students. You won’t meet most of the students who succeed in education because this country creates its own brain drain by driving them away. Disenchanted, they take opportunities abroad, and we get to experience many of those who failed in our school system. Don’t tell me that coming out of school with none of the values on those two lists is not a measure of failure.

But we can complain all day. What’s important is that we seek solutions. Here’s my proposal:

Find and dust off that Cabinet-sanctioned national curriculum document the government paid about 40 of us to write about 25 years ago. We each got $700 a month for two years, which is a total of $672,000 for the two years we worked on that project. We identified the traits and values students should master in every school and proposed a way to implement them.

Make the Ministry of Education more collaborative. Have a committee of education experts committed to revolutionising and modernising education and start to implement those forward-thinking programmes in our schools, starting with pilot projects. Work with the Ministry of National Security and the business community to identify their educational needs.

Transform schools by broadening the curriculum to include work/study programmes that attract poor/marginalised students. Liaise with the business community to support these programmes and make jobs for students dependent on school attendance. Teach real-life English and maths skills and revolutionise the teaching of all subjects by making them more relevant for working students.

Put more emphasis on reading. Take all the taxes off of books and subsidise reading programmes. It’s a better investment than buying more police cars.

The problem with education is not difficult to fix. It takes commitment to change and requires us to begin thinking like an independent country – not a country stuck in a colonial mindset.