Education - are we in step with 21st century goals?

by Asoka WEERASINGHE

There have been many articles in the media which tried to point out the ill effects of 'muddled' education for decades but nothing seems to have happened. For example, an article titled “Educating to create morons’ published recently was based on the observations made by, Prof Susantha Liyanage, Dean of the faculty of Applied Science at the University of Sri Jayewardenepura. He made representations to the parliamentary select committee on educational reforms. His ideas are now aptly depicted in the cartoon accompanying this article. Senior Minister of Human Resource Development DEW Gunesekara in an interview with the Sunday Observer [November 13] showed statistics and stated that “this is the proof of the poor education system and the tragedy of the youth”. He further stated “this situation has to change”.

What is happening in the schools today? It is basically a matter of writing notes in classes attending private tuition classes and cramming for examinations and trying to obtain the best possible grades. Prof. Liyanage goes on to say that even at the university they expect to be spoon fed and wait for the notes to be given by the lecturers. In a nutshell he said, “We are putting out a product into the market that the market does not want.”

Wholesome education

He also said that students from ‘popular schools’ still get a chance of getting good jobs with or without degrees because the schools taught them many more things than just cramming notes for examinations and getting grades. However, even these schools seem to be getting caught to the tidal wave of ‘note-taking-grades- seeking’ education. These schools seem to have forgotten what they stood for in the past; giving a wholesome education to the child.

The wholesome education - the ‘hidden curriculum’ - included a variety of extra curricular activities and co curricular activities. Unfortunately present day students have no time to be involved in the hidden curriculum.

21st century educational goals

A pupil who steps into the world in the 21st century not only needs the knowledge acquired in classes and skills and attitudes obtained during the participation of the hidden curriculum but also should be equipped with the 21st century educational skills. These include skills such as:

* Good communications skills (reading, writing, speaking, listening)
* Ability to learn independently social skills (ethics, positive attitude, responsibility)
* Teamwork skills, collaborative learning, networking
* Ability to adapt to changing circumstances
* Thinking skills (problem-solving; critical, logical, numerical skills)
* Knowledge navigation entrepreneurship (taking initiative, seeing opportunities)
* Digital literacy.

Need for changes

Therefore, all schools including the ‘popular schools’ have to restructure education on the new paradigm of looking to the future needs of the society in the 21st century. To effect change, the focus must not be just on individual change, but also on institutional change. Change will never come about if the unit of change on which one focuses is the individual rather than on the institution as an organisation.

What is being sought is not a mere cosmetic change but a change of basic orientation. Stephen Covey brings this out in a clear manner in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, when he states: “If we want to make relatively minor changes in our lives [and institutions], we can focus on our attitudes and behaviours [our prejudices and discriminations].

But if we want to make significant, quantum change, we need to work on our basic paradigms. To try to change our attitudes and behaviours does very little good in the long run if we fail to examine the basic paradigms from which these attitudes and behaviours flow”.

Human service organisations like temples, churches, mosques, kovils and schools often tend to have an orientation toward the past, toward a “we-have-always-done-it-this-way” type of approach.

To confront the future with a past-orientation is much like driving using only the rear-view mirror. The focus is on where one has been and not on where one is going. Indeed the popular schools look back on their rear view mirror of their past dating back to 50 or sometimes more than 100 years.

It must be further emphasised that the size of the windscreen is at least 100 times the size of the rear-view mirror. The future, therefore, is much more relevant than the past in the design of something dynamic.

At present they also seem to have lost the ‘hidden curriculum’, which they valued in the past. This is due to the lack of looking back on the rear-view mirror; due to the pressures brought by the present note - taking – grades - seeking private tuition based education. Is the educational system headed into the 21st century with a rear-view focus, oriented toward the past? Or is its focus oriented toward the future, toward change? Indeed for the most part the focus must be on what lies ahead.

The need for a vision

This calls for a need of vision, because as a wise man reminded us long ago, “without vision a people perish”. But what is vision? Vision is the bifocal ability to see what lies ahead (farsightedness), as well as the various impediments in the present (nearsightedness), and how to avoid them in order to arrive at the future. Seldom are both types of visions are found in the same individual. Yet that is precisely what organisations need, a leadership and a staff that are bifocal.

More often than not, much of the conflict that arises within systems comes when the farsighted and the nearsighted are not able to see the other’s perspective. Yet both are needed, because one helps to put the other into perspective.

But most people err on the side of nearsightedness because of their concentration on their daily, individual tasks. Therefore the need for a futures-orientation entails a new paradigm, a new way of seeing. The first action in the direction of effecting change is a need for perspective-grasping a vision, a sense of direction, a new paradigm of where education is headed.

This entails having an understanding of where society is headed, how the world of work is changing, and the demographic shifts in the neighbourhoods. This is where the school needs vision, values and mission statements. Do our schools try to formulate these or just do what the Ministry of educations or the National Institute for educations [NIE] tells us to do?

Therefore, in order for a school to operate effectively in a rapidly changing society, it needs to process Vision, Values and Mission Statements on their own. What is the difference? A Vision Statement answers the “Where?” question.

It addresses where an organization is headed-its direction, perspective and paradigms in view of the changes taking place in our nation and in the world today.

A values statement addresses the “What?” question. It is concerned with what the school is becoming - the effective end/goal behaviours it needs to model in the present. A Mission Statement, on the other hand, answers the “Why?” question. It addresses the reason(s) why an organisation exists in view of the direction taken and the needs of its target population.

At every step of the process certain key questions have to be answered: These are as follows.

The Where Question: Addresses Vision: “Where are we headed? The What Question: addresses Values: “What are we becoming?” The Why Question: addresses Mission: “Why do we exist?” The How Question: addresses Goals: “How do we get there?” The key dynamic here is vision, for “without vision a people perish”. Vision is the most essential dynamic an organisation needs to have, for from it proceeds its values, mission and goals.

These three elements without vision will find themselves being formulated in a social vacuum, divorced from social reality. An organisation, such as a school, can have a good internal climate: clear goals, well shaped programs, and skilled teachers and staff who relate and communicate well, and still cease to function properly if it has not taken into account its external climate, the ways in which it is being influenced by the larger society of which it is a part, and the other environmentally impacting systems within it.

If a school is not aware nor has an understanding of the social forces impacting change, such as the Ministry of Education, political climate, economic conditions, demographic changes, and the social environment including the pressures brought on them by the old boys old girls, parents, it can quickly become a historical and social anachronism. Therefore all schools must formulate their own vision statement.

The importance of the statements

The process for developing a Vision Statement and Values Statement differs from the one used for a Mission Statement. Developing the Vision Statement is the responsibility of the Administrator/Principal, with the assistance of the School Board. On the other hand, the Values Statement and Mission Statement are developed by the entire school staff with a number of representative students working together in small groups. The importance of the three is that the first is where the principal gives the school a sense of the direction the school needs to go in view of changes in the society.

With this vision in mind, the school faculty, staff and students, under the leadership of the principal, go on to develop a Statement of Values that helps all-faculty, administrative staff, and students-model behaviours reflective of inclusiveness and a Statement of Mission that depicts the school’s purpose for existence, both of which they can take ownership.

However the interference of the old pupils of the school specially those schools which have existed for more than 50 or 100 years in the country and the parents who are influential is a hindrance to the Principal and the staff to only to produce these statements but also to carry them out.

Reasons for the statements

Why does a school need all three statements, addressing vision, values and Mission? Lewis Coser gives the rationale for this. Coser declares: “The greater the structural or cultural diversity of those who unite in a coalition, the more their interests other than in the immediate purpose are likely to be divergent if not antagonistic.” The value of this statement will be seen immediately by anyone who has been involved in a multicultural environment. Groups such as old pupils, parents and staff differ in their interests. When the differences are due historical/cultural/racial/economic diversity, greater will be the potential for antagonism within the group. A homogeneous group,is a potentially less conflictual group than a heterogeneous one.

Coser tells us where the solution is be found. “Such a coalition, if it is not to fall apart, must attempt to keep close to the purposes for which it was formed.” The only way to keep a culturally diverse group from focusing exclusively on its differences, is by enabling it “to keep close to the purposes for which it was formed.” If there is any group that must know up front why it exists, it is a group with diverse interests.

Without this purpose for existence clear in everyone’s mind, differences will creep in which will divide and deviate the group. Thus, the need for a clear Mission Statement, based on a singular Vision and inclusive Values. Someone may say we have already a formulated mission vision statements, but one must remember that in a fast changing world these statements have to be constantly reviewed and revised and very carefully produced. This has to be done lest once in ten years.

A school without Vision, Values and Mission Statements is like a ship without a rudder, with no destination port in mind, tossed here and there by the social forces in our changing society. Any school will find itself in potentially more turbulent waters due to its make-up of interest groups, and the influence which a socially divided society will have on the members within.

This is the reason for a different set of operational values, which continually place before the school the question: “What are we becoming?” A Vision Statement gives direction to the school.

A Value Statement gives its character, and a Mission Statement keeps the school on course and guard against the possibility of shipwreck and self-destruction which is an ever-present reality. Thus, the Vision, Values and Mission Statements need to be regarded as dynamic working documents and not museum pieces merely to be displayed.

Paradigm shift

It is obvious that there is a need for change - a paradigm shift .

The word paradigm comes from the Greek paradeigma, para = “to place along side”; deigma = “to show.” It means to show by placing along side, as in an Example, Pattern or Model.

Thus a paradigm is a mental construct, or conceptual model, influenced by our socialization, which defines and delimits the way we perceive reality and is the basis of our world view. It is a particular way of seeing.

For education this particular way of seeing has been one oriented toward the past. To change toward a futures-orientation requires a paradigm shift.

Our present academic structures, from pre schools to graduate level, are modelled on the basis of the needs of the 20th century, are not longer functional nor adaptable to the needs of the 21st century. Seeking to reform them only will not do. Radical surgery is needed, not just band-aid efforts. Corporations are already making it clear that school simply have to change. This is why so many of them in foreign countries are investing in schools to help with the process.

Leadership

What is needed is an academic leadership that is proactive, that operates on the basis of Foresight Management, anticipating rather than merely responding. Such a focus will turn what may appear to many to be a potentially dangerous situation, and turn it into a challenging opportunity.

What is at issue here is not just sensitivity to others outside the school but be strong and innovative enough to make entire paradigm shift where everyone benefits.

These paradigm shifts are seen in the somewhat well established international schools.

They have their own boards and advisors who work out their own vision value and mission statements.

If this paradigm shift is not coming from the Ministry of education and the National Institute of education to the other schools in Sri Lanka then it is the paramount duty of individual schools to work out this on their own.

May the schools have the courage to proceed.....of course with caution.... to produce on their own a new vision value and mission, towards achieving the 21st century educational goals and thereby contributing to bring education out of the chaotic muddle.

(The writer was the Principal at Lyceum International School, Nugegoda and he was also a science teacher and headmaster at Trinity College Kandy).