Revamping education

by Anil Pagoda Aratchchi

Education system in a country has to change not only to cater to the changing circumstances of the society but also to bring in changes which are required for its future development. Therefore, it is pertinent to pose the question whether the present education system of the country should undergo structural changes? If it is so, what are the areas that have to be given the priority in the process of introducing such changes?

It is also apt to raise the question which Dewy in 1938 highlighted in his famous book ‘Experience and Education.’ He categorically explained that the exiting education system in America at that time only made students docile, receptive and obedient; that is to say, education was understood as a process of transmitting the knowledge to the students thereby making them passive learners with no freedom whatsoever for them to be independent, innovative and creative. Isn’t it the same thing still happening in many countries including Sri Lanka?

Curriculum

Is the curriculum presently used in the school system suitable for the newly emerging socio cultural, economic and political atmosphere of the country? Or else, does it prepare the student population to accept the 21st century challenges? What is needed today is not thrusting down the throats of the students a stuff related to different subjects and to test whether the students can reproduce what they have learnt at the examinations.

For example, let us look at the skills required for the 21 century. They are information literacy, media literacy, collaboration, communication, critical thinking and creativity. Do the curriculum, the syllabi or the textbooks used in schools concern these skills?

It is common knowledge that the education given to students in the school system is basically based on transmitting knowledge and even at the government examinations emphasis is placed on knowledge. In today’s world, there are ample opportunities for the students to acquire knowledge including internet, twitter, email, blogger, e-books, face book and what is not.

Thus, the focus of education today has to be on equipping the students with the skills of media literacy. In other words, how to find the best website for obtaining information for different subject areas, which source of information has to be selected, how can they assure themselves of the veracity of the information they get from these sources and etc. are the more important areas to be integrated in the curriculum and syllabi. With the knowledge of the world increasingly becoming doubled in a matter of less than an year, should we further be concerned with providing information to the students through textbooks?

Skills

What the world requires from the students today is skills that help them to cope with the challenging demands. Therefore, whatever subjects are taught in schools, they must be embedded with the skills or competencies.

Sadly enough, though the competency based education has already been introduced to the school system, a perusal of it will enable us to realize that in many subjects competencies have been explained with an emphasis on knowledge base.

For example, in mathematics the ability to find the area of a triangle is considered by teachers as a competency. What worries us is not whether this is correct or not but the lack of attention being paid to its practical and pragmatic aspects in the students’ day to day life situations.

Thus, there should be education reforms with an emphasis on developing skills rather than providing and testing knowledge.

Methodology

What is in vogue in the world today as far as the teaching learning methodology is concerned is social constructivism. Admittedly, the NIE once made an attempt to introduce this to the school system through 5 Es model, a teaching learning model based on constructivist approach.

However, it is disheartening to point out that many teachers in both urban and rural areas did not welcome the methodology due to a number of reasons given by them. I am not asking that we should emulate the same model since it is related to constructivism.

What I suggest is teachers must be given more freedom and authority to select the best methodology depending on the circumstances prevalent in their teaching and learning situations. However, what has to

be emphasized is the fact that the methodology so selected must be a student centred one in which students gain more authority to build new knowledge about the concepts they learn based on their existing knowledge.

As Ken Robinson points out in his famous speech titled ‘school kills creativity’ (see Ted talks on the web) the majority of the teachers either knowingly or unknowingly kill students’ creativity. For example, when asked who the artists are perhaps almost all the students in primary classes raise their hands, yet when they go to senior secondary classes at time there are none in the class to raise their hands. Is this because the school has killed the students’ creativity?

In conclusion, time is ripe for introducing drastic structural changes to the education system of the country. These changes must first come from educational policy. That is to say, there should be a reorientation of the

education policy of the country, which can throw light on the other changes to be brought in.

We should not forget the fact that the student in the classroom today is a multi-faceted one who is much more advanced in his intellectual and other capacities than how the adults think of them. A particular attention must also be paid to curriculum designing, syllabus writing and textbook writing. Though constructivist approach is recommended today, activities given in many textbooks have been designed according to behavioural approach.

At the same time, structural changes are required in the field of teacher training. The prime pre-service teacher development institutes – National Colleges of Education, which are a brain child of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, are celebrating their 30th anniversary this year. Therefore, it is ample time to evaluate its contribution to the development of the education system of the country and bring in the necessary changes in them to suit the present-day needs.