The dynamism and strength of education

Tshwarelo Hosia | Monday August 14, 2023 06:00

Today it seems the world has become too sophisticated and complex for the present education.

It seems we do not realise the dangers and futility of arming our children with obsolete and outdated weapons of war which will not help them to navigate complex modern day challenges. An obsolete education system poses a threat to the very survival of human beings. The object of education is self-empowerment, self-esteem, self-mastery, problem solving and accountability.

These are weapons which open closed doors and help people to be masters of their destiny rather than victims of an overwhelming world. Many graduates who had spent many years in the study room may be excused for regarding the investment in school as a wasted period on account of the fact that they have very little or nothing to show.

Armed with obsolete tools, many people continue to face overwhelming challenges for which they have no solutions.

Problems which could have been prevented or solved by education are tackled albeit without much success by pharmaceutical interventions. On account of the glaring failures of education, people are overwhelmed not only with the usual problems of poverty and joblessness but now have to contend with new modern and sophisticated health issues such as the threat to humanity posed by the recent COVID-19 pandemic, anxiety, stress, depression, non-communicable afflictions of diabetes and hypertension.

Albeit having the potential to wipe off humanity from the surface of the education system, it does not appear to be giving sufficient attention to non-communicable diseases. These are more lifestyle and less hereditary diseases which are preventable provided the right education is imparted at the right time. Education should see the value of catching our children young by providing early education on lifestyle diseases and ensuring there is provision of a healthy menu at home and schools so that children, based on the knowledge acquired, will use their freedom of choice to pick what they consider good for their health and future. Today, how many families teach their children about the risk of physical activity, of taking too much salt and sugar? Yes children by nature are physically active but it is has everything to do with more of youthful exuberance rather than a conscious health decision informed by a desire of keeping one free from diseases.

Failure to mount the right education to young people is an admission that society has succumbed and resigned itself to fate that communicable diseases are here to stay, making these diseases qualify as inevitable destinations awaiting the new generation. Education, if well brewed, can be a potent weapon that can save the new generation from repeating the pitfalls and mistakes of the old generation in terms of choices while putting to an end unnecessary human misery and ultimate premature wastage of precious lives. Change in education is not a luxury but a life winning necessity.

Those who think change can come tomorrow and not now are failing to read the urgency of the matter. Change is also necessitated by issues of relevance and quality. Relevance affects quality. How well is the whole education set up and curriculum content serving the students? How well is the education system serving and catering for all students and not just a minor segment of the student population? These are rhetorical questions because it is a fact that an irrelevant and less appealing education is failing an overwhelmingly large proportion of the students. In the words of professor Jaap Kuiper, students are not failing but schools (as ambassadors of the education system) are failing students.

The root cause of failure to achieve good learning outcomes is the marginalisation of the student voice. In a school setting there are two critical constituencies competing and yearning for attention – the student constituency and teacher constituency.

Hitherto, the teacher constituency is a dominant factor in the instructional space and this is by design. It is a response to the nature of the long content-based curriculum and teacher preparation from the colleges of education. The overcrowded curriculum demands speedy and hasty coverage of the materials, which objective cannot be fulfilled if learners were to be the epicentre of the teaching and learning process. The supersonic speed with which the curriculum is handled is responsible for marginalisation of a good number of students in the classroom as well as the disastrous student learning outcomes. The other issue is teacher development at the factory colleges. Teachers are developed as teachers in a real sense of the word - to lead and take ‘good’ command of instruction in the classroom.

This places students at a disadvantage because they are forced to approach instructional rooms as underdogs. The teaching environment is restraining the potentials of students. This could explain why students find classroom instruction too difficult to navigate because their side of the story is suppressed by time constraints and the presence of a powerful and overbearing fountain of knowledge - the teacher.

Teacher producing institutions must as a matter of priority cease production of teachers and begin to carry out the more effective job of producing facilitators. Facilitators by nature respect the student constituency by making deliberate and necessary provisions catering for the voice of the learner. Students, as a matter of fact, learn better where granted freedom of expression and choice. The teacher domination has a restraining influence on the potential of the student. What is more, there is a challenge of an inflexible, rigid and water tight curriculum. At schools students are confronted with the task of adjusting and repositioning themselves to meet the needs of a ready made curriculum, created without their input. The curriculum is a one size fits all document which treat students as a homogenous entity.

All learners are expected align and redefine themselves in order to meet the demands of the curriculum, however less student-friendly they may be. Effectively it means learners have to deny self and render themselves relevant to the curriculum. This should have been the other way round as curriculum has a duty to be a servant and not a master of the people.

Now what are fundamental changes which should be embarked upon to make education an effective working tool, making it possible to perpetuate human life and secure dignified existence? The most critical transformation is that the students must move from the periphery to the centre to occupy their rightful place both at the curriculum planning stage and implementation phase in instructional space.

The big question should be what students want and not necessarily what policy makers want. Students’ wishes and aspirations should determine the content of the curriculum while provision is made for the voice of the learner to be heard at the theatre of instruction. It is recommended that the system should consider offering existential education which recognises the ability of students to determine their destiny by assuming greater accountability for their learning and outcomes. For far too long the education system relegated students to empty vessels with little or nothing to offer at the instruction room.