An education system worth its salt

Tshwarelo Hosia | Monday November 24, 2025 08:33

An education system worth its salt should cease to emphasise on transmission of content but endeavour to churn out graduates who could flourish both in their personal endeavours and professional lives.

Embedded in the 21st-century curriculum should be a wide spectrum of soft skills relevant to life and the job market. Preparing the ground for honing and sharpening of soft skills requires facilitators and mentors and not lecturers. At the heart of the teaching and learning industry should be a reciprocal approach where teachers and students could switch and swap roles with relative ease.

There should be no permanent positions or roles. A teacher should, in the course of instruction, comfortably take a back seat to become a student while a student assumes a leading role. Students who acquire and gain mastery of soft skills are well-positioned to thrive in the advanced and intricate modern world of work. By swapping roles, students get to see things from the teachers’ perspective, and teachers learn from the feedback of students. It is a win-win situation, which goes a long way to build a spirit of mutual respect and peaceful coexistence.

Schoolwork should be deliberately designed to build student capacity in communication, interpersonal skills, innovation, time management, problem solving, teamwork and delegation, collaboration, and critical thinking.

While these skills are critical beyond the borders of the classroom, sadly, they hardly receive the necessary attention they deserve in a conventional teaching and learning environment.

They are simply considered additional and peripheral to the core business of learning content. Content learning and final examinations pay lip service to soft skills.

The irony of the situation is that as soon as students finish their school life, the world of work demands immediate application of soft skills. Schools should reform to embrace lifelong learning. Soft skills are quite handy when job seekers have to navigate job interviews. The world of work challenges employees to show empathy towards colleagues and clients and apply negotiation and diplomatic skills in conflict situations. Schools, therefore, are duty-bound to develop students’ soft skills in a variety of deliberately calculated settings.

Among other things, it could be the use of continuous assessment whose outcomes should contribute to the final student learning outcomes. Continuous assessment offers teachers an opportunity to observe and monitor periodically the development of their students in less intimidating settings.

As students interact with one another, teachers could observe their demeanours to reinforce best practices and socially desirable qualities. Incidents of bullying should be nipped in the bud because they could manifest themselves later in life.

Peer-to-peer learning promotes student autonomy while building mutually beneficial relationships among students. Schools should arrange student self-directed conferences, presentations, debates, and team-based projects. The role of teachers should be restricted to the provision of guidance and support. Students could only blossom where teachers show confidence in their ability to self-direct and coordinate their learning. Self-directed learning takes place in a relaxed and less exacting atmosphere, and it allows students to express themselves freely. When managing projects independently, students learn to collaborate and harness diverse talents within a group towards a common goal.

Team building and talent management are essential to the successful execution of a project. When left to their own devices and not overshadowed by the authority of the teachers, students hone their leadership, collaborative, problem-solving, and critical thinking skills. Other skills that could develop and flourish are communication and interpersonal skills, and effective management of scarce resources such as time.

There is a need to bridge the gap between school life and the real world, where competence matters. Overreliance on formal examinations does not necessarily do justice to the total development of the varying talents of students. Besides, examinations cause a lot of anxiety and stress. Student-centred learning promotes innovation, fun while motivating students’ engagement. Students derive maximum pleasure when they take ownership of the learning.