National education 'has failed' This headline of the past 10 days refers to which country,
Britain or
Indonesia?
Spot the difference from the following two extracts.
1. Education has increasingly become a commercialized entity, with students being geared into entering the work force. The education system is heavily biased toward intellectualism with examination grades as a parameter for success. The system is not aimed at creating wholesome, independent individuals. It is nothing but a hollow institution with no clear vision for where it is heading. 2. Our insistence on having frequent high-stakes tests and on ranking schools publicly by the results has driven the majority of educators into giving children only what they need to know for exam results, and nothing more. The bleak narrowness of such an approach has damaged both learning and pupils' motivation.
And this is a reader's comment about one of the articles I've quoted from:
Most schools are in essence holding pens and indoctrination centres. The primary purpose of the 'education system' is the maintainance of the status quo. Opening minds, realising potential, understanding what is unjust in our society, encouraging the confidence to take on the structures that block progress - are the very last things we want for our young people - aren't they?Education is very much on my mind at the moment. It's not only because I have an ongoing case against an educational institute which refers to its teachers, both local and expatriate, as
Performing Monkeys , and because Our Kid is about to 'graduate' from primary school (
SD), and enter junior high (
SMP), a process involving scholastic and IQ tests, as well as an immense amount of funds.
The issue of education in Indonesia is crucial in determining the future of the nation. It is at the root of the blind consumerism and greed which we witness daily, from the highest echelons of Bank Indonesia to the lowliest traffic policeman. The lack of morality and concern for the community in which we all live is seemingly endemic.
It is pleasing, therefore, that education is a common theme among the contributors to
Thoughts Outside The Indonesian Box.
First up in this thread is an essay -
The Literacy of Littering - by Dominic, an Australian teacher at an IB world school in Surabaya. His blog can be found
here.
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