Are our schools ‘exam factories’?

Ajith PERERA

The word education is derived from the Latin word 'Educare'. The Latin word 'Educare' means 'to lead out' or 'bring forth' which indicates that through education students' knowledge, understanding and aptitude are nurtured.

These aptitudes, abilities and skills should be developed through education. Furthermore, this indicates that education is not conceived as a process whereby the child's mind is considered an empty receptacle, which can be stored with information. Teachers, parents and elders who use a variety of techniques and methods to fill the minds of the younger generation with knowledge and information make Aldous Hurxley's statement alive - 'Unlike filling a sack with goods a human mind cannot be mechanically stored with knowledge.'

Mahathma Gandhi	Jean Jacques Rousseau	Bertrand Russell

Education entails the development of the 'whole man' where by the individual acquires a depth of knowledge and understanding. The recipient of such education is referred to as the 'educated man.' Since education moulds behaviour patterns in a positive manner, such behavioural characteristics should be agreeable to both individual and society. As education is a process of living, whatever knowledge that is acquired should be utilized to shape and mould one's life.

Ideal society

Socrates stated that, 'education is the process which necessary knowledge is acquired for understanding oneself.' The notion is relevant even today. For the process of living there is nothing more relevant than knowledge. One of the best known sayings of Socrates is 'I only know that I know nothing'.

The conventional interpretation of this remark is that Socrates' wisdom was limited to an awareness of his own ignorance. Socrates believed wrong doing was a consequence of ignorance and those who did wrong knew no better. The one thing Socrates consistently claimed to have knowledge of was 'the art of love', which he connected with the concept of 'the love of wisdom', i.e., philosophy. He never actually claimed to be wise, only to understand the path a lover of wisdom must take in pursuing it.

Plato who lived in Greece in the 4th century B. C. made education an instrument for the training of rulers and the establishment of an ideal society. In the Republic he says, 'education is the most noble and beautiful thing.' In the Laws he puts forward the idea that, 'the good that results from education is that not only does it produce noble men but such men learn to act in a noble manner.'

Child-centred education

Jean Jacques Rousseau who lived in France in the 18th century is not only responsible for bringing about an evolution in education but spoke vehemently for the freedom of the child in education. According to him education is related to nature. Being a naturalist philosopher, he says in his book Emile, 'the child's education should be in accordance with his/ her abilities, needs and interests.' He can be considered as the chief proponent for child-centred education.

The philosophy of John Dewey, the American philosopher says, 'education is a process of living and not a preparation for life.' He further says, 'education is the organization and reconstruction of experience.' He gives a dynamic meaning to the concept of 'experience.' While meaningful experience leads to meaningful education, it brings about the growth of the individual. According to him, in the traditional school the passive learning experiences the child encountered were not meaningful.

On the other hand when the child interacts with the environment and the active experiences gathered through problem solving, discovery learning, exploration, observation and activity learning is considered educationally meaningful.

Doing their best at the exam. File photo

Bertrand Russell the English thinker stated that 'education is the process through which a person's development is fostered, his cultural heritage is transmitted and a useful citizen is produced.' He refers to the socialization of the individual with the transmission of his / her cultural heritage. Evidently, a useful citizen is not only one who acquires useful knowledge and practical skills, but also one who is able to think creatively.

Mahathma Gandhi's ideas on education are incorporated in the 'Wardha Scheme of Education' put forward by him. He says, 'by education I mean the all round drawing out the best in child and man, body, mind and spirit.' He believed that education should foster the total development of the individual. He rejected the education system with its purely academic bias under the colonial rule. Since he accepted the fact that education should have academic as well as a practical bias, he implemented the Wardha Education System which proposed craft-centred education.

It was he who introduced 3H system to education. He said that improvement of head, heart and hand (knowledge, attitudes and skills) is the main objective of education.

School curriculum

The educational aims are broad. It takes a long time to achieve them. It is difficult to measure the outcome of educational aims. A teacher cannot achieve these broad aims by teaching one lesson in the school curriculum.

Having read the philosophic thoughts of the 'Precursors of Education' let us question ourselves whether we as parents and teachers encourage our children to acquire knowledge with experience for understanding themselves or to be exam-oriented?

'To produce a good citizen' is one of the stated national aims of education in Sri Lanka. It is not at all clear when this process of producing a good citizen begins and ends.

It has to be a continuous process. There is another similar aim; 'To produce a person with a good character.'

This is again a continuous process of which the beginning and the end cannot be seen. Such aims cannot be achieved directly by teachers, Principals of schools or planners of education. However these aims are relevant to education.

In the process of a factory we are aware that the row material is converted to an end product and the row material gets a different shape. For example, a lump of clay is turned into a plate or a pot. When clay is inserted to the machine we know outcome is nothing but a clay product. But in the process of education when a child is admitted to school at the tender age nobody can predict who this child would be at the end of the long process school education.

Principals of schools should not plan to achieve these broad aims. They should have definite and specific short-term objectives, which can be evaluated or measured at the end of the programme. Educational objectives should be directed towards educational aims always. 'Aims are the final out come of the process. They are idealistic in nature. We try to achieve aims. The practitioners had to develop educational objectives based on those educational aims.'

Education is a process in which all three important aspects; teaching, learning and evaluation are interlinked. It is vital to maintain a good relationship among these three aspects if we are to maintain high standards in the education process. It is necessary to have an understanding of each person's role; the role of the student, teacher, Principal, education planner and curriculum developer. Also it is important that there should be a good integration and good coordination among these parties.

Values and attitudes

The teacher is guided by the educational aims and objectives in his task to direct, guide and motivate students in learning and in selecting the correct learning activities and relevant teaching methods to achieve the learning outcomes.

The teacher should know clearly the results of teaching that is behaviour of students after learning. They should be aware of the new knowledge, new competencies, values and attitudes that students will acquire as a result of learning. Then only can the teacher perform his duties efficiently and productively.

It is easy for the students to learn when they know what is expected from the learning tasks. It is easy for the students to plan their learning tasks when they know what new knowledge, competencies, values and attitudes are expected from their learning tasks.

If the objectives are clear the teacher can easily find out how much the students have learnt and where they have gone wrong. Also it is easy to identify the teacher's mistakes and shortcomings. A meaningful evaluation or an assessment can be done only when the objectives are given. This indicates that when objectives are identified early then only can there be fair integration and coordination among teaching, learning and evaluation.

'The principal goal of education is to create men who are capable of doing new things, not simply of repeating what other generation have done - men who are creative, inventive and discoveries.

The second goal of education is to form minds which can be critical, can verify and not accept everything they are offered'

- Jean Piaget

The present system in our schools is deviating from these accepted norms because the teachers and Principals are pressurized before examinations.

The whole social set up is far from the principles of education and the values of education because the performance and the cleverness of the students are evaluated by examination results.

All these high principles are mere words that are holidaying in books. They apparently become useless before examinations. We are forced to run in this mad rat race where our innocent children become heartless machines or 'killers'. Students who are deprived of many treasures in life; nature friendly life, freedom, free thinking, enjoyment etc. become robots who claim their lives when they become failures before the demands of their parents and teachers who set goals in life.

Good citizens

If we ask parents who admit their little children to school what their main aim of sending their children to school, they have high ideals like making their children good citizens or making them fruitful people. Unfortunately they forget or they are made to forget these high ideals after few years especially before Grade Five scholarship examination.

The parents especially the mothers behave as if the particular examination is meant for them or if their children get failed as if they are black listed. This is a crime. I do not how long will it take the responsible authorities and parents to realize the crime behind this?

The school should be a place where children enjoy themselves while identifying who they are and designing their own future. If the schools are 'exam factories' the opportunities for such ideals are hindered. Finally our children are both failures in their exams and life as well. The government examination results provide enough evidence.

The writer is a teacher, lecturer of Child Psychology and Classroom Management