Actually, we inherited our educational system from the British.
As time passed, and as knowledge increased, the curriculum
naturally became more bloated.
Nevertheless, there have been improvements though perhaps for some,
they have come too slowly.
For one thing, ever since the advent of streaming, the attrition
rate has fallen: there are less dropouts, and more people are
studying for longer years.
With the global shift in power, America is now number 1, and our
system is slowly beginning to resemble theirs. Strangely, the
changes seem to begin from the University level but should
gradually reach the lower levels. The idea of project work is one
such sign.
In the last five years or so, there has been an attempt to lighten
the curriculum by trimming about 20% off. In its place are
initiatives such as IT, creative thinking and national
education.
Unfortunately, the IT road ahead is not as clear. Whilst the
government has pumped lots of money into supplying schools with
hardware, there has been little benefit to show for it. We have no
real examples to emulate here and the use of IT in education, even
in the developed countries, have not been an all-out success. Our
investment in this area though has been tremendous.
Creativity is another bugbear. Even experts are not convinced that
it can be taught. I feel that more emphasis should be given to
subjects like Art and Music in primary schools but sadly, right
now, this is not happening. Those teaching Art in primary schools
for instance, are less than well-trained in the subject. How can
creativity be nurtured in this manner?
As for National Education, it is dull propaganda more than
anything. Before its demise, the Project Eyeball people produced
their best work when they made an issue out of this.
But perhaps we underestimate the difficulties of carrying out
changes at such a massive level. In the meanwhile, we should
appreciate the strengths of our education system. Most of our young
people are firmly grounded in English (compare our proficiency in
the language to that of the Japanese, for example), numeracy as
well as a second language, amongst other things.
