Education : Let the production of freaks continue
Chetan Ramchurn
PONDERING on my scholastic journey, I now look at how things could have been better. I won’t indulge in any profound critique of what the past few Ministers of Education have tried to accomplish. Most of the endeavours initiated by them being inspired from Scandinavian best practices and going in the right direction, I would rather offer insights as a product of the system and my suggestions on how to improve the current state of affairs.
Scrap the elitist system: Finland, which is the benchmark as far as educational excellence is concerned, has a structure that thrives on equality whereby it willingly chooses to put those that do well and those that do not do so well together up to the age of 16. This form of impartiality which allows children to remain with the same cohort of friends also leads to the creation of a more humane cadre.
Rightly dubbed by experts as a “ philosophy of inclusion”, this is in line with the nine- year schooling principle. However, to achieve this, there is the need to eliminate our sordid obsession with assessments and as importantly to stop the public disclosure of results. Our discriminatory system, which in its state, is purely based on getting egos as infl ated as possible has been crippling our society for all too long.
Value teachers: Another vital condition for a novel knowledge system would be to enhance the value attached to knowledge imparters. Better salaries would be the fi rst step. This would act as a supplementary source of motivation for existing teachers and it would help attract high calibre candidates to teaching jobs. Greater accountability would also be required to ensure that corrective action is taken to help teachers.
In my own eyes and based on my personal experience, few teachers stood out. Beside being exceptionally good and creative at teaching, these educators treated pupils as human beings and not as mere machines trained to memorise everything.
While others were ever so ready to sound the hallali against those children that were not meeting their expected standards, these good instructors genuinely cared about their pupils.
Time for a mentality change for parents: this is a request to the parents reading this article. I would urge each and every one of you to accept your wards as they are and encourage them in order to nurture in them the desire to continuously discover new things and not be zombielike fi gures with no emotions at all who live and die by that all too limited book knowledge.
Another appeal would be to refrain from using children as a means of achieving your ambition. If you do so, you are
helping create future members of an unthinking majority where academic education is considered as an end in itself.
Limit the number of hours in class: While the Enhancement Programme is an attempt to cure the tuition issue, having students confi ned till 1730 does not bode anything good in the long term. Shorter timed classes are a must if we want to create a more conducive atmosphere to learning. Children cannot be expected to stay focused for this long. Cramming up minds has never been the best of ways to create educated citizens. Foster creativity in the classroom: The use of games, role play, storytelling and at secondary level the renditions of thought leaders are to be promulgated as early as possible. The dearth of moral education could in this way be addressed and greater profoundness given to academia.
Education cannot be the battleground for vested interests: the debate on the education of tomorrow cannot be perverted to cater for the vested interests of some people or ethnic organisations. This area is about our shared future. Kindly do not mess it up.
I’ll end my piece by quoting Socrates, “ I know that I am intelligent because I know that I know nothing”. Till this be understood, let the production of ‘ freaks’ continue.
Showing posts with label Corruption. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Corruption. Show all posts
Friday, February 12, 2010
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Paradise Lost by Chetan Ramchurn (12/09/08 Le Mauricien/ 03/09/08 L'Express)
“Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world and all our woe…”
Paradise Lost
John Milton
Paradise Lost
Mark Twain’s now famous quote linking Mauritius to paradise now sounds like a bitter remembrance of what our fledgling democracy used to be. The state of moral decay that is gangrening our nation leads us to one conclusion; our motherland deserves a better class of leaders.
All guilty
Who should take the blame for further soiling our moral values? All of us are equal partners in crime. We, the “peuple admirable” for having and continuing to bear with hoards of self-centered egomaniacs that have and continue to fool us with lofty words and false pledges. Religious leaders for stooping to unknown levels of immorality in their quest for personal power. Political leaders from successive governments who failed to understand the nobility of serving of one’s country.
Dr Navin Mr Ramgoolam
Navin Ramgoolam, in the role of the greatest agent of chaos and now renowned for his inability to take bold decisions, has helped further tarnish the moral sanctity of our society. Our P.M carries the role of the incompetent leader with such aplomb that he makes the case for his cohort of even more ineffectual bootlickers. Navin is together with all those around him the silent culprits responsible for creating a system that thrives on incompetence and corruption.
From someone who represented change back in the mid 1990s to the master manipulator that he now is, Navin symbolises the degeneration of moral values our country has experienced over the last decade. Declared politically dead in 2000, he has managed a tour de force return to power heavily infused with newly acquired communication skills that focused on an all talk and no action stance .
The leader of the Labour Party has mastered the art of communication and understood that image is everything. Case in point: a scandal filled month with the Boskalis case, Cindy Legallant, Sada Curpen, Valayden’s resignation, Cunningham’s sudden departure, Bel Ombre S.E all making headlines and the only image that will be left in the voter’s mind will be Navin’s sega dancing skills at Le Morne.
Call to arms
The successive list of scams involving bearers of power is a cause for concern but what is even more distressing is that corruption and incompetence are now an ingrained part of our culture. There is no secret mantra to end this but only the will to stand for what is right. Dear co victims, let us extirpate ourselves from our lethargic state and bury those who have repeatedly failed us. Let us not be confined to a state of slumber, lulled in a sense of comfort and security by propagandists. Let us rise above the muck before it is too late.
Chetan Ramchurn
Brought death into the world and all our woe…”
Paradise Lost
John Milton
Paradise Lost
Mark Twain’s now famous quote linking Mauritius to paradise now sounds like a bitter remembrance of what our fledgling democracy used to be. The state of moral decay that is gangrening our nation leads us to one conclusion; our motherland deserves a better class of leaders.
All guilty
Who should take the blame for further soiling our moral values? All of us are equal partners in crime. We, the “peuple admirable” for having and continuing to bear with hoards of self-centered egomaniacs that have and continue to fool us with lofty words and false pledges. Religious leaders for stooping to unknown levels of immorality in their quest for personal power. Political leaders from successive governments who failed to understand the nobility of serving of one’s country.
Dr Navin Mr Ramgoolam
Navin Ramgoolam, in the role of the greatest agent of chaos and now renowned for his inability to take bold decisions, has helped further tarnish the moral sanctity of our society. Our P.M carries the role of the incompetent leader with such aplomb that he makes the case for his cohort of even more ineffectual bootlickers. Navin is together with all those around him the silent culprits responsible for creating a system that thrives on incompetence and corruption.
From someone who represented change back in the mid 1990s to the master manipulator that he now is, Navin symbolises the degeneration of moral values our country has experienced over the last decade. Declared politically dead in 2000, he has managed a tour de force return to power heavily infused with newly acquired communication skills that focused on an all talk and no action stance .
The leader of the Labour Party has mastered the art of communication and understood that image is everything. Case in point: a scandal filled month with the Boskalis case, Cindy Legallant, Sada Curpen, Valayden’s resignation, Cunningham’s sudden departure, Bel Ombre S.E all making headlines and the only image that will be left in the voter’s mind will be Navin’s sega dancing skills at Le Morne.
Call to arms
The successive list of scams involving bearers of power is a cause for concern but what is even more distressing is that corruption and incompetence are now an ingrained part of our culture. There is no secret mantra to end this but only the will to stand for what is right. Dear co victims, let us extirpate ourselves from our lethargic state and bury those who have repeatedly failed us. Let us not be confined to a state of slumber, lulled in a sense of comfort and security by propagandists. Let us rise above the muck before it is too late.
Chetan Ramchurn
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