SEA — what I see

Parents are relieved, some excited as they congratulate each other; children gear down on the stress; schools celebrate and the Ministry of Education analyses how to reduce the percentage of low achievers.

If education is indoctrination then the SE A is way off the target.

At this level our primary school students should be taught the primary things in life. Reading, writing and counting are secondary skills.

Indoctrination prepares children to inherit and preserve the planet. All should be taught to relate to their bodies, ensuring that they know how to treat it, to keep it healthy, to help it recover from diseases and illnesses, to preserve it and use it for the purpose it was intended.

The second aim of the process is to train children how to deal with their fellow man. The teaching must cover how to live in harmony, to handle disagreements and to resolve conflicts peacefully. Self-worth, the dignity of human beings and confidence are tools we need to use and share to keep the Earth at paradise status.

Indoctrination is incomplete without learning to relate to the animals and plants, land, air and water and the landforms. How we use these things is equally important as replenishing them so that we do not abuse the planet out of existence.

These are the things to emphasise and if we need to read and write about and count what we do to these then so be it. When we evaluate and monitor it should be to determine how well our children are coping with life and not whether they are passing or failing man-made inventions, subjects. Rest assured that once you are alive you are coping and being successful because you are sitting the exam of life.

To teach anything that is distantly related to existence one will have to employ “forced learning” and if there is little or no interest in what is being taught the test will necessarily produce failures or low achievers.

Primary education is akin to indoctrination and should not be traded for preparing people for the workplace.

The function of secondary and tertiary education is to make the individual employable.

Even at this level indoctrination continues unabated so that the employee arrives at the place of work with industry and good work ethic.

The goal of educating for the workplace is too finite and unstable.

The very society that is training the young for employment is the same society that practises down-sizing, redundancy and job cuts.

In SEA-type education the high achievers are given all the praises while we conjure up schemes to bring the so-called low-achievers up to par. The latter group might be sending a serious message to our educators about the teaching methodology and the examination process.

These underachievers are the same children that can hear a song on the radio once and repeat verbatim without missing a line. If we are going to make primary school a happy place then we must indoctrinate so that children will learn to deal with issues in their lives.

If we insist on exam-oriented education then we will continue to inflict cruel and unjust punishment on the innocent, making the level of trauma tantamount to child abuse.

LENNOX FRANCIS retired teacher