I am very passionate about education and probably that is the reason why I decided to write a piece, to show my dissatisfaction with government policies on education, especially basic education which has over the last two decades experienced a drastic decline in quality and standard in spite of the huge sums of money expended – although still below the UNESCO agreed-on the percentage of the statutory yearly budget. My intent was also to show that public education as being offered to Nigerians today misses a critical issue.
If I may ask, are students attending our public schools becoming well-educated or well-schooled? To me, there’s a difference; one that is seminal in determining almost every other discussion about public education. The current emphasis on test scores to determine whether a child is getting a good education has narrowed the definition of education. The assumption is: if children do well on standardized tests, then they are well educated. But that assumption may be false. Here’s why.
There’s more than a critical difference between being well-educated or well-schooled. Take a look at our failed banks, where individuals with degrees from high-flying colleges and or universities cooked their books, were deceitful in reporting their metrics and milked customers of their deposits/savings. All of them passed standardized tests and demonstrated acumen in reading, math, business, and finance. The question is: were they well-educated?
Or take politics. There are many examples of administrations packed with the “best and brightest” individuals with law degrees and doctorates who have demonstrated their knowledge of facts, concepts, and theories. Successive administration in Nigeria has had smart people make foolish decisions and, even, unethical and illegal ones. Members of the National Assembly, the vast majority with university degrees and or evidence of attending executive education programs from world-class institutions, succumb to the allure of financial influence and pressure from public servants, businessmen, lobbyists, and political insiders. The question is: were they well-educated or well-schooled?
Certainly, in these examples, individuals are working in complex and high-pressure situations that call for more than literacy and simply mastery of facts or concepts. But all of us live in an increasingly complex world that requires more than “smarts” or “shrewdness”. What is necessary is wisdom, a term seldom heard today in discussions about education.
Today’s schools are pressure-packed places narrowly focused on producing results, specifically in reading and math, on standardized tests. The emphasis on test scores, rank in class, grade point averages, or other numeric indicators has caused teachers to prepare students for these tests. Sometimes an inordinate amount of time is spent on teaching test format familiarity, test-taking skills, and drills. Other subjects – history, science, and the fines arts – are being squeezed out or curtailed as a result.
Appropriate skill tests are helpful if they assist teachers to make sound instructional decisions for individual students. But one-time, high-stakes test events can compromise time for creative and imaginative lessons and projects that promote reasoning, problem-solving, questioning, analyzing, synthesizing, and understanding.
Consequently, we are teaching students the “game of schooling” as if it were a short-term competitive exercise – do what you must to get the number you need. Hence, many secondary school students are concerned with passing, not learning; short-term grades, not in-depth understanding; and building résumés, not following their bliss.
We are teaching that competition is the only approach to teaching excellence, as if passion, commitment, and hard work over the long term do not matter. And, we emphasize that human worth can be quantified by a set of numbers, discounting the intangibles of “heart”, perseverance, and long-term commitment. The recent admission of scoring errors by test companies on high-stakes tests should send a shudder through us all.
The idea also seems to be that what is not metrically measurable is not important. This is a cousin to the idea that if you cannot see it, don’t believe it. But that flies in the face of the very concept and principles for which education is sought.
The great philosophical questions of life – truth, beauty, justice, liberty, equality, and goodness – cannot be assessed through a computer-scored test. Searching for these answers to these issues is at the very core of our society and the essence of becoming well-educated.
These great ideas should be studied in school and understood by our children if they are to live a life of depth, understanding, and principle. This requires a broad education in academics, fine arts, and culture. Education is more than simply getting a job or meeting a career goal. There is a difference, too, between education and training.
Chasing the brass ring without a strong foundation in principle can be corrupting. One only has to look at the business world or professional sports to see obvious examples.
