Friday, November 18, 2011

State in A Hurry To Spoil School Holidays

At least for those kids from Standard IV and V who will take part in the Summer School Programme which begins November 24. This is our Government's response to the high failure rate at the CPE exams. I don't think this will really work because almost everybody knows that the problem is not with our kids but with the curriculum which needs to be redesigned to make learning more playful and relevant. Besides there is a much easier way to dramatically reduce the end of primary education failure rate: bell curve the results to allow a few thousands more children in Form 1 in January 2012.

For sure we can learn from Finland where kids begin school only when they're 7, spend the least amount of time in classrooms and yet are at the top of the PISA rankings. By the way, I am hoping Mauritius will start participating in this serious survey in the next few hundred years. Once we get tired of gazing at our navels that is.

Finally, there is another reason why we don't want to go ahead with the summer school programme. And that's because we know that kids now are not as physically strong as they were before. So the last thing we want is to have them spending still more time behind their desks slowly morphing into obese parrots. Nope. We better have them enrolled in a Summer Football Programme.

13 comments:

akagugo said...

Yes, this not only spoils school holidays, but also places undue additional stress on teachers who also need to recover at times...
Does someone think about managing the human resources at some level?
And if schools remain occupied even during vacations, when will maintenance works be scheduled? Or are we ready to take the risks of paint vapours and / or presence of construction materials as normal for children?

Sanjay Jagatsingh said...

Yep. Fits Einstein's definition of insanity perfectly...

Sanjay Jagatsingh said...

Le 10 mars Saturday Football League pe larguer pu bann zelev sekonder avec 125 lekip. Se byen.

Par kont, domaz bann zenfan primer pena pumon pu galupe lor laplenn, transpire byen ek vinn en form.

De tut le fason bann ti-bambin-la bizin gard lenerzi pu apran kuma peroke sipa Mahe de Labourdonnais ti kontan manz de uswa trwa dizef pu so ti-dezene...

akagugo said...

I heard that to err is human... But what about renewing faith in repeated failure to deliver on expectations of consistently high quality? So, until we have some hard-balled Minister of Education, we forget about our PISA rating...

Sanjay Jagatsingh said...

We have enough smart people to develop our own exams. Especially given all the codified knowledge that is readily available.

akagugo said...

Yes, even foreigners say that we have competence locally!

Sanjay Jagatsingh said...

Bunwaree heading to Finland. Pa tro boner! Esperon nu kav ratrap enn pake sa bann banane kot pann fer nanye la.

akagugo said...

Finlande? A la bonne heure!
Parski, mém si Vasant (mo tann dir) so z'enfan inn all enn IB-based school, tank ki sa-mazesté Navin mett so lamé la-dan, pou ena bann pseudo-pédagog/ vré démagog ki contan férr santaaz affectif ar bann paran pou férr zott préférr lésson ki lekol, péna simé mo métt mo kass lor kik amélioration dans le bon sens...

Sanjay Jagatsingh said...

Wi, mank deba dan bann parti politik. Malgre sa mo panse ena inpe plis deba dan LP ki dan MMM u MSM.

akagugo said...

Pou bann ki ena larzess-d'espri pou konpran ki pena enn-sél métodd baton-mazik, ala enn-ti pé rézon pou contign gard saki bon (tried and tested), ek napa nek dévir tou anbalao britt-britt.

Sanjay Jagatsingh said...

Li tuzur pli bon kompran bann zafer ki apran zot par ker. Ek ena fason mazik montre. Ki inpe diferan de sa bann manyer boring ki enn pake servi moris la.

Bann nerolog dir ki ler u kompran li rant dan u long-term memory. Ler u drill mo panse li kuma enn sante. U kon rapel sant li san kitwa kompran bann parol.

Disiplin mari inportan. U kav disiplin pu fer bann zafer serye. Ek playful anmemtan. Ki pli top ankor.

Ek si u tro dril olye u zwe bul lor laplen pu gagn enn bon lasante be good luck!

Sanjay Jagatsingh said...

Ala inpe lide pu lager kont obezite.

Sanjay Jagatsingh said...

Balanced article about the education system in Singapore.