For our last five articles, we developed a conceptual framework for education where parents, children, and teachers were allocated key positions.
So far, we have delved into and thoroughly dissected the involvement and role of parents and how this has undergone changes.
In the last article, we focused on reasons why parents do not “push” their children when it comes to education in the manner that the older
generations did, and we attributed this to three clear factors linked to improvements in the socio-economic circumstances of families.
It is thus obvious that with success has come changed outlooks on the meaning and role of education in our lives.
This has had an alarming impact on the manner in which the child views effort in relation to reward these days.
Let us zoom in on this here.
The link between effort and reward
THERE is little arguing that in order to elicit the right type of effort, it is imperative to offer the right type of reward.
This is a key concern in any training program.
This is also a key component of any equation on motivation.
We noted earlier that the type and amount of effort exerted by students is not the same as it was in the past.
This can be attributed to a number of factors: education has lost its rigor, exams are easier, teachers are not as demanding, parents have lifted their feet from the “push” pedal, one can pass to the next level at school even if one fails, getting into tertiary institutions has become so much easier, and most importantly, education and educational achievement does not carry the same meaning as it did in the past.
Let me unpack each of these factors here.
Changes in education
There is considerable concern that education has lost its rigor after a continuing series of ill-thought-out and non-contextualised neo-liberal reforms.
Within this framework, education is viewed as a commodity, and students are seen as customers.
Thus, in providing service to these customers, customer comfort has dominated discussions on both quality and type of education.
Education providers, be they early childhood care centres, primary schools, secondary schools, or tertiary institutions, all began to base their decisions on the business model.
Consequently, two things happened: one, education became less rigorous, and two, quality gave way to the quantity of students passing.
This has meant that the primary concern has shifted to ensuring that students pass through the system with the least discomfort if it can be avoided.
In the process, the content of education has undergone a drastic change, the intensity of assessments has seen much dilution, entry requirements at every entry point have been relaxed, etc.
We even had government admonitions directing educators not to “hold up” students at the primary and secondary school levels if they failed to score the requisite 50 per cent in their exams.
Just pushing them to the next level was the guideline.
Of course, serious stakeholders would balk at this, but that was the official directive “from higher up”.
Within that framework, would it be any surprise if serious students choose to slacken off the intensity of their effort and coast along to the next level?
Would it also not be surprising if teachers at the next level have to struggle inordinately with stragglers who should have been held back in the first place?
After all, how could one expect Year 10 failures to cope with the Year 11 curriculum if they have failed to pass Year 10?
This is just one of the fallouts.
Another one seen at the tertiary level has to do with deficiencies in not only literacy and numeracy skills, but huge gaps in knowledge gained from what would have been considered well-rounded education.
There are unbelievable deficiencies in knowledge of geography, history, current affairs, etc in our students.
And these could easily be attributed to dilutions and changes that have resulted from ongoing reforms.
Let me share a couple of encountered examples here.
In a post-graduate class, students were required to select an academic reading relevant to our course, read it, and present it to the class as an assessment.
One student selected a reading based on public sector reforms in Serbia and made a relatively encouraging presentation when compared with contemporary students.
There, however, were a number of key problems that became evident.
She did not know the difference between Serbia (a country in Eastern Europe formed in the aftermath of the disintegration of Yugoslavia) and Siberia (the part of Russia that has severe winters).
In fact, when asked where Serbia was, she immediately indicated the part of Labasa that is accessed by the road beside the hospital.
This clearly showed that she could not distinguish between Siberia and Serbia, she had thought it unnecessary to look up Serbia on Google and yes, she was from Labasa.
This she agreed to when questioned if she was from that eminent location.
And most importantly, she was a high school teacher.
Changes in assessments
The implications of the findings from that one student who was a teacher will be discussed later when this series focuses on teachers as the third key component of the framework we have been using here.
A second change identified above has been in assessments where the intensity has seen much dilution.
A Year 8 graduate of the 1960s was considered educated enough to be able to converse, read, and write in English.
This cannot be asserted with any degree of confidence about a new entrant to university these days.
In other words, a Class 8 pass in the 1960s had better literacy skills than a Year 13 pass these days.
This is the degree to which assessments have been diluted and made as easy as possible so that we can get the expected quantity of passes.
There are a number of behavioural impacts that this easing off and toning down of assessments have had. Students do not view assessments and especially exams with the same degree of seriousness as in the past.
The amount of effort required to get through these assessments has been severely reduced.
This means that passing exams cannot be viewed as the fruits of hard work in the same manner as in the past because it is attained with much less effort.
Talking about sweat, toil, and tears is simply not appropriate anymore.
A much bigger problem has emanated from this mellowing down of exams.
The scope of the component that helped separate the high achievers from the medium and low achievers has been severely reduced in order to produce a predominant group of similar achievers.
This has resulted in students scoring meaningless high marks like 380 plus out of 400 for their four best subjects.
We also have many students scoring 395 plus out of 400 these days.
Gosh, we even have students scoring mindboggling “full” marks ie. 400 out of 400.
Is it, therefore, any wonder that students do not view exams with the same degree of seriousness as was done in the past?
If we add to this the fact that entry requirements have been relaxed at every entry point; be it Year 8, Year 10, Year 11, or at the tertiary
level, the conundrum of the link between effort and reward becomes even more interesting.
I will develop this further in my next article.
• DR SUBHASH APPANNA is a senior USP academic who has been writing regularly on issues of historical and national significance. The views expressed here are his alone and not necessarily shared by this newspaper or his employers subhash.appana@usp. ac.fj
