July 22 13

Comments today:

Mother, of 3 children all of whom have graduated, spoke of her daughter who had trained to become a teacher. The daughter had left teaching 4 years ago as she could no longer be part of a system which is lowering standards and giving out qualifications which are not valid. She spoke of her son who lectures law at a university. He has students in 4^th year that can barely speak and understand English. How do students get to this stage without some fundamentals in place?

Another comment: that the education system has gone from bad to worse to terrible. Sub-standard qualifications are being dished out, undermining the fabric of our country. The intellectual wealth of the country has been drained and emigrated.

Creativity needs to be emphasised and encouraged as these abilities are required in order to deal with the vast access of knowledge we now have.

On a personal note:

Comments are usually very negative. I am reminded of my initial impulse to do this work, which had been nudged by my experience as a lecturer at a tertiary institution. After a gap of 4 years in lecturing 2007-2011, I noticed a dramatic change in student’s [lack of] critical thinking ability, general world awareness, discernment, language and [un]willingness to work, when I came back to lecturing. It indicated to me that something fundamental had changed in education at a school level. The implications were that students need extra tutorials in order to keep up with required standards, and in some cases standards were lowered.