Opinion |16 May 2022
Towards an education system fit for present times
“Any teacher who can be replaced by a machine should be.” Arthur C. Clarke
All schools, regardless of their location and level of resourcing, are currently facing the challenge of preparing young people to live and work in a future time, the nature of which we cannot reliably define. The impact of the fourth industrial/technological revolution (a Google search on this topic will generate more than 72 million ‘hits’) has been more profound than any precedent, with an increased blurring of the physical, biological and digital/virtual aspects of life.
Advances in robotics, the IoT (i), Artificial Intelligence, genetic engineering and quantum mechanics and computing systems have raised unprecedented questions about the suitability of present-day school curricula in the face of uncertain tomorrows.
Globally we measure the success of different educational systems, however when we analyse the results we are unable to find one generic formula for national success which leads to the satisfaction of its citizens. So, while country ‘A’ might have an education system which is effective, productive and which has the support of the vast majority of its citizens, said system will not necessarily suit country ‘B’. To work well an education system must reflect not only the status quo in society but also its aspirations. Finland (and other Scandinavian nations) performs particularly well when evaluated against international criteria like the Programme for International Student Assessment – PISA – even though statutory schooling only begins when children are 7 years of age. But more didactic systems operating elsewhere also rate highly, such as the South Korean model, which sees very young children performing calculus within the context of a STEM-based (ii) academic discipline.
There are a number of big questions which need to be considered at this crucial time – a time when a post-pandemic school will need to balance compensatory strategies alongside development, expansion and progression. How will schools (and the examination boards and government ministries which determine, to a large extent, how they operate) recalibrate the importance of memorisation – a skill much valued during the last century but one becoming increasingly irrelevant in the new age of instant information and data retrieval from a mobile communications device?
And how will schools audit and remodel their pastoral/careers guidance programmes – rethinking the formerly followed linear model? (iii)
In western societies schools are generally encouraged to operate with limited autonomy. Local management of schools has in many countries led to a disbursement of most of the education budget to schools – to be spent by managers and governors in the manner most appropriate for the success of students attending each unique institution. This practice has not been fully adopted in Seychelles, with school management teams disempowered by the over-arching authority of the Ministry of Education. This might of course change; indeed, such change has been debated and considered for many years.
In many countries school leadership teams are explicitly encouraged to maximise the effectiveness of their school by continually improving the quality of teaching and learning. However, the final judgement on their efforts will often be made through inspections by external teams of ‘experts’ and – most importantly – examination results, which enable crude but direct comparisons to be made across a common spine of reference. In the UK we see ‘league tables’ being used as school performance classification systems. However, despite weighting and the recognition of ‘added value’ criteria, these remain skewed.
Alongside this explicit competition we have a bizarre counterpoint which prioritises the quality of regional or national education standards, and which can be called collaboration and cooperation. This is characterised by schools sharing expertise and by teachers coming together to address issues of ‘best practice’. This is underpinned by the maxim that every child deserves the finest education possible.
Within the context of the league table one school’s gain is another’s loss, with this credit/debit sheet informing, facilitating or debilitating the futures of children. The principle of equal opportunity – something which schools have to enshrine in proactive and meaningful policy documents – is supposed to guarantee that each child has equality of access to educational opportunity. It does not, as some believe, mean that every child is equal in terms of discrete achievement zones or personal potential and ‘quality’. But is the notion of =Oppsrealistic? Do we not have good schools, better than good schools and poor schools? Do we not see families in Europe moving to a particular place in order to be in the catchment area for a well-regarded school which they desire their children to attend? And do we not see people purchasing places in private schools and effectively paying twice for the education of their children – once through taxes for a place in a state school which they never take up, and once through school fees for the place which they do?
Clearly while the notion of true equality of opportunity is wonderful, and it remains a positive statement of intent, the realisation is practically impossible.
In Seychelles we have a number of different teaching and learning contexts. We have state schools, government funded and over-managed by a large ministry; the Soviet-style centralised economic model applied to an educational system if you will. We have private schools, first begun in the late 1960s and currently over-subscribed and flourishing in terms of outcomes (results, pathways to higher education, career objectives met etc). We have post-statutory vocational training (STA, SITE, SBSA, SIT, SIAD, SMA) (iv). We also have a national university.
We have to see the above within the context of long-term national economic aims. At the time of writing (5.21) we see a fresh commitment to maximising the employment of Seychellois and minimising that of expatriates, however this recalibration is proving difficult to realise in the short term and, without improvements in the education and training systems, this difficulty will remain.
So how might schools improve and balance the needs of the country with the needs of their pupils? There are a number of key issues to address here, and they apply to both state and private institutions.
First there is the matter of resources in schools, both physical and human. Are the teaching and learning spaces adequate and are the teachers good enough? Do they have the consumables and equipment which they need?
Second; is there effective ongoing professional development for teachers?
Third; is there effective oversight, governance and management of teachers?
Fourth; are the curricula (academic, extra, pastoral, hidden etc) fit for purpose and deliverable?
Fifth; is there effective interface between school and home? Do Seychellois families have an interest and investment (non-financial) in the schools which their children attend?
Sixth; is there a cohesive vision of how schools can contribute to the future quality of life which will be enjoyed by the citizens of Seychelles?
This final one brings us back to where we began, because in order to first articulate and then realise this vision we need to have a collective national exercise of the imagination, informed by what little we know about the specific character of the next half century.
So, what do we know? Or rather what do we think we know?
Informed speculation suggests that professional opportunities will continue to expand (by around 6% over the next decade) in the STEM areas. Some other areas of employment will decline – essentially wherever human labour can be replaced by software, robots or other machines, without reducing the quality of product or service. Ultimately the replacement of humans makes economic sense within a capitalist context but might it be acceptable in terms of the need of most individuals to work?
Generally, we can expect to see humans work less time per week and for fewer years in total. This raises questions regarding how increased leisure time will be spent, and reinforces the need for schools to provide the kind of cultural education programme which encourages a lifelong interest in literature and the arts. Sports also deserve promotion, investment and development.
We can expect to see humans retraining more frequently and more radically than at any time in history. This will be because of the rapid developments in technology and computing systems (v) which will drive the majority of jobs.
Teachers (despite the A. C. Clarke quotation at the head of this piece, which is essentially an ‘anti-bad teacher statement’) will continue to be required, however they will need to constantly upgrade their proficiency and imagination when it comes to deploying technology in the classroom.
We will need humans to repair and restore items both mechanical and electronic for some time yet, although inevitably machines will increasingly repair themselves. And design themselves – a more worrying prospect altogether. Regardless, the status of vocational education in society should be elevated. In Seychelles point of contact service providers will continue to be human in the most part. Tourism will also remain heavily HR reliant.
And one final point – human beings will need to be adept communicators, in terms of creating as well as receiving. The ability to articulate a position, enter into conversation and debate, and be literate conventionally as well as visually, emotionally and musically, will be extremely important.
One private school in Seychelles has the motto ‘Learning for Life’. Two others share this one – ‘You are not born for yourself but for the World’. Both statements are valid and fit for the future. The second asserts a sense of global collective responsibility, within which individual efforts harmonise. The first is more relevant to this article because it presents a powerful connection between childhood and adulthood. People sometimes refer to studying as ‘the university of life’. What they mean is that they have learned lessons through experience and in a fluid and frequently improvised and unplanned manner, which is quite different to how a school curriculum works. Schools which work well for their pupils prepare them to continue learning after they leave school and, indeed, for the rest of their lives – ideally remaining open-minded and comfortable with new understandings and influences which might oblige them to radically review former practice.
In Seychelles the Ministry of Education continues to exercise disproportionate degrees of power over what happens in the nation’s state schools. Despite its huge size it tinkers with curriculum design and development rather than creating and implementing something bigger and more radical (and it has to be said, more expensive…) – a meaningful investment in the future of society and its economic, cultural and emotional health. Whenever we, as a Council, debate important national issues we return to education – its deficiencies and its potential. When identifying solutions to current problems, from drug abuse to low productivity, education is always at the centre of what we propose.
At the centre of any change will stand the teacher, hopefully supported by continuous professional development and good school managers (who also teach by the way). Hopefully this teacher will also be paid well, which will reflect his or her importance to society. With a solid, high calibre cohort of well-resourced teachers in schools across the age and ability range, Seychelles could expect to see exceptional improvements in the calibre of its school alumni in as little as ten years, not just in terms of examination outcomes, but the quality of a new generation of better-thinking, more-aware and more-productive citizens.
In our more and more complex world, a simplified efficient curriculum might be key. Balancing life challenges with physical exercise, sports etc. in schools might be more important than ever. For a “life ready citizen” basics of economics (budgeting and financing), environment (eco-friendly behaviour), psychology (relaxation, conflict management etc.), basics of law (contracts, voting, judicial and political system) and healthy living methods and techniques (e.g. good nutrition) should form part of any educational system.
Teachers have a unique role to play in advocating inquisitiveness and curiosity, imagination, playfulness and an ability to analyse and problem solve. They should nurture the ability to consider, form and defend a position while avoiding the dogmatic and the adoption of a ‘silo mentality’ (vi). They should promote tolerance alongside the formulation of personal ethical systems which prioritise self-development, the further and positive development of humanity, the correction of prior human-generated havoc, and the absence of harm to others.
They should facilitate the identification and realisation of talent and the skill sets which support and enhance that talent. They should allow the natural inclination of most children to value the environment to develop and flourish. Most of all teachers should do their best to make sure that the capacity and love for natural learning which each one of us is born with, is not trampled upon by schools. Teachers may well respect the opinion held by the late Ken Robinson (vii), that children’s creativity is stifled by school systems that prioritise academic achievement.
They should also fight to prove him wrong, by advocating a balanced curriculum for all.
But let us give Ken the final word. He said this in 2006 and it remains relevant today for schools in Seychelles (and everywhere else).
“I believe our only hope for the future is to adopt a new concept of human ecology, one in which we start to reconstitute our conception of the richness of human capacity. Our education system has mined our minds in the way we strip-mined the earth for a particular commodity. We have to rethink the fundamental principles in which we are educating our children.”
The alternative is a state of De-Evolution masquerading as progress.
Contributed by the Mahé Council (Think Tank)
FOOTNOTES
(i) The Internet of Things. A platform where embedded devices are connected to the internet, exchanging information.
(ii) Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics
(iii) Go to school, pass exams, receive further training (if required), get a job, work for 40 years, retire, die.
(iv) STA = Seychelles Tourism Academy, SITE = Seychelles Institute for Teacher Education, SBSA = Seychelles Business Studies Academy, SIT = Seychelles Institute of Technology, SIAD = Seychelles Institute of Art and Design, SMA = Seychelles Maritime Academy.
(v) Moore’s Law states that computer processing speed doubles every 18 months or so. But even this may be too conservative, because technology develops exponentially, essentially feeding itself. There is a counter argument though, which goes like this; the rapid change in technology is an illusion, with the uptake of, say, ‘SMART’ phones being no quicker than, say, that of the radio or the television in the last century. Advocates of this POV point to the fact that we are seeing fewer patents this decade when we would expect to see more if technology was really racing ahead as quickly as some say.
(vi) ‘Silo mentality’ refers to a closed system of thinking which does not tolerate views and positions which oppose and challenge it, which are then filtered and disregarded without consideration or an objective evaluation of their merit. Criticism is seen as an attack rather than what it truly is – a gift.
(vii) Sir Ken Robinson, educationalist, 1950 – 2020.
Disclaimer: This article or extracts herein may not necessarily reflect the opinion of this newspaper. The Mahé Council reserves the right to alter, update or improve the views expressed in this text and is aware that the subjects may have been already entirely or in part discussed with developments in progress.
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