If I complete my educational course in 3 years instead of 5 years, does it mean that I know more than someone who completes his course in 5 years? Does it mean I am more intelligent than someone who takes 5 years?
This concept of 'education syllabus' is a dodgy thing. On the one hand, we want to make sure people go to school to learn about all topics in the whole-wide-world so we are knowledgeable and can be useful persons. On the flip side, it's not easy to determine how much is enough to build a useful individual. Also not easy is to determine how long a course should be to allow a student to absorb everything that matters.
The spaces in between is giving lots and lots of leeway for opportunistic behaviour. All sorts of certifications and guidance books are rolling in the moolahs, each claiming to be the most effective and valuable of its kind. Amind the competition, we seem to have lost focus on what we had set out to achieve at the very beginning.
All focus now in education is to quickly score a lot of marks. I see textbooks outlining the sections in syllabus vs out-of-syllabus. I hear professional seminars being conducted by exam setters to discuss with certified teachers the topics that will be included in upcoming exams - so these teachers can tell their students which topics to pick for best marks. Quality of education seems to have taken the backseat.
I recently fell prey to one such certification. Paid a hearty grand for a place in an examination and 6 'official' textbooks which didn't tell me much about what I was studying for. A quick check with fellow exam mates revealed that I wasn't the only one who doesn't understand the textbooks. Everyone else had flocked to various online resources to download copies of other secret-sauce textbooks. On my end I had to resort to a combination of (1) official textbook, (2) secret-sauce textbook, (3) wikipedia.org to prepare for my examination.
The examination itself, was to me some sort of mockery. The examination operating procedures were rigid and numerous. I felt like a prisoner! There were so many questions in the exam paper and the focus was on how well you could regurgitate rules and formulae - which nobody does in real life.
Why did I do such an examination, I really do not fully understand. I think it's part greed, part impetus. I think I wasted my couple of months to prepare for the exam.
Lesson taken, lesson learnt. I will be careful in selecting the courses I register for in future and make very sure they are courses that are meaningful to me! No time to lose, man!
♥
This concept of 'education syllabus' is a dodgy thing. On the one hand, we want to make sure people go to school to learn about all topics in the whole-wide-world so we are knowledgeable and can be useful persons. On the flip side, it's not easy to determine how much is enough to build a useful individual. Also not easy is to determine how long a course should be to allow a student to absorb everything that matters.
The spaces in between is giving lots and lots of leeway for opportunistic behaviour. All sorts of certifications and guidance books are rolling in the moolahs, each claiming to be the most effective and valuable of its kind. Amind the competition, we seem to have lost focus on what we had set out to achieve at the very beginning.
All focus now in education is to quickly score a lot of marks. I see textbooks outlining the sections in syllabus vs out-of-syllabus. I hear professional seminars being conducted by exam setters to discuss with certified teachers the topics that will be included in upcoming exams - so these teachers can tell their students which topics to pick for best marks. Quality of education seems to have taken the backseat.
I recently fell prey to one such certification. Paid a hearty grand for a place in an examination and 6 'official' textbooks which didn't tell me much about what I was studying for. A quick check with fellow exam mates revealed that I wasn't the only one who doesn't understand the textbooks. Everyone else had flocked to various online resources to download copies of other secret-sauce textbooks. On my end I had to resort to a combination of (1) official textbook, (2) secret-sauce textbook, (3) wikipedia.org to prepare for my examination.
The examination itself, was to me some sort of mockery. The examination operating procedures were rigid and numerous. I felt like a prisoner! There were so many questions in the exam paper and the focus was on how well you could regurgitate rules and formulae - which nobody does in real life.
Why did I do such an examination, I really do not fully understand. I think it's part greed, part impetus. I think I wasted my couple of months to prepare for the exam.
Lesson taken, lesson learnt. I will be careful in selecting the courses I register for in future and make very sure they are courses that are meaningful to me! No time to lose, man!
♥
