Education improvement part 6
There are many ways to measure the quality of an education but the common ways in some countries is the number of students passing certain tests or the number of students who graduated college. The questions are: “Are these measures valid when students learn to pass tests but forget everything afterward? Is it possible for a quality education when graduates have degrees but not skills?”
There are other measurements such as The satisfaction of students with their professors and the school; the number of graduates having good jobs (i.e., what kind jobs? what salary? Are they relating to the field of study?) and the training program in alignment with industry and contribute to society. However, there is one missing factor which I considered necessary: The qualification and dedication of the teachers.
A highly motivated, dedicated and competent teachers can make a difference in students' learning and improve the quality of education. But how do you train motivated and competent teachers? According to several studies, it depends a lot on the selection of students who enter the education fields. An education leader in Finland told me: “In some countries, education is considered an “easy field” because the admission is not strict but in this country (Finland) it is one of the most challenging field to enter because selection is very strict. Only the best students can become teachers. We are building the entire future of our country based on the education system.” My friend, Dr. Siegfried Ericsson told me that it was more difficult to get accepted into education school than medical school. Only the best students with excellent records are accepted into the teaching field. Since he did not get accepted to education school, he had to change to Medicine.
There is a strong correlation between the quality of teaching with the financial reward teachers get from their profession. If you look at countries with the best education systems like Finland, Sweden, Norway and Singapore, you will find the salary of teachers are among the highest. The problem in many countries is the teachers' salary is not keep up with the cost of living. How could teachers devote their efforts to teach when they have to worry about the living standard? How could students look up to teachers as a role model when they have to work more than one job to make a living? In countries with the worst education system, teaching is not an attractive profession both financially and respectfully.
The issue of improving the education system has been discussed for the past twenty years. There were thousands of education conferences where experts came and talked about how to implement the improvement, but I have not seen much actions. Recently, many countries begin to modernize their schools with information technology and gave students access to the Internet. One of them is India where the government believes that having more students exposed to technology, they could be readied for the jobs in the 21st century, so they have a plan to provide laptops and tablets to students in elementary and high school. The plan was highly praised by many companies, mostly electronics companies who build laptops and tablets as well as the news media as the great step forward to the future. Unfortunately, they did not pay attention to the most essential factor: The teachers.
Last year, I was invited to give a presentation at an education conference in Mumbai. I raised these questions: “What can students do with technology without qualified and dedicated teachers? Do we want our students to spend more time playing video games instead of studying? To improve the quality of the education system, everything must start with the teachers. If we are serious about improvement, we should use the money to raise the salary for teachers, school principals, and other educational personnel and upgrade their professional competency then improvement will happen. Knowledgeable, motivated and dedicated teachers can make many things happen if you make their lives comfortable so they can devote to their profession.”
After my presentation, my friend Professor Ravi told me some government officials and representatives from the computer industry did not like my talk. He said: “They invited you to give a presentation because they believe as a technology professor, you will promoting technology and their idea, but they did not expect what you have said.” I told him: “Technology is important, but they are only the tools. You need the training to use the tools properly and that is why you need teachers. To improve the quality of education, the status of teaching profession must be upgraded by making classroom teaching an attractive profession comparable to another professional career. To start the improvement, your country needs to improve the teachers' salary to make the teaching profession more attractive. Without the teachers, computers, and expensive classroom equipment will go to waste.”
Sources
- Blogs of Prof. John Vu, Carnegie Mellon University
