Tradition and Progress
Asian education systems have a lot of exams and Asian students spend most of their time in school preparing for these exams. There are exams in elementary school, in middle school, in high schools, and the college entrance exam to go to university. Without passing these exams, students cannot continue their education. This “exam oriented” education system is based on the ancient tradition of selecting a few to serve the emperor but it becomes an obstacle in this information age and must be re-examined for its validity.
Today education is NOT designed for a few elites but for everybody. The more people are educated, the better. The more knowledge and skills people have the better for the society. The current college entrance exam that allows a few students to go to university has created significant pressure on every student. Today having a college education is essential to have a good job and by limiting the number of young people to have this opportunity is hurting the society. It impacts a nation's progress on its economy and businesses growth. There is also hidden consequence: It reduces everything that students need to know and teachers want to teach into a “limited knowledge” that students need to pass the exam. The fact is because of the pressure to pass this exam; the entire high school education is being reduced to focus only to what will be covered in the exam instead of something else. This also forces students to memorize everything from this “Limited knowledge” to pass the exam instead of learning new things to keep pace with other progress.
This archaic “exam oriented” also prevents students from developing their own independent thinking, their own opinions, their own problem solving skills, and their own creativities. This archaic approach prevents teachers from teaching new knowledge and skills as well as important aspects of life such as morality, loyalty, patriotic, and ethics because these may take away the time to prepare students for the exam. Even if teachers want to introduce new concepts, new ideas or new teaching methods, students may resist because these will not help them to pass the exam. The pressure of this exam is so heavy that each year, many young students in Japan, S. Korea, and China commit suicide when they fail the exam. The pressure is so heavy that push some students to cheat on the exam. The pressure is so heavy that many families, despite their limited incomes, have to send their children to special tutorials to learn how to pass exam. The pressure is so heavy that people would bribe some exam graders to pass their children. The “exam oriented” approach also has a hidden negative: It discourages young people to pursue their goals because failure has grave consequences in emotional and psychological that failing students must suffer, sometime to the rest of their lives.
There is a discussion among college professors as to whether college is right for everyone. I believe that college should be open to everyone and they may decide if it is the right fit for them. The education system has changed so much in past several years as the world needs more educated workers than ever before. By limit this opportunity; we are hurting the next generation and the future of our society. As a professor I have worked with many students who could not even think about go to college few years ago but now attending and doing very well. Some of them told me that they were just “average” students in high school and wondered whether they would succeed in college. I told them that if they put in their efforts, they should do well and it is up to them to determine their futures. Some come to me when they could not follow the instructions well and I recommended that they take the foundational tutorial courses to rebuild their skills. Of course I want students to learn what it is truly to be a college student but before they can spread their wings and fly high, we need to provide reasonable helps to ones who need them by giving everybody an equal chance to succeed.
We are living in a globalized world where many things are connected and it is important for students to have broader knowledge about this world in addition to the technical knowledge related to their fields. Sooner or later they will have to compete with students from other countries for a limited number of good jobs and they need all the help they can get. By understand the difficulty that their generation must face will motivate them to strengthen their knowledge and skills to compete instead of just memorize some archaic formulas to pass exam.
Sources
- Blogs of Prof. John Vu, Carnegie Mellon University
