Wednesday, 10 July 2013

Turning our children into small geniuses

Britain is now focusing on its most important resource: human capital. It’s a long term investment with incredible return rates but it requires patience, patience and more patience. The British government has set out to change the curriculum for state schools in order to be in line with the best education systems in the world, namely Finland, Hong Kong or Massachusetts.

 
How and why?
Where did this need of change come from? The main reason seems to be that the current curriculum is out dated and doesn’t produce the same intelligent children as other education systems do. But making a five year old start tackling fractions seems a little bit too much if you ask me; it’s like robbing them of their childhood. I am not saying they won’t manage but I ask myself at what cost? The end result is clear, smarter, more creative and more capable individuals which will shape the England of tomorrow. British PM David Cameron states that the new curriculum is “engaging and tough” and I begin to wonder how many future pupils will live make it out ok through this new system and how many will be “left behind”.



Will it be a better system?
From a theoretical aspect it has all the chances to be better. There are all kinds of new studies and the new curriculum has taken advantage of them in order to be efficient and interactive. But all those studies, all those facts and figures mean nothing when you put them against the unwillingness of a 7 year old boy. Bottom line is that until the new system hits the school we won’t know for sure how the children will react. I imagine a pilot project will be launched before in order to test the waters.

It is true that the old system focused very little on creativity which now has been placed high on a pedestal claiming it plays a significant role in any type of job, not only if you are an artist. Leadership skills, problem solving skills and many other skills are thinks relatively new which the current curriculum overlooked or didn’t pay much attention unlike the multinational work environment where these skills are used on a daily basis. It seems to me that the new curriculum might just be custom tailored to match the needs of the giant corporations and that the education system might become a mass robot factory.

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