Schools. Do they meet the demands of the society

It is a common belief that education is more than simple stuffing the pupils’ heads with huge volumes of knowledge. Many people believe that school should not only train children academically, but also prepare them for all aspects of their adult life – work, leisure, personal relations, creative activities, coping with money matters, independence, parenthood, etc. Thus, the main object of going to school is preparation for after life; an average school-leaver is presupposed to be already equipped with all basic values, notions and conceptions that would allow him/her to build the life successfully. However, the conventional educational system doesn’t seem to meet the rising demands and challenges of the modern competitive society. The traditional way of “feeding” pupils with unimaginable volumes of ready-made knowledge without giving them even the slightest idea of how to apply it in real life is not acceptable any longer. It simply makes school for many children a burdensome duty, a mere “waste of time”. Moreover, when it comes to entering the “big world” neither the graduates feel prepared and sure, nor the employers feel happy about the yesterday-pupils’ level.

Let us put aside the education in the sphere of personal life; one could justly argue that it is the families’ obligation. But more and more people nowadays are sure that school system seems to fail to fulfill even its primary mission, the mission it is supposed to be geared to – the preparation of pupils for professional life. More and more school-leavers have a very strong feeling that those entrusted with their education did their job not well enough. People who went to different schools confess that when they completed their school education they had not the remotest idea of what they wanted to do. A good thing, apart from a more practical orientation of the curriculum, would be, to my mind, to arrange more general discussions about careers. These would be aimed at giving pupils a broad view of the enormous variety of occupations open to people of average intelligence. Such a glimpse of a wider horizon would undoubtedly be of great value for the youth. Probably the reason for this extraordinary omission of such matters from the curriculum might be that many schoolmasters and teachers themselves have a restricted view. Spending all their time working to a rigid curriculum, the passing of examinations by their pupils gradually became the whole object of their working life. I do not argue the importance of being made to learn things that one might not like, since education cannot be only pleasure. But it is no good either to give the young mind the impression that all education is a form of mental gymnastics. The explanation of some practical value of the subjects might also give them in the eyes of the pupils a thrilling romance and connect them with the things that most appeal to them.

Moreover, education should take account of the needs of employers and give the pupils the type of training the business world regards as important. Because if we want our school-leavers to be successful while competing at the professional market, we should listen carefully to the wishes of those who rule this market. And they are very much displeased nowadays even with the level of the school-leavers’ basic skills, such as literacy and numeracy, not speaking about their foreign language abilities. However, even possessing all the necessary qualifications for the job, the graduates often fail. The reason for that is their inability to present themselves when applying for a position since no one ever told them how to do that! That is why schools should place greater emphasis on preparing the pupils for job interviews. A wider cooperation with the business world in all areas would be also of great help.

It is evident thus that the conventional school system does not keep up with the increasing demands of the society. Considerable changes are necessary that would be aimed at making school education more practical and more closely connected with the world of professions, industry and commerce.