Education system going down the dumps

I say this effing seriously.

The current education system is, I dare say, failing at a remarkable rate for a country which really has quite a lot of resources. Now, a new, hum...plan? policy? Never mind what they call it, the important thing is now they say they're coming out with something to 'kononnya' improve our education system.

I looked forward to it, really. I would love to see the education system and quality pick up. Then I saw the four imperatives' and I have to say, there are a fair few gaps in there. First of all, let's check out the imperatives, briefly, of course. Student success, hold schools accountable for student outcomes, or lack of, invest heavily in principals and heads, and develop top teachers.

Can you see the big hole here? What constitutes student success? Student outcomes? Does it mean more As? More graduates? The whole 'policy' hinges on these two terms, yet I can't find the definition in any articles so far. Depending on what they mean, it could make a miracle or mean a disaster.

Imagine that student success means producing more A-students (meaning purely academics). So now, under the new policy, it needs to be ensure that students become A-students. Schools who do not produce A-students will suffer the consequences. This may make the principal or head put more pressure (and blame) on the teachers and students for not performing, because they have been invested in heavily by the policy, and the decrepit performance will be on their heads (no pun intended). Then thte school may lose anything from resources and reputation, and it will become hard to attract and develop top teachers (Oh, and what do they mean by top teachers anyway?)

Now there's even curriculum for pre-schools! So now the nation is intent on turning us into a bunch of brain-riddled zombies who ingest nothing but academics. What happened to letting kids play? What happened to healthy development? Can you see me tearing my hair out by now?

And they're using some 'interesting' tactics to 'encourage' heads to ensure they run the schools well. Give them money if they perform, if they don't, well, too bad. Ugh, and they want to trigger the corporate culture in schools?? Agh, why!? It's a school, for goodness sake! Don't turn it into some funky enterpreneur manoveour! And they want to 'teach' students about integration of cultures, of different races and religions. They wanna do that? First, stop talking about races and religions, and students will get the point. They're not THAT stupid. And another thing? No point teaching them if the 'role models' are portraying all the opposite. So yeah, if you can get teachers to learn to accept and integrate the cultures, bravo, you're on the way to success. I speak honestly and from experience when I say I've seen teachers who are as biased (mainly racist, but I mean other prejudices as well) as they come, and really, students learn and reflect what they say and do. It happens. Deal with it.

And the best part? I haven't seen the term personal growth and development anywhere. Yep, looks like our education system won't change much. It used to be about grades...now it looks like it's going to be about grades too. And they wonder why our human capital is declining, students becoming more unruly and graduates not getting employed.