Zhou 1 Jie Zhou Professor：Kim Palmore EWRT 1A Jul 31 2018 The Formal Education System is Obsolete The schooling system is presumable the most valuable system that all young people are expected to go through in order for them to have the brightest future. The formal education system primarily aims at preparing youngsters to become valuable members of the society in future (Nelson et al. 14). Unfortunately, the curriculum and hence the whole schooling system used by most schools around the world does not equip young people with skills that can meet the demands of the modern world. The system is preparing young people for a time that has already passed, and therefore obsolete (Sharma 23). The current formal education system is based on the one-size-fits-all principle. While the system was effective in meeting the demands of the industrial era, it fails terribly in meeting the demands of the current modern world. The formal education system was aimed at preparing young people to become good factory workers (Sharma 27). Unfortunately, with the rapid advancement in technology, most factory work has been automated thus reducing the demand for factory workers. Consequently, the skills emphasized in the curriculum of the formal education system are obsolete. For instance, the system prioritizes memorization in which students are ranked on the basis of their ability to recall facts (Sharma 24). Considering the modern economic market and workplace, recalling is not a very Zhou 2 important skill. The current work environment requires people who can analyze problems and creatively develop solutions to the problems. In fact, the current education system has gradually been unable to meet the demands of society, it can not give students enough help in the increasingly cruel workplace . There are several reasons that make the formal education system unfit for the current workplace. First, the system is modeled to meet the requirements of the industrial age (Nelson et al. 17). In the system, students are trained to fit in an environment that involves intensive control. Precisely, the formal education system equips students with industrial age values (Sharma 27). Students are subjected to an environment where they are required to strictly follow discrete instructions and maintain a constant form of behavior that is regarded as the best behavior. Students must do exactly what they are taught to do. Strict compliance to given instructions was a fundamental skill for the success of any factory worker. However, these industrial age values hinder innovation and creativity – skills that are very crucial for professional and career success in the current economic environment (Sharma 28). The industrial age values emphasized in the curriculum of the formal education system limit the development of collaborative and communication skills which are paramount for modern organizational success (Aldridge & Renitta 6). Second, the formal education system limits the development of autonomy and control among young people. Since the system is based on strict instructions, all the activities of the students are tightly controlled and guided by the system. Young people fail to develop proper time management skills since the system manages how the students Zhou 3 use their time throughout their school life (Nelson et al. 26). Precisely, students lack the opportunity of making important decisions on what to do and when to do a particular task. The formal education system creates an impression that young people are not in charge of their lives but should rather learn how to follow the directions stipulated in the system. For this reason, most students greatly lack motivation in learning and experience a lot of stress throughout their school life (Aldridge & Renitta 28). The stress experienced by students sometimes manifest in the form of school violence and bullying, which have been experienced in schools worldwide, We can even find the news of campus violence in the news every month. As a result of boredom and the lack of motivation, students also end up performing poorly in school with the result that these students lack better opportunities in life (Aldridge & Renitta 29). Third, the learning methodologies stipulated in the formal education system are inauthentic. As aforementioned, learning in the formal education system is mostly based on memorization and retention (Nelson et al. 18). In the system, students are expected to know a particular set of knowledge. Students are then tested on the basis of the amount of knowledge that has been retained. Such a learning methodology is not authentic since students tend to forget most of the knowledge shortly after the exam. It is very unfortunate that test scores are the only thing valued by schools, parents and the students. Due to the high value for test scores, teachers, students and parents are subjected to an unhealthy environment characterized by stress (Nelson et al. 36). Students spend much of their time memorizing facts that are rather useless and Zhou 4 which they are likely to forget within the shortest time possible. Due to the fear for failure, students frequently engage in exam cheating. Also, as a result of the stress brought about by the test scores, some students tend to misbehave and engage in violent behavior (Sharma 37). Precisely, students who fail in test scores may experience a series of negative emotions that may lead them to resort to violent behaviors. Forth, the formal education system does not create a wide room for students to build their passions and interests. The system is extremely standardized and requires every student to learn the same things, at the same time and in the same way (Lynch 4). Therefore, the system does not acknowledge the fact that each individual is different from another and that different people have different abilities, passions and interests. In the modern world, a person’s success in life is largely determined by their ability to identify their passions and interests and the development of those interests and passions. Unfortunately, the system does not take into consideration what the students really want to do with their lives (Lynch 6). There are also tremendous differences in the manner in which different people learn. For instance, different people require different amounts of time and different types of tools to learn particular concepts. Unfortunately, these differences are not accounted for in the formal education system. The curriculum was developed on the assumption that all people are equal, with same initial conditions (Lynch 3). Lastly, lecturing is a fundamental technique used in the formal education system. However, this teaching methodology does not fully take into consideration the difference levels of understanding among Zhou 5 students. To be accurate, lecture is not a very attractive learning process, because many students are only passively accepted by professors in class, and they can't take the initiative to absorb knowledge. Apparently therefore, in addition to the failure of the schooling system in meeting the demands of the modern economic environment, the system subjects students to unnecessary pressure. Another important factor to note is the fact that formal education is very costly (Lynch 10). Therefore, the fact that most students who come out of the education system are unemployable is very discouraging. Industry owners occasionally complain that graduates do not have the necessary skills for which they are trained. The skills of students do not match the skills required in the industry. Most graduates are therefore rendered unemployed despite the huge investment that the graduates and their families have made. To sum up, this is a very urgent educational and social problems, and the leaders of the government and the education sector need to improve the education system and develop effective solutions immediately. Zhou 6 Works Cited Aldridge, Jerry, and Renitta L. Goldman. Current Issues and Trends in Education. Boston: Pearson Education/Allyn & Bacon, 2006. Print. Lynch, Matthew. Understanding Key Education Issues: How We Got Here and Where We Go From Here. Routledge, 2017. Nelson, Jack L., Stuart B. Palonsky, and Mary Rose McCarthy. Critical issues in education: Dialogues and dialectics. Waveland Press, 2017. Sharma, Ram N, and Rajendra K. Sharma. Problems of Education in India. New Delhi: Atlantic, 2004. Print.
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