Let us fight the new Education proposals which will take us backwards

I have explained at length in a few blog entries last month about the real problems in education, and while none of the main ones are addressed more headaches are thrust upon the beleaguered sector by a government lacking in any common sense, with people more concerned about their self worth over that of the students are about to impose a draconian measure not relevant to our current system.

In short they want to teach Accounting at grade 9 to take them up to O levels, when in my time we did not even have it at A levels and I am a chartered accountant damn glad I had a wide breath of education. Just imagine what an idiot I would have become if I studied accounting at O levels. I would have no life other than accounting, poisoning myself before attaining 30. Why is the Minister of Education driving people to an early grave.

It is a breath of education we need as the overwhelming majority of our students do not go past the O level stage, about 70%. The weakness apparently was that those at A level stage found the subjects tough! So it would be better to give them a grounding in those subjects a further 2 years earlier. What about the 70% who will leave with no general knowledge. They will not be able to enter education later and study for the needed qualifications that go along with the vocations they choose once they leave school early, due to inability to continue. This inability is not their fault it is simply that there are insufficient teachers to cater to their special needs.

I repeated ad nauseam about what is needed. It is a 50% increase in the teaching carder which will take about 10 years of investment to achieve anyway. Changing this syllabus in a year will put further pressure on the existing teaching staff, leading many to give up the profession due to the stresses involved. Does the Education minister realize how stressful state education is that goes along with poor remuneration and awful working conditions?

Given the rationale above I sincerely hope the Education Minister takes a complete U turn admit the failure in the current system and go back to basic education so we can train our citizens to be useful members of society no matter what level they study up to and please try and make sure we have enough teachers to give these students a grounding in subjects. We can only guess how many budding great scientists and mathematicians, as well as farmers and motor mechanics we are actively preventing from being recognized, due to the current system. We must give the opportunity to all, not just a fortunate few who are able at the young 14 year age to decide and make life changing decisions and thereby also succeed.