Accountability – Education

In this part of the series, I look at education and what role parents should take in holding the system accountable.  Now I am not going to look at free education because there is really no such thing.  Education is financed by taxes which have to be paid by someone.  Thus our job is to see that these finances are properly used.

The first responsibility is to see that our schools are properly equipped.  It is not acceptable to have schools that do not have sufficient furniture or sufficient space.  We must insist on a computer lab being available even if there are not sufficient computers as it is critical that our children be computer literate.  In addition, the science labs and the libraries must be adequately stocked.  It is ridiculous to expect a child to learn if they are not provided with the tools to do so.

The next thing that we should insist upon is that all schools must have properly trained teachers who are capable of imparting that knowledge to others.  My high school experience is full of memories of lousy teachers who added little or nothing to my overall knowledge.  In addition, the structure of the school curriculum should emphasise literacy among the student body.  We are so busy trying to give our students a rounded education filling them up with arts and culture but we are ignoring the basics.

A big part of the problem is the over emphasis on sports.  It is amazing to me that we can find teachers for sports who will work every day after school in order to teach a student a sport but it is difficult to find teachers who will stay back to teach our children to read.  Now, do not misunderstand me because the responsibility of a child learning to read rests with the parents but the teachers are there to enforce that learning or to provide where it is not available at home.  We must insist that a child should not be pushed up to the next class if they are unable to read.  We must have a remedial programme available to help them with this problem.  A child who cannot read will be unable to handle most other subjects as they require this skill.

We need to be sure that discipline and order is maintained in our schools and that the principals run the schools well.  Of course, it is of utmost importance that the school remains a safe place for our children and thus adequate security is a must.

We know that we do not have all of the resources that we need in order to have a perfect system.  My desire is that we would learn to do a better job with the little that we have and parents would recognise the importance of education and be willing to pay more to support it.

Tags: Carl Wilson