COVID-19 is intensifying much of our social, economic and environmental issues that have for a long time been swept under the carpet. This crisis presents us with many opportunities to rethink and reshape certain institutions and our relationship with them. Given human nature’s desire to cling to that which is known however, whenever this crisis ends, we may come out of it with little to no lessons learnt. There is haste towards the return to normalcy. This is bad news for not only workers but also the thousands of school-aged children across our country. Now more than ever, the gaps in our education system are glaringly apparent and we do not seem ready to begin fixing them.
As schools shut down and the virus made clear that it was not going anywhere for now, the majority of parents and students across the country are concerned about where this would leave them. Schools are important for not just education and socialization but also as childcare facilities. With that not possible at the moment, many students are home and removed from their friends while parents pick up the task of teaching them. While some students benefit from daily or guided lessons through online means, this is in the minority. They are overwhelmingly from private schools which have implemented ad hoc styles of teaching that they, the children nor the parents are au fait or comfortable with. While there has been the slow crawl towards educational programmes through radio and television, lack of access and inability to concentrate on these mediums tend to cause more worry than relief. The divide of educational attainment for rural and Indigenous communities was already wide and is steadily getting wider. Those who do not have access to healthy support systems, food, internet, electricity and the buffer of private institutions will face the most setbacks because we are still relentlessly clinging to our meritocracy culture that encourages success against all odds. This is why young children who are literally existing during the time of a worldwide pandemic, are still required to write school entrance and exit examinations.
There have been longstanding calls to do away with the National Grade Four and Six Assessment because of the high levels of stress that it places on young children. It is a traumatic experience we put young minds through to do well and pass for a good school. From the time they enter grade one, they are constantly told of how these exams will dictate the direction of their future and how far they go in life. Embracing a meritocracy and telling them that only those who work hard can do well sees many students yearly dreaming of and examining their results with trepidation. Children should not be burdened with thoughts that if they do not pass their exams that they will amount to nothing or face the wrath of their guardians who believe that. So while every year we celebrate the top 1% who almost always comes from select top private and public schools, the other “stragglers” and the impacts of the education system on them are not acknowledged. Many of the schools that churn out high achievers are ones that are provided the most resources while many community schools that desperately need resources are often overlooked because their standards are not seen as up to par. Regardless of where one lives or their socio-economic standing, students should be able to have access to good education, trained and well-compensated teachers.
The education system that many of us have passed through and are inclined to now send our children through is one that was founded upon and still centred on elitism. It was always meant to promote the idea of an elite intellectual class that maintains the status quo. It is geared towards the maintenance of capitalism that promotes competition and suppression between people; the belief goes that only the best of the best should get a good education, good jobs and a chance to rule. It is no coincidence that the best almost always emanate from the middle and upper class.
There is a vested interest in ensuring that good education remains inaccessible to the majority. Education can change the way in which we see the world and the opportunities one can get. Maintenance of a large uneducated underclass means there is a large group of people who are more easily susceptible to manipulation and taking everything that is given to them. Hence, many who do not meet the criteria of our meritocracy are relegated to sub-standard education in obscure schools that have little to no access to resources and competent teachers. Certainly, not all children will become highflyers in academia and this is why it is important that we restructure our education system to not so heavily prioritize theoretical knowledge but also artistic and practical skills that they can build on and utilize in their development.
We all play a role in maintaining the illusion that hard work and talent and not luck and privilege is what sees some making it to the top. For those who can’t, there is always the promise inherent in the meritocracy that anything is achievable if only we try hard enough; ignoring that many students do try extremely hard but the social, environmental and economic circumstances they exist in makes success all but impossible. The playing field is not level.
While there will inevitably be a few of the poor children who beat the odds of their circumstance, this is not the norm. In the news yearly one can read stories of these select students, many of whose parents struggled so they can get a chance of an education and I marvel at how many persons view it as a feel good stories when they are not. These stories paint the realities of poverty and how inaccessibility to education and resources can see children and their families becoming extremely stressed and burdened. They are held up as the staunch example of what hard work and sacrifice can do and it is through this merit they get their worth but that should not be the case.
No one should have to struggle to send their children to school, no child should have to go hungry and worry that their inability to afford and memorize books will result in them not having a good future.
We must at some point, now rather than later, aim to restructure our education system away from yielding the “best” towards creating an environment where all children regardless of socio-economic status are offered equal opportunities of learning. The way in which we pit our children and ingrain the idea of winners and losers at an early age has immense impact on their development, the ill effects of which goes with them throughout life. It is time to sever the golden thread of privilege that runs through the education system.
