I’m sure most people who were educated in a country other than the famous United States, France, Germany, United Kingdom and maybe a few others, have seen their education system decline when the government tried implementing changes that are known to work in other countries.
The system was bad before, but because we’ve made a change without thinking what effect it will have on our entire system, it is now worse.
I’ve been experiencing said changes for as long as I can remember, and unfortunately, I will still be the victim of future ones. Right now, my classmates and I are facing a majorly restructured baccalaureate exam after we graduate from high school. Not to say change is bad, but that usually happens to be our first thought when we hear the government wants to try something new. This change would combine three tests into one, something likely adopted because someone must have heard that type of format works in Western countries. And it does. However, it won’t work for us.
Let’s take the United States for example, because most of us are at least somewhat familiar with it. In the U.S., you take two semesters of Chemistry, two semesters of Biology, two semesters of Physics, or a semester of whatever other the science subject you decide to take each year is called. In Romania, where I live, we’ve been studying Biology since fifth grade, Physics since sixth, and Chemistry since seventh. That’s six to eight years of advanced study in each of those subjects, which is most likely more than someone in the States has studied, Advancement Placement classes included.
The conclusion is that we’re required to learn a lot more during high school, and middle school even, which is extremely stressful, and maybe even bad. But we survive. Maybe our grades in Biology weren’t great, but maybe they were good in Physics. That came in handy for most of us, as before the change, you could choose between these three subjects and take an exam solely dedicated to that subject. Not anymore. We will be taking a test that combines those three subjects, and as of now, no example of what that test will consist of has been released. You can’t expect people to be able to correlate biology with physics when they’ve never been taught that, nor can you expect high schoolers to remember all the information that has been thrown at them over the course of four years, in three different subjects.
My point here isn’t to make anyone feel sorry for me, but to put an example out there for people who maybe weren’t aware that a lot of countries “steal” ideas from education systems across the world, without ever really thinking what they can incorporate into the system they already have. And so chaos arises. And things go from bad, to worse.
Wherever you’re from, I’m sure that if I were to ask you if you think the education system needs change, you would say yes. In some countries, all we need to do is to be more inclusive, get rid of the little inequality that still exists. In others, almost every aspect needs to be changed in order to have a positive impact on students living in the 21st century, who’s day-to-day problems are a world away from those of their parents, for whom the education system may have been designed for.
