Development is what everyone looks forward to. It is the dream of every person, family, society and nation to develop in one way or the other. However, achieving development is easier to be said than done
Education system in jeopardy…
Education is the sector that is taking a major part of the budget of Maldives every year. The government is said to spend the highest amount on education sector. Right now there are 233 schools in Maldives (Ministry of Education website). Yet, the big question is, is it worth?
Of cause it should be!! The spending on education is a very much valid and rewarding investment. True. It is rewarding investment, yet the question is it rewarding to us here in Maldives? Lets think of it in a bit more detailed way.
The formal education system of the Maldives dates back to more than 75 years. Indeed it’s more than 75 but I say 75 as every Maldivian will remember the celebrations that took place on the Diamond Jubilee of Majeedhiyya School. Seventy five years is a long period, yet did we achieve so much within this long period?
It will be very easy to answer. Yes! We did achieve a lot. Every year many students get the pride of been in the National Top Ten of Maldives. Unfortunately or fortunately this is the only measure that we use to calculate our success or failure of the spending on education. And the best part is that, we always talk about the 20 to 30 students who get the golden prizes, but always ignore the other 1000 to 1500 students who get nothing but a set of “U”.
That was just about the results. How about the other factors? The loss of manners and good discipline among students is something that no one will reject. Teachers are not been respected, obeying parents will be the most out dated thing the students can ever do. This is hard to believe, yet the truth when it comes to the majority of the Maldivian students.
The books we use in our education system are something that I better not mention. We follow a foreign syllabus; the only books that belong to Maldives in the secondary grades are Dhivehi and Islam. The primary grade books are the once that we make and no doubt, they are so old and not at all up to date. Believe it or not, in this 21st century the only thing that we teach to our kids in Social Studies is Dhonbandaarain and Korubandaarain!! I wish they teach something really linked to our day-to-day life and put those stuffs in a subject like History.
Well, a lot to say, a lot share. Now it’s your turn. Think about our education system. Is it going well? Views do differ. All I can say about Mladivian education system is…education system is in jeopardy. The word Failure is on my dictionary too.