“The current education system was designed, conceived and structured for a different age”, says education mastermind Sir Ken Robinson in one of his famous talks “Changing Education Paradigms”. In our VG Monthly meeting about education we wanted to know: “How are the education systems in the home countries of our participants designed and structured? And what problems do they face?”

We used the talk of Mr. Robinson to prepare ourselves for the meeting. Some of the problems he found:

• Pupils are being taught like products on a conveyor belt, separated purely by age rather than ability

• ADHD is not a mental illness we have to treat, it is the consequence of trying to teach semi-important knowledge to uninterested kids instead of bringing them forward individually

• In the past the principle was: “Work hard, do well, get a college degree and you will get a job”. But for many people even with a degree, that is just not true anymore.

This talk inspired us to rethink education systems and discuss facts, advantages, disadvantages, and related problems. Robinson demonstrated the need to reform public education all over the world and how politics, economics and technological progress affects society and, what´s more, the education of every individual internationally. Due to this controversial lecture we talked about the education received by our participating volunteers in this meeting, which became a very stimulating, emotional and important discussion…

Let`s have a look at the education systems of the different countries represented in the meeting: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bermuda, Germany, Mexico and Scotland.

One of the most polarizing questions always is: “Should education, especially higher education, be free?” Answering that question is up to everyone, let`s have a look at the university systems of our 7 countries:

At first sight this seems to be an excellent achievement. And truly, it is. 5 out of 7 countries offer education at university for free, and only 1 country charges fees. The math-savvy people might have recognized, we are missing out one country, though. Whilst Bermuda may be a kind of a paradise, in order to get higher education inhabitants have to go across the pond. Besides that fact, the question is: “What kind of qualifications do people need to already possess and is higher education accessible to everyone?”

In Argentina an entrance exam helps universities gauge which students are better suited to continuing a route in academia. The better the results, the higher the possibility of being accepted by the desired faculty. Still, the problem is not the entrance exam itself. It`s that kids whose parents have been able afford a private school automatically have a better chance of achieving a high score and are thus more likely to attend university. Hence, even though higher education is for free, money still has a huge impact on citizens’ education path. Of course, this is not only Argentina`s challenge. In Bermuda, primary and secondary schools are also divided into public and private. While the public schools are free for everyone, but lack a lot of resources, the private ones offer a high-quality education system, funded by the individual.

When it comes to the concept of competitiveness, Australia is definitely the leader out of our 7 countries. Not only do students have to pay large sums of money, but there is also a ranking system for the universities, and the government is still trying to implement a bursary for high academic achievers. Austria, meanwhile, offers another challenge to students: at the age of 12, children are made to choose to follow a certain type of academic path, which will then be made even more specific at the age of 15. By having to make this choice at such a early stage, later-developing students may feel they have missed out on opportunities now denied to them. 

To summarize, here are some problems that participants in the discussion encountered:

• Test results do not represent knowledge

• Too many different evaluation systems

• Main focus on productivity, not on developing social skills

• Homogenization of knowledge, especially with the new Bologna system at university

• Loss of individuality and local identity in favour of comparability

• Education system is still an old system without integration of newest scientific knowledge

• Education system doesn’t reflect/meet real life needs

• Education objectives are chosen by few people

• Education system eliminates creativity of individuals

• Academic title is worth more than knowledge

• People get chosen due to the schools/universities they attended, not due to their knowledge

• A strict education system generalizes pupils in primary and secondary schools, but doesn’t support individual development of pupils

Last but not least, the problem of this blog post: We only talked about problems! So stay tuned for the next VG Monthly Meeting - about SOLUTIONS!!!