The Standard - Latest NewsToday, 21:59
I came across an article a few days ago reflecting on how straight-A students from the Hong Kong Certificate of Education Examination years ago are doing these days.
This made me reflect on the days when I had to go to tutorial classes daily after school (three different classes and tutors for Chinese alone) and that painful look on my mother's face when each of the top-scoring students was called out and I wasn't one of them.
You can already tell I am not the biggest fan of the system, can't you? But this is not about me.
Education helps promote social mobility for kids from less fortunate backgrounds and that means working hard will offer them more opportunities and a better life than their parents.
But what about those who aren't book smart, who are more interested in painting than maths, who are more excited about doing things outside the classroom than in it which is ironically what most of our lives are about?
They are often left behind or seen as hopeless cases, but another angle might be this: our education system has failed them.
Being treated as lesser than their book- smart classmates, some may easily fall through the cracks and resort to alternatives they may excel at more easily, such as getting attention by rebelling against rules, becoming school bullies or even joining street gangs. What if we have simply failed to give them healthier options to put their energy into?
I believe everyone, every kid, has some value they can offer society it is just whether they are given the chance to unleash it or not. Progress and innovation often involve the overlapping of extraordinary talents from different fields, but how do we expect innovation when we have an education system that favors youth of a certain type and leaves others behind, thereby creating an almost professionally homogenous society?
One of my most important standards of judging an education system is simple that it strives to give equal opportunity to all students. I just don't think we are doing the best we can.
Gloria Yu is an artist, designer and citizen of the world.
http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_detail.asp?pp_cat=11&art_id=162216&sid=45371938&con_type=1&d_str=20151015
