by Freyda Tartak

Created on: August 15, 2009

The key to this debate is that we are discussing primary school, not high school or higher. In primary school a student's success is still very much a reflection of how involved their parents are in their children's education and how effective the teachers and schools are. Primary school is where we teach the basics of how to learn. Any child should be able to at least pass under the right tutelage.

We cannot accept that it is appropriate to make a child repeat a primary school grade because it cannot be permissible to allow our education system to fail them to the point where a year can go by and they still have not absorbed enough of what is expected for their age group. By the first quarter of the year the teacher should have been able to identify those students that are not keeping up. They should have then been familiar enough with the student to figure out how they learn best and what methods are not effective for them. The teachers should have addressed their concerns with family and the school and made recommendations and arrangements to have the student's needs met.

If the school and the teachers have made adjustments and the problem is with the family, there must be facilities within our society to ensure that families are held accountable for their children's ability to live in an environment conducive to learning. That is to say that if the problem is with the family this should be addressed before it becomes a problem the rest of society have to deal with. Problems within the home do often remain confined to the home.

Beyond that, if a large group of students are all doing poorly we cannot assume that the family or the children are to blame. The system needs to be reworked. The teachers need to be more empowered to provide a proper education and they need to be educated enough to do it.

This debate is really about education reform. Let us not mask it by micro analyzed the effects of the bigger problem. We need to be brutally honest about where society is failing because that is what we are raising: A society of failures. An underachieving society is one that cannot be self-sufficient and will quickly fall in the face of adversity. It is just as important to maintain a high standard of education as it is to have strong health care, military and financial institutions.

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