by Chu Chin Kwok

Created on: January 18, 2010

What are the elements of a good, quality education?

In this article, I would like to suggest the following elements which I think are essential for a good education, bearing in mind that education should not be restricted to just class-room or institutionalized education.

1.  Broad-based academic curriculum, emphasizing on building a solid grounding on language and math skills.

To me, one of the most important criteria of a quality education is that – at all levels, from elementary schools through high schools - the curriculum involved should be  broad-based, comprising the learning of general subjects like languages, math, the sciences, and general knowledge-based subjects like geography, history, plus optional subjects like music, art, home economics, politics and government, to cite a few.

To my mind, to be able to survive in the new millennium, one still needs to have strong foundation in language and math skills.  The reasons are self-evident: we need language to communicate with each other, to bring our messages across, to articulate our ideas and to put them in print and other media.  The effectiveness of a teaching program in language can therefore be gauged by finding out whether the students are able to express themselves lucidly and effectually; similarly a good math teaching program must be able to produce students who could manipulate figures and interpret quantitative and diagrammatic data meaningfully. 

 2.  Inclusion of learning some social/moral values, values which represent the mores of a civilized society

Nowadays we oftentimes hear of harassed teachers and undisciplined classes consisting of students ( especially at high school levels ) who come to classes late, ill-prepared, or even skip classes altogether.  Students are also given a lot of leeway and excessive latitude in the choice of subjects they wish to receive instruction. Non-traditional subjects like early Black American poetry, music of the Rolling Stones, Needle work, abstract art etc are now being taught in some of our schools, giving in to demands made by students who argue that these subjects are ‘cool’.  The fact is, I wish to say, that many of these subjects are ‘soft’ or easy subjects that students wish to replace for more ‘difficult’ or traditional subjects like science and math.

I think the time has come for us educators to become more firm and resolute in not giving in too easily to

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