Take time to get it right

Rachel Davies ,  CONTRIBUTOR ,  SYDNEY   |  Sun, 06/21/2009 11:51 AM  |  Supplement

We are living in a "go fast age", or that could even be a "go faster and faster age". Everything has to happen at speed - from the way we eat and our "fast food" to the way we communicate - the internet is never fast enough. We seem to be living our lives at an ever increasing speed. We jet around the world at high speed and we rush around our cities in our cars, (although in Jakarta this is less and less true, thanks to all the traffic congestion).

All of this speed seems to be spilling over into all that we do and worryingly it is spilling over into the way we educate our children too. Titles like "express", "fast-track" and "streamlined" are given to courses of study that somehow or other are getting children through their education at high-speed. But we should, I think we even must, stop to consider at what cost are these children being rushed through their education?

It would not be unreasonable to assume that in the majority of cases the cost is high. After all, how many children can really afford to "go fast" through their education? Certainly there are exceptional cases of children that are particularly gifted and/or talented, even geniuses, that can manage their studies and may feel tied down by the existing structure of "traditional" education, but these are relatively few and they are exceptional.

There are reasons why, all around the world, primary and secondary systems of education have been established to lead into tertiary studies. These systems have not just suddenly happened. Nobody just sat down one day and said "OK let's keep them in school until they are 16 to 18 years of age". The stages of education have been well thought out and there is good reasoning behind the way they are. They have evolved and been designed for the best interests of children.

So why are people so willing to tinker with them and change them so that people that are still children are being called high-school graduates as opposed to adolescents who are really ready to move onto the next stage in their life - whether that is the world of work or further education? The short answer could be: money.

The world of education has become a world of business and money. People are not always thinking of "the good of the people" when they are thinking about education. More people are looking at and playing in the world of education for money and business. In the world of business new ideas or gimmicks can sell and telling people that they are getting something good and at a lower price is likely to be a seller.

This is too often what is happening when it comes to children being "fast-tracked" through their education. A "fast-track" option may not always be the best option but it can be an attractive option because it suggests that students can get through their studies faster and so the financial burden of the education of a child can be lightened for parents.

But this option of going faster through education can have a negative impact on the child. It is possible to meet children that have been rushed through their education who have ended up with negative experiences while learning and ultimately too, negative outcomes and results when they are supposedly graduating.

Children that have gone too quickly through their education are often left stressed out and practically debilitated by their experiences. They can be children that have either become so disorientated by their studies that they have no life outside of study or they have just not been able to perform because they have not been given the time or chances to.

Children need to have their social and emotional welfare looked after as they are growing up. But these aspects of education, that allow us to talk about a well-rounded and holistic education, can be sidelined in the push to fast-track the child through the education system that is, effectively, just going too fast.

In such scenarios the graduating person is just a child and not a maturing adolescent. This means that the child can be left in the predicament of being academically advanced but left lacking in social skills and emotional strength. We can then be left with immature people that are just not ready to go to university. They will just not fit in or if they do go on to university, they will remain outsiders.

"Fast-tracking" a child through their education may work for some but there are definite risks. While the idea of doing things in less time may be appealing; suggesting as it does greater efficiency and so too cost savings, parents should consider the long-term effects of such actions. What is rushed today may not be so good later on.

The writer is an education counselor and consultant.

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