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FORUM EDUCATION
Does education require a new approach? We are teaching students to remember but not to understand. Insights into this trend – based on experiences by Roger La Salle – are explored here. Let me preface this article by citing some astounding findings from personal experience.
Trends in performance in reading, mathematics and science
Some years ago I gave a lecture to final year electrical engineering students at one of our top-rated universities. Before the lecture I was told approximately 80 students were taking the course. When I entered the room, just four students - presumably the good ones - were present, as predicted by the lecturer. I commenced by asking the most simple question of these final year electrical engineering students: “What is the frequency of the mains power in Australia?”. NOBODY knew the answer. More recently I was exploring some innovations with a company CEO whose son was present and eager to participate. It turns out this delightful well-mannered lad had just completed second year in electrical engineering at a Canberra-based university. I also asked him the same question. Again, he did not know the answer. Further I probed: “I wonder how we could get hydrogen from water?”. The lad, I repeat a delightful well-mannered young man who informed me he was most keen on his studies, had no idea what I was talking about. I suggested to him electrolysis, again he had no idea what I was talking about, but then said, “Oh yes, I think we did that in first year but I don’t remember”. I recall saying to that lad, I don’t remember it either but I understand physics and electricity and the composition of water and with such an understanding it’s easy to “connect the dots”. Memory is not required, instead an understanding of the simple building blocks of nature, physics, electricity and science; that’s all that is needed. Therein lies the problem. We are teaching people to remember but not to understand. If the world worked like that, all we would need in our lives is Google. A platform that provides answers but not insights. Pictured are some graphs of our OECD education rating over past years of 15-yearold students, those now being primed for entrance to university. Note the downward trajectory - in particular Science in 2012. This is the measured outcome despite the multi-billions of dollars spent on education and the so- called “Building the Education Revolution” of the Rudd/Gillard years.
AMT FEB 2022
A quote attributed to Julia Gillard in 2010 was: ".. already one of the most heavily scrutinised programs in the nation's history" and that “…the program was the ‘centrepiece’ of an economic stimulus package that helped to ‘ensure that a generation of Australians weren't consigned to months or years of joblessness’”. * Whilst we may lament the decline in education, it’s hard to blame the universities that have such low and ever-falling standards of students as input material. But that is not the end of the story. In recently speaking with a former lecturer he laments that the length of some courses have been increased, and not in final year, but in first year in an attempt to get students to the starting post to hopefully commence learning.Universities have simply reacted to the conditions presented by Governments going back decades. In essence universities had to become selfsufficient, largely self-funded businesses. The result has been a dramatic decline in standards to enable virtually any attendee to emerge with a degree. The call to action for universities today is to win students at any cost, preferably overseas full fee-paying students, some even with little or no English skills. Our educational institutions have become money-hungry student sausage factories. A colleague, now a retired lecturer, cites courses deliberately “dumbed down” to allow even the most incapable of students to win a degree. From my experience, this is the way I see the state of education in Australia today. Unless some change occurs universities will trash their reputation and in the longer term cease to be able to attract any wellintentioned overseas student, except
perhaps for those seeking to acquire permanent residency status. Something I am told is widely sought after.
So what’s the answer? Perhaps a better question is what is not the answer; and that is have universities so conditioned to the need for self-funding to change their modus-operandi. I suspect the model and mindset is now too deeply embedded to change. What we need to do is create a complete new set of elite learning institutions, given a new title far removed from the word “university” that are tasked with teaching by understanding. By examining outcomes with students being required to “connect the dots” and solve problems to be rewarded with real and valued qualifications. Such qualifications would be a testament to a student’s ability to think, properly understand the world we live in and how it fits together. The principles of basic physics, engineering and the digital world are well understood. It’s from that understanding, not memory, that great strides forward can be made.
References: *Gillard, Julia (13 April 2010). "New taskforce an extra check on spending". The Australian. Sydney. Retrieved 16 April 2010. Roger La Salle, trains people in innovation, commercialisation, marketing and the new emerging art of Opportunity Capture. Several of Roger’s own inventions are displayed in technology museums in Australia. In 2005 he was appointed "Chair of Innovation" at Queens University in Belfast. Roger created "Matrix Thinking"™, now used in more than 29 countries. www.innovationtraining.com.au Ph:03 9866 3272
