The sad reality of our education system

The speech delivered by Her Majesty Queen Rania at the launch of the National Strategy for Human Resources Development on Monday was stunning.

Addressing herself to His Majesty King Abdullah, Queen Rania did not beat around the bush in tackling the flaws of our education structure — that concerned authorities often tend to gloss over — saying: “The most important lesson you taught us is that the shortest way to resolve problems is to confront, not ignore, them [and] to see things as they are, because downplaying challenges will come at the expense of Jordan’s future generations, and that is something you would never accept.”

Queen Rania did indeed see things as they are, as depressingly as they are, I would add. 

While realising that “our reality is difficult”, and as if to disarm those who repeatedly blame lack of funds for lethargy and indolence, she expressed great hope in turning the course of our history, “not through revolutions, aid, or the discovery of natural resources or even a buried treasure many dream of”, because “the real treasure is in the minds of our children and all we have to do is extract it”.

Hence, the significance of education, the true wealth of every nation and the real tool that enables the extraction of the outstanding capabilities that hide in the human mind.

“Today talent is the most valuable commodity in the world. Knowledge, innovation and technology are key ingredients to any success of any country,” the Queen said.

In addition, the specific importance of education for us is that it “touches every Jordanian household”, as “each of us has a son or a daughter, a grandson or a granddaughter, a dear child or a relative, who goes to school every day”.

The shocking reality came when the Queen unflinchingly diagnosed the quality of the education to which we subject our youngsters, in contrast to the wealth they store in their young heads.

Here are some of the facts enumerated by the Queen:

1. “Ninety per cent of the development of the human brain occurs before the age of five, and yet in Jordan, only a small percentage of students have access to early childhood education: just 2 per cent under the age of three, and roughly 28 per cent between the ages of three and five. One the other hand, the enrolment rates of their peers in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development [OECD] countries are multiples times higher.”

2. “Studies show that 80 per cent of the second and third grade primary students underperform in reading… and that elementary school students in Jordan are falling behind in mathematics.”

3. “We get to the eighth grade, and we see that instead of improving, Jordan’s ranking has deteriorated in the last two cycles in the TIMSS International Mathematics and Science Assessment”.

4. “In the tenth grade, we find Jordan ranking among the bottom 10 countries in the Programme for International Student Assessment [PISA] on a list of 56 states.”

 5. “As for the General Secondary Certificate Examination [Tawjihi], despite efforts to improve it and elevate its status, the outcome remains unsatisfactory. Last year, 100,000 students entered twelfth grade. Only 60,000 of them sat for the secondary certificate exam, of whom only 40 per cent passed. This means that for every four students in the twelfth grade, less than one will graduate! And this year’s results reflected a similar pattern.”

6. “Every year we are shocked by news headlines like: ‘Not a single student from 300 schools has passed!’ I want to share with you an incident which I don’t like to remember but it is one that we should never forget. An empty [Tawjihi] exam paper was submitted with only this comment written on it by the examination hall supervisor: ‘The student is illiterate; he cannot read or write’!”

“A student spent 12 years in our schools and did not learn how to read and write!”

7. “Less than 10 per cent of the Ministry of Education’s budget is allocated to the development of the educational process, compared to 40 per cent in a country like Finland.”

8. “Fifty per cent of our teachers chose this profession simply because it was the best or only available option to them.”

9. “Only one-third of teachers in Jordan specialised in education. The rest are leading classrooms today with degrees in science, mathematics or Arabic, but without any significant training in teaching methodologies.”

10. “How can we expect our children to excel in today’s world if we don’t equip them with new technologies and access to the Internet from an early age? There are hundreds of schools in Jordan that aren’t connected to the Internet. Those that are suffer weak connections and slow speed. That is why we are optimistic about efforts under way to complete the fibre-optic network in the Kingdom, and insist on the importance of connecting all our schools.”

In addressing some basic remedial solutions, Queen Rania emphasised the role of curricula and qualified teachers.

Her Majesty called for “curricula that enrich learning and expand horizons of knowledge”, suggesting the creation of “a curriculum centre to implement the latest educational methods and curriculum development techniques — a model adopted by many top performing countries”.

In the view of Queen Rania, “education reform must be a national priority and a popular demand today, tomorrow and 10 years from now”.

The Queen’s daring speech should act as a spur for resuscitating our education system, for shaking up a structure that lags behind and for reviewing the entire methodology as well as the philosophy of the education of the day.

Things have changed a lot in the last five decades.

Change has been much faster than the normal human capacity could cope with. 

The Queen is reminding us of a number of significant facts. She is offering valuable guidelines for major and basic reform. 

Let us heed the advice of both Their Majesties and see things as they are. Only when we do will we be able to see the difficult reality and identify the flaws.