Education is the very foundation of a civilized community. Many countries around the world set apart huge amounts in their budget for education — treating it on a par with health and security. For example, the education budget of the US for the year 2006 was $56.0 billion.
A school of education is supposed to improve teaching, learning, and human development in a diverse, rapidly changing, and increasingly technological society. It should prepare reflective, caring, and highly skilled teachers and scholars who excel in their chosen fields; inform educational theory and practice through research; and work in partnership with a range of constituents to effect change from the local to national levels.
Unfortunately, local colleges that train teachers — men and women — don’t have the qualities or facilities that enable them to bring the best in the new generation. Education colleges offer four years of teaching and are known to train and prepare teachers.
Theoretically, education colleges have been through some development over a long period of time and experience. It’s assumed that they help teachers understand the flaws and faults of bad teaching habits and techniques, provide them with a clear plan to choose the students, and how to prepare teachers according to the social, intellectual and security trends of the country.
Unfortunately, reality doesn’t match theories and ideas. The number of students applying and enrolled in these colleges is very huge compared to other colleges. It’s well known that a large portion of these students didn’t register in one of the education colleges because they originally did not want to. Some go to these colleges because they did not get a place in other colleges because of their low GPAs and some prefer education colleges because they are in their region and colleges offering courses they want are in far-away places. Some students expelled from other universities or colleges also find their way into these colleges and some don’t even care about the educational process in the first place.
Some of these students just want a job and a salary at the end of each month without studying or working. According to their perception, the profession of teaching is ideal for people like them. This is not to deny that there are committed students. Certainly there are those who sincerely and genuinely want to deal with the challenges of education, overcome them and prove to be competent educators.
When analyzing the curriculum taught in education colleges, we find them to be unsuitable for the growth and development of such educational institutions. Many curriculums are photocopied handwritten lectures that are randomly put together. No one cares about the psychological state of the students who are supposed to be future teachers.
There are many stories about teachers abusing their students in the education college. I have met and interviewed many of these students in Riyadh. I found out that there is so much leniency and negligence concerning faculty members. There is no respect, no competence and no responsibility. Some teachers are actually corrupt; they demand either gifts or bribes from students to give them favorable grades.
In fact, grades manipulation is a common trend among the employees of all educational colleges in the Kingdom. One of the graduates I interviewed said that she used to memorize the lectures by heart because that’s what their teacher wanted. When she used to answer the exam questions, the teacher would read everything including the lines the student had written and struck off. If there were mistakes within those erased lines, the student’s grades were deducted. When the student tried to defend herself and explained to the teacher that she erased the answer only because she knew it was not correct, the teacher’s response was, “Why did you write it in the first place if you knew it was wrong? If you were aware of your studies and understood the question you would have never put yourself in this silly situation.”
This is one of the many silly stories that I know about education college faculty members. The question remains: When will officials come to hold these faculty members accountable and take necessary action against them? It’s really crucial that we start a new plan to develop our education colleges including curriculums, faculty members and the students. We also need to pay attention to buildings, facilities and transportation. We must implement an effective development plan that enhances the reputation of our colleges so they become like the schools of education in other countries. Take for example the school of education in Indiana University.
The Indiana University School of Education is one of the world’s premier programs for preparing teachers, counselors, school psychologists, educational leaders, curriculum designers, and educational scholars. Their mission is to improve teaching, learning, and human development in a diverse, rapidly changing, and increasingly technological society.
That’s what an education college must be like; to advance the state of education and to open a world of opportunities.
— Dr. Maha Al-Hujailan is a medical researcher at King Khaled University Hospital in Riyadh. ([email protected])
