Domain

Explanation

Education

• By Webster's dictionary, education encompasses the following:

1. The process of development & training the character, mind and knowledge
2. Developing ability & knowledge through formal as well as informal avenues
3. Systematic study of the theories & methods of teaching & learning

• I would add: education is also the exploration, discovery & investigation of the inert potential locked within
• It is a journey of continuous finding, sharing and realisation
• To me, education is not so much about achieving a subject than the process, journey and experience along the way
• It is necessary to have an initial goal, but the gist lies on the road
• This agrees with John Dewey's views that education functions as both end (aim, purpose) & means (methods, techniques) for continuous growth by asserting that knowledge is that body of information & skills we apply intelligently to inquiry

Processes

• Ever since ancient times, learning is synonymous to one's survival - a person/living thing that cannot adapt cannot live, thus in order to live & live well, it is imperative to learn
• Ever since civilisation began, learning takes on new dimensions - the abilities for expression, communal coordination, specialisation as well as the creation, transmission & usage of skills from the knows to the blurs
• Let me attempt to generalise the processes of education:

1. Research and Development: specific, focused and targeted process of creation, discovery and usage of ideas and skills
2. Teacher-student relationship: the simplest model of know-how transmission from the generator to the learner-user
3. Communal activities: formal & informal processes involving people or groups of people that illustrate facets of civilisation
4. Interpersonal exchanges: contact of ideas, skills, feelings and cultures
5. Personality: one's awareness, skills, feelings, physique, techniques & consciousness

• Of the above processes, the fundamental process is the teacher-student relationship - where the teacher is a source concept wherein lies wisdom & knowledge; where the student is a sink concept wherein needs & wants provide educational motivation
• It is this process that we would concentrate on

Education?

• To educate is to cultivate the intrinsic characteristics, attitude, knowledge & skills into the young & budding student depending on 4 education circumstances:

1. Public education policy
2. Environment
3. Culture
4. Existing needs

• Hence,
• Education is the process of educating the young
• Education is, in no small magnitude, a measure of the level of civilization in the society
• For, one of the main parameters of a country’s development is the status of education of its people
• Thus,
• Education serves the following 3 purposes:

1. Individual: provides means of training for future livelihood; cultivate thoughtfulness, social skills & responsibilities; try to discover own potential relative to others, students in particular & society in general, & realize to the best of abilities
2. Communal: cultivate fundamentals understanding of communal attributes, properties, problems & trends; in order to realize own potential for the communal health
3. Country: explore own potential in country development, contribution & progress to national goals

• Whether & how one chooses to reach these purposes through education is a matter of personal, family & communal choice, capabilities & environment

A review of education systems

• This review is by no means complete à a review of education systems
• Nevertheless,
• This attempt should be valuable in its emphasis on the general concepts & foundations that are essential for an education system to serve the above 3 purposes
• What is an education system?
• As education has its specific goals, desired intentions & hopeful outcomes,
• Then, an education system is a coordinated organizational effort to effectively investigate, implement & monitor the healthy development & proliferation of education to the intended population
• An education system can be:

1. Formal: state-organised system under the direct funding & supervision of the national education ministry to follow a well-planned curriculum & policy; mostly sociotechnical focused with clear socioeconomic purposes for national security, development & future; normally compulsory, unless in difficult times like famine, poverty, disease or wars
2. Informal: non-coordinated nation-wide or state-wide, but some of internal organization for teachers to teach & for students to learn; mostly targeted for communal activities, values & way of living; examples include religious schools, home education (parents or invited tutors are the teachers to the children), boarding schools (where students live in together with others in separate distinct environment together with their teachers or masters – Ronald Dahl)

• Hence, the fallacies of an education system can be in the form of:

1. Failure to coordinate: haphazard effort at education, big head small legs or small head big legs à it’s a tragedy this can happen
2. Failure to investigate or monitor: for required new or improve areas of education & its assessment à decreased level of educational awareness & responsiveness à may outdated & irrelevant à faulty head & policy
3. Failure to implement: unable to realize the intended education policy & outcomes à problems with front-end educators à miscommunication & lack of critical connections between policy-makers, accreditors & teachers
4. Failure in development: lack of investigation, implementation &/or monitoring
5. Failure in proliferation: unable to spread & spawn the seeds for development of education à lack of funds, dedicated people, lack of commitment, consensus, support or other resources
6. Failure to reach intended population: the intended population is too arbitrary, not well-defined, too sparse, too distributed à uncertainties from population shifting & external influences like government policies

• A review or revisit of education systems would need to address the following:

1. Region, country or province of interest: geographical location is influenced by available resources, accessibility, environment, facilities & expertise
2. Time period: the temporal dimension is of overriding concern; the current circumstances would determine the trend of things to come, which education needs to address
3. 4 educational circumstances: policy, environment, culture & needs/wants

• With reference to:
• International Bureau of Education: Data on World Education
• United Nations Education Social Cultural Organisation UNESCO
• ASEAN: Association of South-East Asian Nations (10 countries, 2003)
• SEAMEO: South-East Asian Ministers of Education Organisation
• Journal of Southeast Asian Education

1. Brunei Darussalam: bilingual vernacular Malay & English; free schooling; Islam & Monarch; forestry, bilingual studies & petroleum engineering
2. Cambodia: Khmer & French; agriculture; community-funded; Buddhist
3. Indonesia: Bahasa Indonesia; Islam; English & Dutch
4. Laos: Lao, French & English; Buddhist & animism (spirits, demons, voodoo); government & community-funded; serious disparity & repetition
5. Malaysia: Bahasa Melayu & English; Islam & Buddhism; free in government schools; community-funded private schools; set unified common curriculum, assessments & standards - Malaysian certificate of Education Examination; economic-focus
6. Myanmar: Burmese & English; Buddhism-animism; state-funded; education reforms; lack of teachers & funds
7. Philippines: Filipino & English; Roman Catholic; government & community-funded
8. Singapore: English, Chinese, Malay & Tamil; Christianity, Buddhism & Islam; state & community-funded; provision of education à ability-based streaming à ability-driven approach; optimise potential & continuing education for all
9. Thailand: Thai & English; Buddhism; free schooling; promote literacy; lack teachers
10. Vietnam: Vietnamese, French & English; Buddhism & Taoism; 3 education reforms in 1950, 1956 & 1981; Doi Moi (Renovation) since 1990s; lack of funds; economics, improve living conditions, socialism & training

Informal education

• The most prolific inventor of the Western world of the last century, Thomas Edison, had never undergone formal education
• He was taught by his mother who encouraged, thrilled and entertained themselves with new things in & around their house
• In a way, he was self-taught as his thirst & motivation for useful things drove him to acquire know-how and synthesise new knowledge
• Each setback to him was a resilient learning experience 吃一塹, 長一智
• He was exceptional in that the perseverance & skills that are needed in the Industrial Age - technical skills & practical mind
• In the present 21^st century, civilisation has spread, deepened and rooted to form systematic web for coordinating large-scale activities, yet we are of better resource abundance than our ancestors to experiment & investigate new unconventional styles of education for every demographic aspect
• Driven by the computer age as well as the research age, especially the biogenetic movement, informal styles that often present arbitrary & at times sparkling contribution to civilisation
• At the centre of this process is freedom, uninhibited free will, yet coupled with cultural responsibility

Formal education

• Nature is chaotic (not random: totally unpredictable), but civilisation needs systematic order
• This order is fundamental to communal coordination & permeates through all levels of society
• It manifests most visibly in the judicial system
• For each nation to reliably survive & prosper in the economic-minded world, human resources have to be carefully planned and cultivated
• As such, the formal school education system has evolved to serve this common societal need and various incentives & attractions to motivate people towards it
• Every nation has its own customised formal educational system, but a few common aspects are:

1. Pre-school: preparatory for formal education
2. Primary school: introductory level of education, very general in nature, cater needs of the young and unpolished, open for discovery & cultivation of motivation, dreams, wishes & community
3. Middle-level schooling: narrowing of scope for students as they are either obligated to focus or inclined to explore under guidance by educators, the character-building stage of life
4. Tertiary schooling: focusing on specific area(s) or major(s) for in-depth studies, training & development, preparation for proficiency & competence for societal & family commitments
5. In-situ training & learning: often without prerequisites, for participants to acquire skills, techniques & ideas in the teacher-student relationship

• The formal education has its strengths of producing reliable sources of talents for society, but it is constantly modified to suit environmental changes to be responsive to educational needs
• As the process is the dominant factor in education, the way / technique of teaching, learning & exploring would be critical to the release of the inert potential of each & every student as a person & a worker

Tests

• As means of assessments, tests are intended to draw attention to the subjects on-hand
• They are not gauging, judging, pressurising or discriminating people, or at least they should not be intended so
• To draw attention is to create awareness and an atmosphere of mutual interest & motivation towards the subject
• Since there can be infinite subjects to discuss & learn, tests are quick & striking enough to draw attention
• The most common tests are:

1. Class tests
2. Annual tests / exams
3. Level tests: 'O' & 'A' levels
4. Degree tests: SAT (Scholastic Assessment Test), GOEL
5. Others: training tests, gauging, experiments, probation

• The above tests have evolved to serve the formal education system, but in view of the sometimes drastic changes that the environment forces to us, tests have to evolve and new methods invented

International Baccalaureate

• Started by the Swiss in the 1960's
• Aim: inculcates hardworking attitude, perseverance, critical thinking, judgement and consideration skills as well as preparatory for university education
• Hexagon subject domains: choose one for each domain

1. 1^st language
2. 2^nd language
3. Humanities: Geography, Economics, Philosophy, Psychology, Human sciences, Business administration, Information sciences & Global village
4. Sciences: Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Environment, Design & the Arts
5. Mathematics: Higher, Medium & Primary Mathematics
6. Arts & Electives: Visual Arts, Stage Arts, Music, Latin, Greek & Computer Science

• Three compulsory activities:

1. Creativity, sports and community service: for at least two years
2. Knowledge: critical thinking skills
3. Thesis: project research & thesis writing within 9 months

黎世法教授

• Phases:

1. Teacher inculcating the good learning attitudes and skills
2. Teacher gauge the quantitative and qualitative aspects of teaching such that 80% of the students can cope well with the help, while teacher specially guides the remaining 20% to assist in the learning completion 有教無類

• Emphasis: acknowledge that learning skills (especially for the formal education system with specific gauging tests) are crucial for successful learning (training)
• Seven steps to self-learn:

1. Symbols to use to represent different meanings like new words, interesting sentence, main points, etc.
2. Students ask questions based on these symbols like how to read, what is the meaning, what is the significance?
3. Students try to answer their own questions using tools like dictionary, internet, discussion, etc.
4. Students learn to check, verify and correct their own answers
5. Students copy passages from texts into notebooks to analyse by themselves
6. Summarise passages (crucial for research & under time constraint)
7. Students create, learn or modify their own techniques of learning two or more different subjects / topics

• The emphasis is on the student who has to undergo the six steps of learning:

1. Self-learn
2. Innovate, ideas
3. Revisions
4. Homework
5. Corrections
6. Summary

• The teacher carries out the five steps of guidance:

1. Invoking / asking questions: suggest self-learning & projects
2. Direct attention: to main points and difficulties with respect to questions asked
3. Understands learning progress: experiences the students' learning situations
4. Discussion: brings out the problems and difficulties encountered to the relevant groups of students
5. Reinforcement: personal / group / repetitive reinforcement

• Teacher must avoid passive knowledge transmission, but emphasise the crucial ingredients of learning

Educational resources

• Data on World Education
• World Bank Education
• Paris21