I welcome you to my blog and another wonderful edition of the Hive Learners' featured post. I remember those days. While I was in school, we all strived to make at least the top 5; some students strived to make at least the top 10, and then there were those who knew their capabilities and strived to make sure they stayed amongst the top 15 at least. Back then, education was way too competitive; every student had to study and study really hard because if you lagged or got distracted, you were pushed down and another took your spot, and the possibility of ever catching up again that term was very difficult. For that reason, there was no sleeping on a bicycle, as everyone was working tirelessly.
Sometime back I saw on the internet how position makes school too competitive and some students go the extra mile just to stay in the competition or stay at the top in their class, and some tend to hurt themselves if their position changes or they get a position lesser than their usual, more like there is a lot of pressure mounted on the students, and a suggestion is no more positions but rather an average be used, and that way students will no longer put so much pressure on themselves, but that has affected our educational system. We now have a system less competitive than what it used to be, with the average person not knowing who is best, who is better, who did really well, and who just passed with bare minimum grades; the new educational system just wants to see to it that everyone goes home happy.
Since the average system was adopted, students no longer read, I heard my younger cousin say. After all, they will just write "average" with no position, and Mom and Dad won't even know if I did well or not since my position with my type of average is not added in the result. In those days the position was a motivation to students; even parents could comfortably know that their child was doing well or if they were not doing well and needed to improve. Now it takes a lot of stress going through subject to subject, seeing their scores before a parent can detect if the child is doing well or not, but with the position, you can tell at first sight that they are not doing well.
Now, at the university level, another way of motivating students is the grading system (A, B, C, D, E, F). You know that if you want to grow your Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA), then your aim should be to score an A or a B in most of your courses, especially those that have a huge credit load attached to them, as failure to do so means you will get a CGPA even that you will not be proud of, not to talk more of those sponsoring you. The fact that many students want a good CGPA and they know that studying and reading is the only way to get it, they are compelled to do so even without being told.
Removing the grading system will only weaken our educational system even more, just like using averages has already done, and this will only weaken it more, giving room for students to be lazy and just pass with bare minimum grades; all that matters is that they don't fail. We need to strengthen our educational system, not weaken it further.
