School year is (technically) over; my daughters have been officially promoted to the next level, and even though we could not be prouder of their performance, I can't help worrying about a global issue that in our country has very peculiar implications. Even when our kids do their best to excell at school, work hard on their assignments with little to no help from parents or guardians, and get excellent grades, we have so many issues in our school system. which were only agravated by the pandemic,that we have to plan ahead to remedy the gap that separates their good grades from their having the tools they'll need to succeed in the future.
In most case, the situation is even worse. Several factors intervene.
Entitlement
It has been my experience, and that of any Venezuelan teacher these days, that most students think about themselves in terms our generation never thought possible. They may be underperforming when it comes to academic work, but when it comes to demanding their grades, they can outdo the loudest tantrum champ.
Overcompensation
This has been the result of a combination of factors, among which you can count overprotective legislation, overindulgent parents, and overeworked and utterly tired and underpaid teachers. School resources and investment here were intentionally reduced to create a generation of underachievers who had to be legally over graded. This grade inflation became institutionalized at the expense of children's training and the country's professional deterioration.
In the same way inflation in economic terms can be measured by the increase or rise on the prices of goods and services, which translates in less goods or services purchased with the same amount of currency, the awarding of higher grades than students deserve, represents a loss of the real value of any diploma or degree given to students.
Self-Destructive Politics
In Venezuela this has been happening long enough to have a whole generation of professionals whose qualifications are questionable, to say the least. In the last 5 or 6 years things got even worse with the massive forced migration that sent most of the best qualified teachers abroad and saw a steady decline in the quality of school life as a whole.
The pandemic only made it worse. Most countries around the world may have similar complaints or concerns, but most countries around the world at least have the technology, the infrastructure, and the personnel to navigate these turbulent waters. Technology promises a lot, but I think it still delivers little when it comes to teaching. We are far from a successful elimination of teachers as indispensable element in students' learning process, but when there are excellent professionals behind the development of educational tools and schools are provided with everything they may need, chances are that there will be some successful stories to tell.
Venezuela is far from such prospects.
Old-Fashioned Poverty
Most families cannot access or afford the technology that would allow their kids to enter the new age. Not even teachers are up to the task, valued, or motivated to continue improvising and artificially maintaining a system that cannot guarantee quality. It is in the individual efforts of students and families that some competence can be achieved.
In the meantime, public and private institutions here continue granting their students the best grades possible, not so much because they worked hard to earn them, but because it makes everybody happy. I find it disturbing that parents and students in general do not see the problem because they are blinded by the inmediate benefit they're getting.
Somewhere else someone is still being competitive and I find it increasingly difficult for our kids to compete out of our system. I know it can be done, but it will demand from them twice the effort. They do not see the similarity with their ever frustrating shopping exercises. You just don't get more or a better product just by showing more inorganic money.
