Tuesday 31 January 2012

English education, Hong Kong style

Be warned, people of England. Nick Gibb, your Minister for Schools, will soon visit Hong Kong.

Somehow, I suspect Gibb isn't coming here to sniff out models of creative play for the under-11s. Hmm. Maybe rote learning, brain drilling, and rigor? (Possibly just falling short of the mortis kind.)

I bet, following Gove's tour, he's sent here on a mission to snaffle Hong Kong education formula, then apply it like a panacea to your school system.

It could be a matter of celebration or dread; it's up to you.

But it seems logical, does it not, that if Hong Kong education style tops world league tables, then you should be able to lift it up and apply it somewhere else?

I recognise the pattern of thinking that gets you there. It's the same as when I drink a bottle of red wine. I can combine supreme confidence based on complete ignorance. The more I drink, the more confident I become! After the second bottle, everything makes sense.

Well, you'd be right to say I wouldn't know; I'm in no place to talk, since we've avoided HK schools. I'm only forming my opinions about the schooling regime on what I've read, the people I've spoken to, the comments of educationalists who work here, and the friends of my kids who are schooled (the kids who are usually dying on their feet by Fridays, 4pm).

If the news of a Hong Kong schooling regime is fearful to you, you can always hope.

Like, when I'm minister of schools. I'll make a law! Every week, rain or shine, the kids go outdoors, where they'll meet lots and lots of people, and find poetry, biology, geography, art, science, philosophy, politics, and all the thinkings of all the world.

I should let Nick Gibb know the alternative you could have.

1 comment:

Helen of SJ said...

When you're the minister of schools, I'll send my kids to school, seriously!