“Education is what remains when we have forgotten all that we have been taught” – George Savile, Marquis of Halifax (1633-1695) English statesman and author.
The interpretation of this quotation, made more than 300 years ago, is still very valid today.
Education has always been the basis of a person’s individual life and, collectively speaking, also of a nation. Without a solid education, people will find life harder to face. Without a well-educated people, a country will find it more difficult to keep up.
But, as is implied by the above quote, education is not simply learning how to count or how to express oneself in a particular language. It is not only learning about the history of the world or what an archipelago is.
These can be important for passing examinations and for proceeding with one’s schooling, but they will mean little if the years spent in school do not go towards forming a person in his or her entirety.
This is because, once they have reached adulthood, few people remember the years of the Crimean War, and languages learnt are easily forgotten, unless they are practised in everyday life. It is the basic principles of education that remain.
And this is where, perhaps, not enough is being done.
Malta boasts a high level of education in all sectors, starting from kindergarten and continuing right up to university and beyond. The way in which education has been opened to all in the past few years can be seen from the number of students who finish their secondary schooling and the ever-increasing number of young people who decide to go on to university.
Most parents leave no stone unturned in order for their children to receive a better education than they had, and schools have developed in such a way as to offer the best opportunities for future generations to learn.
But there are some things that need looking into, and sooner, rather than later. For example, children as young as five and six are being exposed to matters that many of them find difficult to cope with. In other European countries, children of the same age go to school largely to have fun and to learn to socialise. Actual “teaching”, in the strict meaning of the word, comes later and this in no way affects their preparation for university. The statistics, in fact, show that although the number of university students in Malta has risen sharply in recent years, per capita we still lag behind.
Questions that are also being raised regard the number of subjects that are being taught in our schools. Is it important for children to have to learn so much, only for them to forget most of it, once they leave school? Would it not be better to have more time for a “wider” education that includes drama, art, music and sport? Aren’t these subjects also important in the development of a child?
Little time is afforded in schools for such activities for which there are no examinations, but which help the child grow in terms of personal relationships and, equally importantly, to learn to appreciate him or herself more.
The American essayist and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-82) once said: “We are shut up in schools and college recitation rooms for 10 or 15 years, and come out at last with a bellyful of words and do not know a thing.”
Recitation rooms are, fortunately, a thing of the past – although dictation is still the order of the day in many schools – but the essence of his words are still significant today. Being taught how to read, write and count and, in this technological age, the use of computers is essential. But there is more that can be done to educate children for life.