“Do you ever read?” the tutor asked the student.

“Yes,” the student replied.

“What kind of books do you prefer?” asked the tutor.

“Books? I don’t read books. I just read the hand-outs they give us,” the student replied.

The student eventually graduated as a teacher, and is now teaching English. Not biology, mathematics or religion. English. Just imagine what kind of knowledge this particular teacher is imparting to students of the language without reading books. Unless, of course, this particular person took up reading as a hobby after graduation, but who would believe that?

This is one of the stories I was told after what I wrote a few weeks ago (What to say and how to write it, TMIS, 11 December). The feedback I received on this article was out of the ordinary and was mostly from people seriously concerned about what our education system is producing. I wanted to write about this closer to the December article, but other more pressing subjects came up and I had to postpone it till today.

Here’s another story. A mother called me to say that, one day, she heard her child pronounce a word incorrectly. She told the child how to pronounce it correctly but, a few days later, the child pronounced the same word incorrectly again.

The mother asked him where he had heard the word being spoken in that particular manner; and the boy replied that it was at school. “When I pronounced the word the way you told me to, the teacher corrected me,” the boy told his mother. “Well, at school do as the teacher says,” said his mother, “but at home and everywhere else you pronounce the word correctly as I have told you.”

I will not specify what the word is, so as not to compromise my source, but I can assure you that the mother is perfectly correct on this one.

I write about these particular incidents – which go hand in hand with what I wrote in December – because I believe that while it is great to have state-of-the-art buildings and introduce new methods of education that make learning easier and more interesting, unless the core issues are dealt with we cannot really talk about success.

Once again, I do question what we are “producing” from our University. The number of students graduating has grown substantially, and the number of those going on to obtain a second or third degree is rising as well, but I have serious doubts about what is taking place. How can someone who cannot write 10 lines without making the same number of mistakes write a flawless 15,000-word thesis in order to graduate?

Have the numbers become more important than quality, I wonder? It would be interesting if we were to be provided with the number of students who drop out of university courses or who do not get past the final hurdle. My guess is that all those who come up with some kind of thesis are allowed to graduate, whatever that thesis is.

This takes me to the lower tiers of our education system – because if people arrive at university level without having basic writing skills, then there must definitely be something wrong in our primary and secondary education system.

And if part of the problem is teachers who, among other things, mispronounce words or teach English without ever reading a book, this should be seriously looked into, if the situation is to improve. I understand specialisation, and I do not expect a mathematics teacher to be an expert on Shakespeare, but I would expect that teachers have the required basic skills when it comes to spelling and pronunciation, whatever subject they are teaching.

I am sure that hundreds of teachers out there are dedicated to their work and do their best in and outside the classroom to help their students. I am sure that, for them, teaching is a vocation, and that they love their job. I am sure that they became teachers because it’s what they always wanted to do, it’s where they find themselves most comfortable, it’s what they enjoy doing and they wouldn’t change their occupation for a truckload of gold.

But then there are many others who hate being in the classroom, dislike what they do, groan every time they wake up on a school morning and who teach simply because they have failed in everything else. If they wanted to become a doctor, a lawyer or an engineer, but did not have the necessary qualifications to do so, their only option was to become a teacher – because that was the only way they could get a degree and have a stable job. Someone whose ambition is to become a doctor, lawyer or engineer can lower their aspirations and become a teacher, but no teacher can become a doctor, lawyer or engineer.

(This is not to mention the fact that many people become teachers because they have a shorter working day – and fewer of them – than the rest of the working population, but that is not something I want to go into in this article.)

With so many teachers who would prefer to be anywhere but the classroom, if they had the qualifications or opportunity, it is difficult to expect them to do their job to the utmost of their ability, or to care whether their students are successful or otherwise. And this situation is now being felt right through our education system.

If teaching is just another job, as far as these teachers are concerned, then they are in the wrong one. A journalist cannot work as a journalist if he is not interested in current affairs, if he does not watch the news regularly, if he does not pick up the newspapers each morning. And the same goes for teachers.

As I wrote last time, if a person with a degree, maybe two, does not know the difference between “there” and “their”, something is definitely wrong. And it’s probably because his or her primary school teacher did not know the difference either.

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