It is always been a great debate from ages that what type of education system we want in our schools? Do we want creativity and independent thinking? Or our priority should be getting the basics right and maintaining a strong line on discipline?
On a lighter note, these things are not jointly exclusive. Majority of the populace would possibly want both.
But recently, Pew Research group the in the United States did an international study to know the opinion of people in 19 different countries to declare which they would make their priority.
If they had to decide, which would they choose – promoting creativity or attending to the “academic basics”?
The research was a part of Pew’s annual survey of global attitudes, and the results showed huge cultural differences towards education- and broadening political division.
In developed countries like Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and Canada, public opinion had a clear preference for an education system that puts emphasis on creativity and independent thinking.
Back to basics
In Spain, 67% of natives wanted the creative system of learning in schools; weigh against 24% who wanted the education system of schools to be focused on the academic basics and discipline.
However, at the other flip of the coin was the UK, where researchers found that 51% populace who wanted schools to prioritize the basics and discipline, compared with 37% who considered schools should pay extra attention to refining creativity.
In many ways, this no-nonsense view in the UK was closer to the less developed countries included in the survey, such as Kenya and Nigeria, where the expectation was that schools should get on with teaching the basics.
Countries such as the United States, Australia, and Japan lingered somewhere in the central point, with opinion divided.
Chinese demand to have all these characteristics of education, without choosing between them.
The Pew research also investigated how much moderate or traditional views of education were substitutes for political divisions.
The result of research indicates that in most developed economies, such as in Western Europe and North America, “educational preferences are an ideological issue”.
Political divisions
According to the research, for the most part politically divided countries were the US and the UK, with right or left-leaning citizens having extremely diverse ideas about education.
In countries such as Canada, Netherlands, and Germany, people point of view on education were more likely to extend beyond between political liberals and conservatives.
Eurostat data showed the list of biggest spenders on education which indicates Denmark, Sweden, and Iceland were leading countries with spending the most in the education sector, as a percentage of state wealth.
Finland, Belgium, Estonia, and Latvia were also high spenders, with the UK mid-ranking and close to the EU average.
In nutshell, it is all about choices as well as resources. But as far as my thinking, I strongly believed “education system that emphasizes upon creativity rather than just offering basic discipline is more accurate and necessity of the time. And we must get rid of the traditional approach of ignoring the creative part of education system.
