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Katherine Walraven
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Comparing Education across Borders
April 30, 2009 - 05:26 PM
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This thread emerged from the "Questions about the conference?" thread, in which it was suggested to start comparing different educational systems and practices across different countries to see what is working and what is not. Tell us what you found out about education in different countries!
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Jessie James L. Marcellones
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Re: Comparing Education across Borders
April 30, 2009 - 05:59 PM
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Thank you very much for this thread.
I observed for the past years that educational system vary from one country to another. However, even though that is the scenario, the goal is still the same, which is to educate people.
Regarding the Philippines, I would really say that our educational system is progressing, I mean there is more improvements that before. The use of technology is widespread and we almost have all the recent technologies, at least for those who are studying in top universities.
regards,
Jessie James
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Soo0405
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Re: Comparing Education across Borders
April 30, 2009 - 09:41 PM
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Regarding the education system in Malaysia, the recent issue is about whether to use English or Malay as a medium for teaching Maths and Science.
English is the international language, and the country is trying to ride on the waves of globalisation. However, Malay has been a language and culture that some leaders are not ready to give up yet...
a quandary..a paradox
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Sara McKee
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Re: Comparing Education across Borders
April 30, 2009 - 10:04 PM
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This thread is awesome!!
I'm really interested to find out about how other people learn across the globe. In New Zealand we have school days starting at 8:45am ending at 3:15.
We have 5 periods per day and 6 subject choices. I think this works well but then having only 6 subjects is frustrating when trying to decide what courses to take!!
I wish that learning a second language was compulsory in New Zealand, does anyone else feel that way? Or is learning a second language not as beneficial/exciting as I think it is? It feels as if an oppertunity is being lost.
I am part of a project called S.P.L.I.C.E. our goal is to improve learning in our community, so that is one of the reasons this thread appealed to me. You can see our S.P.L.I.C.E web page at http://spliceproject.edublogs.org
I would love it if anyone could give us feedback of how to better our efforts...from a different point of view.
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shobana
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Re: Comparing Education across Borders
May 1, 2009 - 12:46 AM
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For the education system in Malaysia, the issue is to be less exam oriented and to narrow the digital divide. You can see a significant difference between the urban and rural students especially when it comes to language.
I've learned a lot about the education systems in NZ and the Philippines. What I found similar is that all the countries are trying hard to slowly but surely implement the usage of technology in the classroom. The methods might be different, but the goal is the same. In the end, it is about equal opportunities for all-whether they live in the city or rural areas.
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franmarie
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Re: Comparing Education across Borders
May 1, 2009 - 04:33 AM
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Soo0405 wrote:
Regarding the education system in Malaysia, the recent issue is about whether to use English or Malay as a medium for teaching Maths and Science.
Here in the Philippines, Math and Sciences subjects are mainly discussed with the use of the English language, and mostly, the medium of instruction is English. Due to the fact that there are a lot of terms that cannot be traslated in our national language, and also, as what you've emphasized, English is an international language.
As far as I know, there are schools here in our country that uses Filipino, our national language, in discussing Math and Science. But I am not sure if they use a mix of both English and Filipino (tagalog), we called Taglish.
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Anwarus Salam
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Re: Comparing Education across Borders
May 1, 2009 - 04:33 AM
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Thank you very much for starting this thread.
In Bangladesh, educational sector get the highest priority. As the government is taking step to build digital Bangladesh, computer literacy is going to be a mandatory portion of general education. The use of technology is widespread and we use almost all the recent technologies. But in rural areas government provide computers but schools can not use those due to lack of qualified teachers.
Regards,
Anwar
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franmarie
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Re: Comparing Education across Borders
May 1, 2009 - 04:54 AM
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Another thing, here in the Philippines, qualified teachers handling technology-related subjects are not properly distributed, same applies to technological facilities, which is now being carefully studied by the government.
As to subjects being taken in school, I noticed that in other countries, students are taking only few subjects but with a longer time period. In my country, I cannot say in general if some students realized what they are saying, when they say that there are subjects included in their curriculum which in fact neither directly related in their chosen field, nor the subject can be combine to other subjects.
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Liza Bolton
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Re: Comparing Education across Borders
May 1, 2009 - 05:11 AM
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It has been interesting learning about differences and similarities between the systems in our respective countries. Even just the differences in our average days at school are fascinating.
This post is one that highlighted some amazing differences to me,
meaghanli wrote:
There are Korean
international students at my school who describe their average day as
starting school at 7am, ending late in the evening, staying up until 2am
at the library and tutorials, just to wake up in a few hours to do the
same.
It also made me realise how rigorous and high-pressure education is elsewhere, and the fact that some students are doing many more subjects than we do here, and perhaps receiving a broader understanding of the world.
franmarie wrote:
My average day at school way back in secondary level, 11 hour-stay in school, taking up around 12-14 subjects. Well, it was not a fun schedule for teens who prefer to socialize or what we call "party people". Students from my school are being molded to be the best in every endeavor. But we're not geeks! and of course, we never get bored. many times we often stay longer in our school than in our homes.
In the “Future of Education” post there has been the recurring idea of equalising education across the world so no one is disadvantaged by their socio-economic background or by where they live. I believe the first step in this is recognising all the good things about education in a range of countries, to develop globally applicable skills and methods for our teachers and Education Ministries.
I really like the Curriculum here, and I would like to know what you know/like about the official education document (or whatever sets out the ideas behind your education system) in you countries.
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Sagar Saxena
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Re: Comparing Education across Borders
May 1, 2009 - 06:13 AM
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I find myself in a good position to answer this question.
Education system varies greatly over borders, which is greatly influenced by the past they have witnessed, their culture, as well as the kind of people living there. However, the objective is very much the same, : Use the available resources in the best possible manner to provide the best education possible. 
I am an international student studying in Singapore, so in a way, I have seen two systems of education. An average day in Singapore is hectic, yet highly resourceful, and at the end of every single day you can surely say that "Wow, I learned this today". In Singapore, not much emphasis is laid on academics, and people are encouraged to indulge in Self Directed Learning(SDL). In fact, education here takes a more holistic approach, where more focus is given to co-curricular activities(CCA). Therefore, the day is hectic not because we have tons of tutorials to do, but because we have to allocate so many hours to our CCA.
Looking forward to more replies from you guys.
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Marcus
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Re: Comparing Education across Borders
May 1, 2009 - 08:38 AM
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It is has been very interesting to participate on these boards. Whilst it has been most enjoyable discussing innovation and technology in learning I must say I have found it particularly enlightening learning about the many differences and similarities in our region of countries.
In the thread called Do YOU take education for granted? I found that it became a discussion of how student’s countries and cultures were split down the middle. On one side of town students would wag school and muck around if they did turn up for school where as on the other side of the town students lived in poverty and would have given everything for the opportunity to attend school, as a way to get out of this life they are living in.
franmarie wrote:
... I experienced conversing with those children from one of the poorest community in my country. These children don’t care at all if they have to walk many kilometres, if they don’t have any money, if their uniform is almost comparable to a rug, or if they have only a paper and a very short pencil, just to be in school and learn. I can’t imagine that they are willing to do the same routine every day, unlike those children who have everything and still don’t study and dont value what they have. How unfair it is..
We don’t have that kind of poverty in our country and we are so much luckier for it. Although our students have never witnessed such a large scale of poverty and are so much lazier for it.
However as Liza said with all these opportunities I feel we are almost disadvantaged in the fact that we never have to actually work hard. As long as we gain enough credits etc we have university entrance. This feat is not hard to accomplish for even the most average student.
lizab wrote:
It has been interesting learning about differences and similarities between the systems in our respective countries. Even just the differences in our average days at school are fascinating.
This post is one that highlighted some amazing differences to me,
meaghanli wrote:
There are Korean
international students at my school who describe their average day as
starting school at 7am, ending late in the evening, staying up until 2am
at the library and tutorials, just to wake up in a few hours to do the
same.
It also made me realise how rigorous and high-pressure education is elsewhere, and the fact that some students are doing many more subjects than we do here, and perhaps receiving a broader understanding of the world.
I remember hearing on this board that in some countries like India there are so many students and not enough places at university that students need to truly fight for their places. For those that graduate from University with a degree, how amazing would those people be?
You would be safe in knowledge that hiring these students would mean that you would get the most amazing worker. As what is classed as hard work to us would be easy work for them. Perhaps developed countries like New Zealand should imitate their system (the average standard of work needed to gain acceptance into one of their universitys). This way how much more productive and resourceful would 21st century students be. They have the potential; it is just finding the right motivation to unleash this potential.
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Ben Shepherd
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Re: Comparing Education across Borders
May 1, 2009 - 09:38 PM
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franmarie wrote:
Soo0405 wrote:
Regarding the education system in Malaysia, the recent issue is about whether to use English or Malay as a medium for teaching Maths and Science.
Here in the Philippines, Math and Sciences subjects are mainly discussed with the use of the English language, and mostly, the medium of instruction is English. Due to the fact that there are a lot of terms that cannot be traslated in our national language, and also, as what you've emphasized, English is an international language.
As far as I know, there are schools here in our country that uses Filipino, our national language, in discussing Math and Science. But I am not sure if they use a mix of both English and Filipino (tagalog), we called Taglish.
This is an interesting quandry. Whether you keep your cultural heritage and teach in your native tongue or you teach using the international language. With what language do they teach these subjects in at university? Surely the best course of action would simply be to have a co-ordinated approach than to have some schools teach one way and other teach differently. This would be especially difficult if a student then went into a tertiary course requiring the use of mathematics or science in a different language to what they are use to.
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Ben Shepherd
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Re: Comparing Education across Borders
May 1, 2009 - 09:42 PM
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franmarie wrote:
My average day at school way back in secondary level, 11 hour-stay in school, taking up around 12-14 subjects. Well, it was not a fun schedule for teens who prefer to socialize or what we call "party people". Students from my school are being molded to be the best in every endeavor. But we're not geeks! and of course, we never get bored. many times we often stay longer in our school than in our homes.
What different subjects did you do? Also, would you have preferred to have had you only completed 6 subjects but more in depth?
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franmarie
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Re: Comparing Education across Borders
May 2, 2009 - 02:45 AM
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Shep wrote:
franmarie wrote:
My average day at school way back in secondary level, 11 hour-stay in school, taking up around 12-14 subjects. Well, it was not a fun schedule for teens who prefer to socialize or what we call "party people". Students from my school are being molded to be the best in every endeavor. But we're not geeks! and of course, we never get bored. many times we often stay longer in our school than in our homes.
What different subjects did you do? Also, would you have preferred to have had you only completed 6 subjects but more in depth?
These are the subjects I had:
1st Year: General Science, English 1, Math 1, Earth Science, Effective Speech and Drama, Algebra, Filipino 1, PEHM 1 (Physical Education, Health Music), THE 1 (Technology and Home Economics), Values Education 1, Philippine History, Philippine Geography
2nd Year: Biology, English 2, Geometry, Environmental Science, Research, Afro-Asian Literature, Advanced Algebra, Filipino 2, PEHM 2 (Physical Education, Health Music), THE 2 (Technology and Home Economics), Values Education 2, Asian History and Geography
3rd Year: General Chemistry, English 3, Math 3, Introduction to Physics (Basic Physics for High School), Statistics and Population Education, Research 3, English-American Literature, Trigonometry, Filipino 3, PEHM 3 (Physical Education, Health Music), THE 3 (Technology and Home Economics), Values Education 3, World History and Geography, French Language 1
4th Year: Physics with Research and Robotics, English 4, Math 4, Organic Chemistry, Journalism and Print Media, Calculus, Filipino 4, PEHM 4 (Physical Education, Health Music), THE 4 (Technology and Home Economics), Values Education 4, Economics, French Language 2
*T.H.E. subjects are somewhat ladderized. A student can choose any of the following, what to take for the next 2 quarters: Agriculture, Cooking and Baking, Sewing, Home Gardening
*Computer Subject is incorporated in T.H.E. which is also ladderized: MS Office, Flash, Corel, Web lay-outs and publishing, Email, Electronics, Programming with Robotics
*Nihonggo, Chinese, and Spanish classes are also elective subjects that caters to 30 students in every 5 months, which is excluded from the grading system.
*Club and Coaching hours are intended for students who want to learn from other areas which is not part of their subject list, and each student should choose 2-3 areas he or she wants to enroll.
As you can see, Science, English, Math major subjects have at least 1 or 2 electives . Probably I can say that if these electives can be incorporated to the 3 major subjects, I rather choose around 6-9 subjects. Anyway, its ok. I like the way how it is being scheduled.
NB: The above list or policy only applied to my curriculum (Special Science and Technology). At this moment, there is transition curriculum (Science, Technology and Engineering) in effect. Subject list and policy may change annually.
This post was edited on: 2009-05-02 at 02:47 AM by: franmarie
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Ben Shepherd
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Re: Comparing Education across Borders
May 2, 2009 - 06:53 AM
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So obviously there is a very wide range of subjects of which students can choose from. Is this the case for most schools in the Phillipines? Do you think this is a good thing?
The school that I am at, because it is a regional school with only around 1200 students only offers a limited range of subjects, around 20 of which you must choose 6. What was the ratio for you?
Other schools in Australia offer many more subjects.
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