42 Years Ago

Forty-two years ago to this very day, the Prime Minister of a small island nation gave a ground-breaking speech titled 'New Bearings in Our Education System'. The address was given to the principals of the schools which by that time were forming the foundation of what would be lauded as a world-class education system. Some of his words are of contemporary interest, outlining as they do they ghosts of what might have been.

Here are some choice excerpts:

• At the National Day Parade, it became apparent that only the schools that did not expand managed to keep a core of professional teaching staff. What is more important, such schools had a group of dedicated senior masters and principals that could produce elan in their contingents.


• The tragedy is that... we find we have produced a group of teachers who are undedicated, because of the nature of recruitment. Whilst this is being corrected, I am asking the principals to make a contribution and put in extra effort. After all those who are good enough to be promoted to principals must have had some dedication; otherwise, it is sheer lunacy to put a man in charge of a school.


• It is no use having anonymous schools and equally anonymous teachers, but this was what we tended to do because we were expanding so rapidly.


• No teacher can really perform his duty unless he feels he is doing something worthwhile. Every school teacher in the classroom must feel for and with his flock... unless he does that, the teacher cannot give the pupil something.


• I can remember two categories of teachers... those who meant something and those who meant nothing. There were those who... mumbled, and one hour was past... some university lecturers were like that too. They were not interested in the students... They were not interested in imparting knowledge. Some of them were in fact very brilliant men who subsequently obtained very high degrees, such as doctorates and so on.


• This is what ought to be done. If I could do it overnight with superhuman power, I would endow, first, every school with an identity and a character of its own; next, every teacher must feel the dedication and must understand where all this is leading.


• I am extremely anxious about the generation that is growing up literate but uneducated. They can read; they can write; they can pass examinations. But they are not really educated: they have not formed, they have not developed.


• Teachers must have human creativeness before they can bring it out in the pupil.

Interesting words from a far-sighted statesman; sadly, many of the problems he outlined are still there, like Banquo's ghost at Macbeth's feast.