Fixing the education system

In my previous post, I highlighted the failures of the educational system in our country. In this post, I am going to look at some ideas that I think might help fix it. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but just a few thoughts.

Our schools produce a product for which there is no market and develop skills for which there is diminishing demand. As a developing country and as a country heavily dependent on tourism, we need to train our students in planning, construction and hospitality through our school system.

If our education system is to produce a product that is in demand we need to:

1. Restructure the curriculum to align itself with the demands of the job market. Transfer more responsibility onto teachers and students and devise a system to reward teachers who do well.

2. Create problem-focused subjects and programs. For instance, we can expand on tourism and construction related subjects.

3. Increase collaboration between the secondary schools and Maldives College of Higher Education. Faculty and other resources at the college can be used to teach the secondary school students. This is a win-win situation for both the schools and the college. The schools will have more dynamic programs and the students enrolling in the college will be of a higher calibre and better prepared for undergraduate studies.

4. Transform the testing system. Instead of having students take exams in which they just reproduce facts discussed in class, we should incorporate more research papers and term projects. Original scholarship and research must be encouraged and rewarded.

5. Expand the range of options available to students. At the moment, all the students go through the same program, with only limited choices. But instead, if we can have custom-made programs for each student as much as possible, it will help the students to do well, as they will be more likely to enjoy what they are doing.


Some of the ideas expressed here are originally from Mark C. Taylor, the chairman of the religion department at University of Columbia.

Cambridge O’ Level results indicate a bleak future for the country

More than 7000 Maldivian students sat in the Cambridge Ordinary Level exams held in late 2008. Of these, only 27 % passed. That’s right; 73 % or 5110 students failed the O’ levels! More than 2000 of these did not pass even a single subject. What does this mean to the future of the country?
This means 5110 youngsters who finished school last year will have no chance for a higher education. This means 5110 youngsters will be looking to join the work force. Since these youngsters are not qualified for most jobs on offer and since our job market is not growing at a rate to absorb 5000 new workers every year, this means a majority of these youngsters will be unemployed. This means, with nothing better to do, these youngsters will turn to drugs and gangs to kill time. This means these youngsters will be hardened criminals and drug addicts in a couple of years. I will leave it to your imagination what this would mean to our country’s economic and social fabric in a few years.

What worries me even more is that it seems that nobody cares about these kids anymore. The fact that more than 5000 students failed the O’ levels was only mentioned as a side note in the media under the headline that the top 10 has been announced. None of the so called journalists, pundits, and analysts seemed to have even noticed that our education system has failed miserably.

In one of the articles in the media, it was mentioned that more than 9 million Rufiyaa was spent to seat those kids who didn’t pass a single subject. The writer was apologetic and tried to portray that money as been wasted. I disagree. I don’t think it was wasted money and I think we should spend another 9 million if necessary to seat these kids again next year so that they can become productive members of society. Or else the cost will be much more than 9 million Rufiyaa when these kids turn out to be hardened criminals. We still remember the 50 million Rufiyaa incurred by the state when hell broke in Maafushi jail recently.

As a country, we need to wake up from our slumber, without politicizing everything, if we are to have any hopes for the future. As of right now, that future is looking very bleak.