Posted October. 25, 2001 09:19,
Fourth year students in teacher`s colleges across the nation have decided to refuse to take the elementary school appointment exams. They are protesting the `teacher`s college grading system` which places teachers in elementary schools after making them take a test and receive at least a score of 70 points to get a junior high teaching permit.
There is reason to worry when these students who went on strike and now are refusing to take the exams. A student has to resolve problems like a student. Refusing to attend classes or take state exams only makes the problems worse.
Of course, the reason why we face this situation has to do with the teacher supply and demand policy. The severe cuts in teacher retirement age forced many teachers to leave schools than expected, and the authorities had to call back the teachers who left at the last moment. And then, the authorities have announced that they will reduce the number of students by 35 per class year by 2003 and that 23, 000 teachers will be appointed.
The teacher`s college students have a point. Placing teachers who hold junior high teaching permits in elementary schools will cause elementary education to decline. There is a basic difference between junior high teachers whose training focuses on one subject and elementary teachers who have to teach all the subjects and give guidance to students.
The education authorities, therefore, should not turn a deaf ear to the students` insistence that the number of teachers must be increased gradually by fixing the number of admissions to teacher`s colleges.
However, the students are wrong to try to solve the problem by force, even if their goals have merit. Moreover, if their strategy is to refuse the state exams, the problem becomes very serious indeed. If elementary teachers cannot be appointed for one year due to canceled exams, the teacher pool will face yet another crisis. It is not as if the current appointments across professional lines are directly harming the teacher`s college students.
Why is our education policy running into so much trouble? Every time a new policy comes out, it is met with only extreme opposition. Such confrontational imposition of education policy and the cycle of conflict will only harm students, parents, and teachers, and in the end it will damage the national economic strength.
The education authorities must try hard to find a more suitable and comprehensive solution, and the students should make their voices heard but must not act outside the appropriate boundaries.