Do You Think Making School a Year Longer will Improve your Child's Education?
By PinkMelody
@PinkMelody (86)
Philippines
October 2, 2010 10:02pm CST
There are talks going on about making school a year longer, like adding one more year in high school making it 5years instead of the usual 4years. They say it's because students nowadays are not really prepared and qualified to go to college.
As for me, I am not in favor of it because in my opinion we need BETTER TEACHERS not LONGER YEARS. What our country and our students needs is BETTER and MORE QUALIFIED TEACHERS and a BETTER and IMPROVED CURRICULUM. To be able to achieve this, our government should also consider the salary increase for teachers because a lot of our good teachers are already working overseas and a lot more still prefer to work out of the country due to the very low salary they have here. Making school a year longer would only be a burden to parents because it would mean additional expenses especially on TUITION FEES which are VERY HIGH and increasing every year.
How about you? Are you in favor of making school a year longer? What are your views on this?
2 people like this
11 responses
@sweetbabyvlad29 (36)
• Philippines
3 Oct 10
Hello my friend.
For me making school year longer or adding another year will not improve my child's education or knowledge. Thus it will give another burden to parent's like us. Even though my son is not studying yet I know that this will affest us in the near future. I agree with you that Better Teachears and BETTER and MORE CLASSROOMS are needed than adding school year. For me if you combine those 2 VERY IMPORTANT ASPECTS will result on better education and I think it can even lessen the school year down to even 3.
1 person likes this
@peavey (16936)
• United States
3 Oct 10
No, I don't think it will improve education for anyone. They've already extended the number of days kids go to school and they keep throwing more money at government run schools and kids still graduate without knowing basic things.
What will help is not only good teachers, but dumping a lot of unnecessary programs and concentrating on those that are useful.
Since the stimulus money is running out, the school system is cutting back already, how are they going to pay for an extra year?
1 person likes this
@tomitomi (5429)
• Singapore
3 Oct 10
I think it would benefit the slower learners. Instead, it would bore and waste the time of the faster learners.
While I believe that every student has a strength in something the way each learns differ. So, there should be some kind of a streaming assessment in year 3 of high school after which students would be channelled into their areas of competency like the academics or technical studies or the arts, sports and so on.
@twistzao (71)
• Portugal
4 Oct 10
I doubt it. School gets every year boring to kids, do you honestly thing they learn anything with one more year? Of course in school we learn a lot, but adding one more year, will just make kids be more bored of school, and then don't learn anything. I talk by experience, my cousin couldn't be in school. He sat down, and was so bored, he daydreamed, even if he made an effort. He had to do "mail school" (I don't know how to say it in english, but you got my point) and he worked out just fine, because he managed his own stuff. Adding one more year, is just repeating stuff, ore adding more details. What's the point in that?
@zoekling (70)
• Philippines
3 Oct 10
i dont think it is helpful for the students if there are still subjects/courses that is not really important!it will also add burdens to the parents esp when it comes to the tuition fees and projects and more burden to those working students.Your right our country needs a better and more qualified teachers but lower tuition fees..
@ango21 (4)
• Trinidad And Tobago
4 Oct 10
My views on this is that my opinion is very different in that some students today are very slow and need the extra time to adjust,as a teacher i am very open to this discussion ,and their are advantages and disadvantages.Students don't only need qualified teachers,but a proper foundation,that is from the grass root level and also proper parenting.BETTER AND IMPROVE CURRICULUM,could mean restructuring of the teaching service,you can't stop teachers from going overseas to work everybody looks for betterment you have to consider first world country and third world country status.Additional tuition fees is a bit harsh,but there is an old saying your education is your wealth.Increase in salary is a must,the only thing that can prevent salary from being increase is the economical situation in a country,another reason for increasing the school year could mean that their are a high percentage of foreign students.My response to this question it could work.
@cher913 (25782)
• Canada
3 Oct 10
perhaps because here in ontario (canada) the kids get 2 months off for summer vacation. my youngest daughter is in grade 8 this year and was told by her math teacher that kids get dumb over the summer and takes them forever to get back into school mode. i guess they forget about 50% what they have learned the year before.
@prinzcy (32305)
• Malaysia
3 Oct 10
No, I don't think it would do much. What's the point of prolonging if the situation is the same. It's better to improve and raise the level of education instead of making it longer. Not only it will burden the parents, the students will also feel bored and taking longer time for them to face the real world.
I don't think that a longer school year will necessarily be any benefit to a child's education. If anything, it may have the opposite effect. I think the school year is long enough already.
@megamatt (14292)
• United States
3 Oct 10
You know, I really don't think it was matter. I can't really think of any way that five years would be much more beneficial than four. In fact, four years are really stretching it. High school tends to be pretty much done for a lot of people, at least from my experiences and what my friends are said, in about three and a half years, with that last semester being pretty much a lot of light classes, without any substance, if you plan right.
I think that this plan is just a way to get more money out of the parents. The children won't have help. In fact, it will just be a year of wasted time and something that is going just lead to some needless stretching. I agree with the better teachers being needed more than more time as well. Unfortunately, that looks to be more likely. Still this is not the solution.
@sjhaeki (795)
• Philippines
3 Oct 10
Before, 'NO homework on friday/weekend' now 'Extend the years'? Well, I didn't agree with the first proposal so I don't think there's no need to add another year to the current number of years. I don't know if this is the government's way of adapting the international educational curriculum or they have the nation's education in mind.
Hmmm... if they plan to do both, they should also take notice on the materials/supplies the students, faculty and the entire institution will use. There's also the teachers' salary, people need motivation and a very good wage is a pretty good motivator. IF they would also consider these aspects, adapting a new educational curriculum won't go in vain. There's no use in cutting down homework and increasing the school year in each level if the materials used and the people teaching are not as improved or qualified and educational (in terms of materials). Oh yeah, tuition fees shouldn't increase so much to lessen stress on parents.
