It's that time of year again in British schools. Students begin regretting their leniancy towards revision, teachers yank out all but half of their hair in a blind panic and invigilators emerge from the land of twiddling thumbs.
Yes, exam season is upon us once again. And once again, it has prompted irritable thoughts from myself on the state of the country's education system. When once education was devoted to the discovery and execution of new knowledge, it is now a restricted palavar of spoon feeding and information overload matched perfectly to examination guidelines.
The only things we get to learn about in school is what goes on the blank lines in exam papers. No world is more contrived than the current school system, and now there is just a blatant competition for the highest examination results. No lessons in how to use the skills required for the exam in a real life situation, no example scenarios in how maths and english are actually useful and certainly no activities which contain any amount of originality.
School is just a year by year preparation for a period of exams. Once those exams are out of the way, then there are more to get working for.
The whole idea of education should be to teach children and young adults new skills and to develop their intellect and use their own minds. But I've lost count of the amount of times I have copied out of a textbook, word for word, information that I merely need to regurgitate onto a different sheet of paper in quieter conditions. Half of the battle is the memory test. If you have a memory, then you're likely to pass.
The only thing impressive about having a heap of GCSEs or A-Levels is the fact that you have managed to survive years of boredom to reach the exams.
I'm not saying that the exams are particulalry easy...nor are they stress free. However, the whole heart and overall point of education has got lost somewhere to be replaced by a governmental grasp for statistics.
Thus making students feel like mindless robots rather than individuals trying to gain personal achievements
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