Broken Education System Essay Sample

How often does your child come home with no energy? Have they ever asked for a mental health day? And you responded, “No way! It’s good for you; you need an education” But what if I told you that the system, that you put your TRUST in, is destroying your child’s well-being? It is destroying your child’s life so much that a study from The University of Western Australia (TUWA) found that students in years 11-12 with a mental disorder missed an average of 26 days compared to 12 days (those who don’t have a mental disorder). To ensure future generations’ welfare, the federal government must address the broken education system because it’s too focused on academics, causing pupils to fall behind on their work and fewer students to take maths and science because they’re too stressed. 

Schools focus too much on how juniors and seniors are doing academically. Imagine your child on their first day of school, happy, excited. Maybe a little nervous, but if only they knew. Knew that school would soon become their whole life. Seeing teachers and classmates more than you, their own family. AND THEN, the classwork and revision take up ALL their time and effort, just to get a low score. Making them doubt their abilities to do tasks. 1 in 7 school students has mental health issues according to another study by TUWA. Either these health issues were caused by the stress of school, or the work is adding the pressure of maintaining unrealistic expectations your child may have set for themselves. No wonder the rate of mental health issues is so high, a study from Edutopia estimates that pupils have taken on average 112 standardised tests from preschool to grade 12. And most tests in high school are one after the other. Although, it is senior school, so having a lot of tests will prepare them for exams, but eventually, most students will have a mental burnout. Does this seem like a good education system to put your child through?

Students are falling behind on their assignments, which is affecting their health and wellbeing. Whether your kid has missed a few days of school due to illness or a holiday, they may not be able to keep up with their work. They'll begin to fall behind, and when they return to school, they won't understand the new material, and this may be difficult to maintain. According to a Gallup study, more than half of pupils are disengaged with their subjects.     That only worsened with coronavirus, with some students missing the equivalent of A YEAR of academic content.    If your child IS disengaged in their classes, they are more prone to stop doing the work and not to attend class, which will cause them to fall behind. As a result of COVID-19, students have been falling behind even more, severely impacting youth’s Health. Additionally, VeryWell Mind has recorded 1 in 5 pupils have suicidal thoughts because of being behind with schoolwork. Is this the type of environment YOU want your child to be in?

Furthermore, due to stress, fewer students are taking maths and science. On the surface this may not seem like a massive deal, however, the majority of university courses require a certain level of maths and/or science. According to an analysis by The Conversation, over 3/4 of pupils with good grades in maths don’t continue the subject. But why are so many pupils dropping out of maths? Another research by The Conversation has shown that in 2017 over half of the school's principals admitted hiring maths and science teachers that weren’t fully qualified to teach, adding to the confusion of your child and making them opt off of the subjects. This tragedy will eventually endanger jobs as pupils  lack confidence in themselves academically, making them stressed and struggle with maths and science. Likewise, in a further study by The Conversation 50% of Australian students don’t like maths, whereas, only 38% of International students don’t like maths. Researchers also found out that, in 2014, 21.40% females did no maths, 9.3% males did no maths, compared to 2001 7.5% females and 3.1% males did no maths . Your child NOW more than ever are DISENGAGED with their classes, especially maths due to hesitation and stress. Do you really want your child to be taught by an unqualified teacher?

Overall, the Australian school system is outdated and does more damage than good. To improve the system, we can encourage raising the level of education for teacher education courses and have smaller classes to make learning easier.