Comparing educational systems

Comparing educational systems in class helped me get a quick view of what other countries' systems look like and how and what my classmates' experiences have been throughout their education in their home countries. However, and most importantly, something that truly caught my attention was the criticism we seemed to have towards our educational systems.

One of the major areas of common criticism was the big gap between public (state funded) and private education in countries such as Belgium, The Netherlands, Egypt, Brazil, The United States and Colombia to name a few. It seemed that in these countries students whose families were more affluent would usually choose private over public education as it proved to be of better quality. This would then lead to better chances of entering better higher educational institutions. It's quite interesting to see how this reality is visible in both developed and developing countries.

Another area of common criticism were the teaching practices and the outcome of education in various educational systems. I noticed that countries such as Japan, China and Romania, education seems very test-oriented. Students would usually need to memorize information at school to then be asked to repeat it during exams. A lot of my classmates and I seem quite disappointed about this approach as it appears to persist despite its criticism.

Finally, there were several personal experiences in the presentations where students shared the impact that teachers had on their lives. There was for instance, Anca's experience of having gone through a lot of stress because she struggled in Maths' class and her teacher seemed to verbally reinforce those difficulties to her . Another experience was from my classmate, George who mentioned that he found it difficult to remember any of his teachers during his basic education. He said that they didn't really make any impact on him and that they all seemed to be focused on pushing students forward to take exams and get good grades without ever focusing on students realities and needs.

I have been able to reflect a lot during these presentations, especially about my own educational system. I have found that there is a lot of work to do back home, especially in the countryside with regards to education. I learned that the educational gap between rural and urban education is significant and that there are lots of resources both human and material for it to improve. For this reason, and for the very first time in my whole career, I have begun to consider to return to my home country to try to work in the educational sector in the countryside and somehow help reduce that gap even if it's at small local level.