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May 29, 2007
Hardworking teenagers
It has been reported by Statistics Canada that 15-19 y.o. students in Canada work more than their peers in other countries. 50 hours a week! Is this a reason to celebrate?
Between school, homework, a job, volunteer work and household chores, teens put in 9.2 hours on school days and 3.5 hours on non-school days. While they spend more time at paying jobs on school days than teens in every country except the U.S. and the Netherlands, our teens also devote more time to school work than all other teens except for the Belgians.
The problem however is that the knowledge they gain at school (at least in mathematics, physics, computer science) is completely inadequate to the time and efforts spent. The home assignments usually are stupid and tedious and often irrelevant to the subject. Marks do not reflect the knowledge, abilities or skills, but only readiness to waste time doing these assignments and to follow all the instructions.
What is worse: the best students have very little time left to study advanced topics they are interested in (and their efforts find neither appreciation nor reward at school - and in Admissions and Awards Ofiice at our University)!
It is time to base admissions on the real knowledge rather than school marks!
Posted by Victor at May 29, 2007 05:35 AM