preparing pupils for 21st century
Question 2
What do schools need to do to prepare students for the 21st century? Discuss your opinions.
Highly effective schools have high levels of parent and community engagement. ‘Community’ here includes parents, business and philanthropic organisations, and various services and not-for-profit groups. How ‘engagement’ is defined and what it looks like in practice will vary from school to school. But, as the growing body of research makes quite clear, support from those beyond the school gates is an essential part of preparing learners for the twenty-first century.
Schools are expected to prepare students for a complex and rapidly changing world. In addition to teaching subject content, schools are expected to develop young people who are information and media literate; critical thinkers and problem solvers; communicators and team players. They are expected to teach environmental awareness and civic responsibility and various other transferable and lifelong skills. Schools are seen to have an important role in enhancing wellbeing so that students can realise their full potential, cope with the stresses of life and participate fully in their community. Increasingly schools are expected to educate young people to behave responsibly in relation to drugs and alcohol, cyber safety, road safety and their sexual health. Schools cannot be expected to do this alone.
In the past few decades, a different kind of relationship between school and community has emerged. Rather than being set apart from the rest of the community, the school is now often seen to be its hub. This awareness has increased a great amount since the government introduced Sistem Sarana as part of the NKRA initiatives to involve parents to contribute towards the school.
In broad terms, school-community engagement can bring social, intellectual, financial, psychological and performance benefits. Social benefits may include new, stronger or more diversified networks of support. Intellectual
What do schools need to do to prepare students for the 21st century? Discuss your opinions.
Highly effective schools have high levels of parent and community engagement. ‘Community’ here includes parents, business and philanthropic organisations, and various services and not-for-profit groups. How ‘engagement’ is defined and what it looks like in practice will vary from school to school. But, as the growing body of research makes quite clear, support from those beyond the school gates is an essential part of preparing learners for the twenty-first century.
Schools are expected to prepare students for a complex and rapidly changing world. In addition to teaching subject content, schools are expected to develop young people who are information and media literate; critical thinkers and problem solvers; communicators and team players. They are expected to teach environmental awareness and civic responsibility and various other transferable and lifelong skills. Schools are seen to have an important role in enhancing wellbeing so that students can realise their full potential, cope with the stresses of life and participate fully in their community. Increasingly schools are expected to educate young people to behave responsibly in relation to drugs and alcohol, cyber safety, road safety and their sexual health. Schools cannot be expected to do this alone.
In the past few decades, a different kind of relationship between school and community has emerged. Rather than being set apart from the rest of the community, the school is now often seen to be its hub. This awareness has increased a great amount since the government introduced Sistem Sarana as part of the NKRA initiatives to involve parents to contribute towards the school.
In broad terms, school-community engagement can bring social, intellectual, financial, psychological and performance benefits. Social benefits may include new, stronger or more diversified networks of support. Intellectual
References: Masters, GN. (2004). What makes a good school? ACER eNews, http://www.acer.edu.au/enews/2004/02/what-makes-a-good-school. Anderson, M. et al. (2010). A Collective Act: Leading a small school. Australian Council for Educational Research, ACER Press. Melbourne. Mertkan. S. (2011). Leadership support through public-private ‘partnerships’: Views of school leaders. Educational Management Administration & Leadership. 39(2), 156-171. Business School-Connections Roundtable. (2011). Realising potential: Businesses helping schools to develop Australia’s future, Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations: Canberra. http://www.deewr.gov.au/Schooling/Documents/RoundtableReport.pdf. Lonsdale, M. (2009). ‘School-community partnerships in Australian schools’, ACER, http://research.acer.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1006&context=policy_analysis_misc Anderson, M and Curtin, E. (2011). LLEAP: Leading Learning in Education and Philanthropy, 2011 survey report, ACER, www.acer.edu.au/lleap.