complicated simplicity

The school I am currently teaching at has just finished it’s work for SQC recertification. For the uninitiated, it’s the Singapore Quality Class.

The Singapore Quality Class (SQC) Programme provides organisations with a framework for achieving business excellence. Based on widely accepted international models, the SQC Business Excellence Framework has seven dimensions - Leadership, Planning, Information, People, Processes, Customers and Results.

Members of the school stuff, me excluded, spent about 2 months of work preparing for this re-certification. Lets work out some Math. 2 months x 30days x 4 hours a day x 80 pax. That works out to…. 19200 man hours(estimated, probably inflated). Just to prepare for re-CERTIFICATION. Educational institutions leading the way in the paper chase. Ironic? I’m not saying in anyway SQC certification is bad. No no, it’s as good as us holding on to our A level certs. It shows that we *ARE* capable of doing things in the *RIGHT* way. (If it didn’t come out right, this part was not supposed to be sarcastic. I MEANT IT.)

But what I’m saying is this: Is it possible to better spend this 19200 man hours? My school has approximately 1500 students. If every student gets another 12.8hours with a teacher(thats right, 1 teacher to 1 student for 12.8hours), would it be time better spent?

I question the need for educational institutions to certify themselves to have “proper processes” in place for “excellence in framework in the 7 dimensions”. In pure breaucracy and everything else, YES, it’s the right thing to do. But looking at it from another perspective, is this what we want our schools to be doing? Principals, teachers, students are all human. Humans are flexible, and can think and develop. We don’t need processes to guide us along like we need them in QC in a factory. No, I correct that, would we want such processes to govern us? We are not producing products to be sold off a shelf in the supermarket.

We are moulding the future of our nation.

Did I mention? After SQC, you got….ISO, People Developer’s Standards… Did someone mention that a teacher’s job is to teach? I don’t remember them putting in this part in the teaching brochure.

Now. What I have said above is probably biased, slanted, and not very true to some extent. But I think I have put my point across. Schools are for learning. Teachers are for teaching. Each student is special, not products off a production line.

Tags: Discussion and Opinions

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