Okay I’ll admit it – this title is a bit misleading. I’m not leaving education in any kind of dramatic fashion, I’m not quitting my studies or dropping out: I’m lucky enough to be graduating this year. I am, however, deadly serious about not coming back.
This is somewhat of a response to Zoe Brown’s letter to Nicky Morgan about quitting teaching – a view from the other side of the table, of the student being subjected to relentless tests. I work hard and I get good grades, so in a way this education system benefits me and means I should be able to get a good job. But I’m not happy, and I’m sure other students in this country aren’t either.
From age 5 when we join primary school right up until the end of secondary school at age 18, we are subjected to compulsory tests that seem almost endless. Your year 6 SATS dictate which secondary school you get into. Tests in year 9 decide which set you are in at GCSE, and which grade your teachers think you should aim for (and push you towards). Your GCSEs decide which college you go to, and your A-Levels decide which university. You are ruthlessly pitted against your classmates through school rankings and grade boundaries which limit the number of top grades achieved per year.
On every results night I found myself lying awake with worry about what my results would mean – would I be a failure? A disappointment? The importance of test results are emphasised to the point where students as young as six are stressed about exam results, which means that teachers have to teach to the test, rather than to teach in a way that students will enjoy. This isn’t a criticism of the teachers themselves, but of the education system we live in. OFSTED reports and school rankings are supposed to encourage teachers to teach to the highest standard possible, but all it’s really doing is stifling creativity. Two fifths of teachers leave the profession within 5 years and it’s not difficult to work out why.
It would be easy for me to paint a sunny picture of the Finnish school system and suggest that we emulate it and watch our education system flourish and begin to climb the world rankings. But it’s not as simple as that – what works in one country might not work in another. What we need is a serious change of the system, to one that doesn’t tell children who don’t do well in traditional academic subjects you won’t do well in life, and one that gives enough information and emphasis on alternatives to university.
For most of my degree I have viewed getting a 2.2 as the end of the world. I have often forgotten that university isn’t just the piece of paper at the end, it’s about the experiences and opportunities given to you through clubs, societies, sports, and volunteering. But the constant emphasis on employability and value for money has turned university into more of a grad scheme factory than an institute that encourages learning for the sake of learning, and I’m sick of it.
I came to university to study a subject I have loved from a young age, and have come out the other end wanting to never touch a history book again. I will leave university after three years with nearly 40 grand in debt, and I’m not sure the damage to my mental health through unnecessary stress has been worth it. I have been juggling my dissertation, alongside other demanding modules, grad scheme applications as long as my arm as well as extra curriculars and a part-time job. Sure, I could have dropped my extra curriculars, but these are the things that have made my university experience enjoyable, and I certainly can’t afford to lose my job. I feel like a bad juggling act, and something has to give – and for me, that means prioritising my mental health over further study.
I have often wondered if it was just me who was left feeling dejected and demoralised from the university experience. Was I just too dumb for university, alone in being unable to handle the stress? No, we’re just taught that it’s a normal part of the university experience to be sat in the library day after day in the same spot, studying for 14 hours at a time, we just walk past the students that are crying at their desk because they don’t have time to take a break from their work and dismiss them as just having a “bad day.” But it shouldn’t be normal, and there needs to be a better support network or a complete change in the system before I would even consider coming back.
I am truly blessed to be able to go to university, to get an education when many others cannot, but this university experience isn’t producing healthy students: the mental health report has proven that. I cannot wait to leave, and I’m sure many students feel the same way.