I stand behind this statement. Tawjihi is a series of exams designed by experts in education. The major drawback of these tests is that they examine the student's ability to memorize data rather than analyze it. With this said, it remains an excellent way to test resilience, hard work, commitment to study and the ability to handle stress. The more hard-working a student is, the better his/her score will be.
The problem exists with Jordanian universities that accept Tawjihi as the only way to judge a student's academic performance. Doctors are not smarter than engineers, and engineers are not smarter than lawyers, they just think differently. However, with the method universities accept students we end up with having a large number of students graduating from colleges they didn't like. They chose it because it was their only choice. Other students went to more challenging colleges only because they could. In face, the majority do so every single year.
Our universities do not do a single interview in the process of accepting students into anything. They don't even ask them to take any additional test or questionnaire about their ambitions or aspirations or reasons on why they want to join this particular college in that particular field. Any work experience a student had before going to college does not count. Any voluntary work or research or invention or activity does not count. What counts is what you scored on physics and maths and your ability to remember all those chemical formulas and Ahmed Shawqi poems.
With thousands of students graduating every year from colleges they never wanted to join, from universities they were never proud to belong to, after being taught by professors they never liked or aspired to become like, we keep having a bigger number of Jordanians who are unprofessional at their jobs, who hate their careers and always dream of becoming something else. This could have been different if someone, some day, had stopped and asked them what their dream was.
13 hours ago
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12 comments:
100% agree...also i'd like to add...that tawjihi is the best choice to avoid (wasta), otherwise education will be exactly same as getting a job in public sector. They will find a million reason to justify why they did not hire you and hire someone (ebn flan)
Damn! That was good!
Is there anyone listening to this?!
First thing crossed my mind reading this is the "wasta" thing mentioned above.
Unfortunately, its always better to leave such processes away from human intervention here in Jordan.
This sounds very good but it will not be effective in our universities even if they started interviewing students or evaluating them on things other than their tawjihi scores. Our kids are never taught to make decisions in school. To ask a 17 or 18 years old kid for the first time in his life to make a life-time decision what he or she wants to study or take as a profession is not an easy task.
So before we put these kids on the spot we have to teach them while in school how to make decisions and discuss with them the different professions that are out there. Kids in school know only couple of professions (teacher, doctor, pilot, his/her father's job, and maybe couple of others).
Unfortunately, we are not a culture that cultivates decision making for kids. Students scored 97% or above in Tawjihi go to Medicine school, 90% and above go to Engineering school, 80% and above go to science school, etc.
You are totally right with what you are proposing but learning to make decisions should start from home then school.
I like this. I share lots of your thoughts!
.. And thats why our beloved country is part of the "3rd world" . We still have this somewhat strange approach to education and learning.
Mowatenn... there's no wasta in Tawjihi, I agree with that statement. There's wasta in getting into college.
Omar... I always listen to myself.
Ahmad... that's right, in other words, wasta is so bad in Jordan that even Tawjihi is better
Jaraad, that's true, but if you can't change home, you can start trying at school. At least that might be motivotional for some students.
Omar 2.. it's not surprising that no Jordanian university and perhaps no Arab university is among the top 500 universities in the world. We can memorize the heck out of everything, but not analyze or debate an idea.
Hareega, this was 7iber quality good! That last paragraph was a cincher.
oh yea totally agree,I studied Actuarial Science because that's what my average got me! :/ I hate math, and I'm good at and love and enjoy art and languages ! lucky me though I'm now working in a field where I can benefit from my given talents and love to languages !
Don't forget that there are subjects like physics, math and chemistry that mostly they focus on understanding not memorizing . having different streams (specially the new ones) gives people more options to suit their mentalities.
Also as far as I know for we have few, very few majors where students have to undergo additional tests like the architecture school in JUST and Design school in Yarmouk.
I agree that the universities should also apply other factors like the one you mentioned but let's think about this first, do you think that our students really know what they want? our educational system doesn't (or at least in my time ) help students to explore and know what are the majors that might fit them the most. People go for the IT because they like playing video games on a PC or just because "I heard it's good" . Most of my class didn't have a target and they were aimless. We need more than just correcting the admission system in the universities. A friend of mine mentioned to me that US undergraduate students change their majors on an average of 6 or more times (not really sure about the number but it was big for me). Does our system allow for this? No..we should think about the whole system in order to have a better outcome.
Don't forget that there are subjects like physics, math and chemistry that mostly they focus on understanding not memorizing . having different streams (specially the new ones) gives people more options to suit their mentalities.
Also as far as I know for we have few, very few majors where students have to undergo additional tests like the architecture school in JUST and Design school in Yarmouk.
I agree that the universities should also apply other factors like the one you mentioned but let's think about this first, do you think that our students really know what they want? our educational system doesn't (or at least in my time ) help students to explore and know what are the majors that might fit them the most. People go for the IT because they like playing video games on a PC or just because "I heard it's good" . Most of my class didn't have a target and they were aimless. We need more than just correcting the admission system in the universities. A friend of mine mentioned to me that US undergraduate students change their majors on an average of 6 or more times (not really sure about the number but it was big for me). Does our system allow for this? No..we should think about the whole system in order to have a better outcome.
Sorry for the duplicate.
I agree with you
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