Online education advisor Dr. Dale Spender has called for the New South Wales Higher School Certificate to be scrapped in favour of a system based on online education.
Spender told leading education advisors and high-ranking pedagogues today that the NSW secondary certificate was the biggest impediment to student learning during the launch of a report she co-authored, Embracing e-Learning in Australian Schools.
It's a belief the Australian Interactive Multimedia Industry Association adviser has maintained for over 25 years, but Spender now says that the onset of the Knowledge Economy has increased the urgency for change.
Admitting that she was taking "great risks" in making the statement Spender said that she wanted to encourage the community to debate the issue.
Spender believes the incumbent education system will ultimately fail students entering the Knowledge Economy and stifle the development of students who engage in e-learning.
"Politicians shouldn't rely on the way they were taught as a model to educate the current generation," she said.
According to Spender's report, the movement from print to digital paradigms is fundamentally altering the way that students learn.
Rather than adhering to a curriculum of pre-set answers and questions to accumulate knowledge in a linear fashion, under the e-learning model student education would be self-directed and not "based on an assembly-line model".
She described the current "content" based model, where teachers hold knowledge that is transferred to students who are then assessed for their ability to retain it, as "Pavlov dog stuff" that doesn't promote critical thinking or innovation.
According to Spender, while an e-learning system is far more suitable for an economy geared to creating knowledge products the current education system can stifle it.
"Playing computer games calls on the same skills as are required for e-learning," Spender said. "Teachers see it as misspent youth rather than a key to getting the job in the Knowledge Economy".
Privately, sources at the event said that there was no political will to scrap the education system and that there was unlikely to be any time soon.
Dr Dale Spender wants to scrap traditional education? According to research in Japan, playing video games when connected to a brainwave monitor,indicates the same pattern as the mentally retarded.Is this a case of trying to sell a product with scare tactics?