About a decade ago, I came up with a principle I coined as educational excellence. I opined that we must promote educational excellence instead of academic excellence, for the former outshines the amorality of the latter.
Let us compare and contrast the two principles according to their dictum:
Academic Excellence:
For the dictum of academic excellence is to attain academic merits through scholastic pursuits.
Educational Excellence:
To pursue knowledge in all available avenues and put knowledge into practice for the purpose of self and social welfare.
That means educational excellence tells us the following:
- If you do not have the means to pursue formal education, you do not need to resort to illegal and immoral activities to join the academic world, because there are other learning avenues available out there.
- People must put emphasis on practical knowledge. Memorizing the scientific names of vegetables is a good thing, but isn't it better if you know how to cook them?
- True education must contribute to the empowerment of the individual, and the individual must contribute to the empowerment of the community.
As you can see, educational excellence has nothing to do with having a college degree, graduating with honors, or being from a "reputable" university. The goals of educational excellence can simply be summed up to three values: lifelong learning, practicality, and social responsibility.
Also, educational excellence strongly opposes various forms of cheating in the academic world, because cheating only gives a student good grades but not good grasp of the subject, and thus it is incompatible with the virtue of true learning.
Educational excellence, NOT academic excellence, is the mindset that we need to adopt as far as education is concerned.
Let us compare and contrast the two principles according to their dictum:
Academic Excellence:
For the dictum of academic excellence is to attain academic merits through scholastic pursuits.
Educational Excellence:
To pursue knowledge in all available avenues and put knowledge into practice for the purpose of self and social welfare.
That means educational excellence tells us the following:
- If you do not have the means to pursue formal education, you do not need to resort to illegal and immoral activities to join the academic world, because there are other learning avenues available out there.
- People must put emphasis on practical knowledge. Memorizing the scientific names of vegetables is a good thing, but isn't it better if you know how to cook them?
- True education must contribute to the empowerment of the individual, and the individual must contribute to the empowerment of the community.
As you can see, educational excellence has nothing to do with having a college degree, graduating with honors, or being from a "reputable" university. The goals of educational excellence can simply be summed up to three values: lifelong learning, practicality, and social responsibility.
Also, educational excellence strongly opposes various forms of cheating in the academic world, because cheating only gives a student good grades but not good grasp of the subject, and thus it is incompatible with the virtue of true learning.
Educational excellence, NOT academic excellence, is the mindset that we need to adopt as far as education is concerned.
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