Joud Al-Amri Saudi Gazette JEDDAH — Who is responsible for students forgetting what they have studied in schools? There are a number of conflicting answers for this question which exclude the students themselves. Some people will hasten to put the blame on the Ministry of Education while others will not hesitate to accuse the teachers, the syllabus and the corruption in ministries, government departments and schools. No matter who is responsible, the sure thing is that students usually tend to forget all that they have studied during their school years the moment they are out of schools. A large number of students do not make use or apply what they have learned in their daily lives. Others say they receive more information through experiences in daily life than from schools. Razan Sulaiman Al-Thaqafi, a 20-year-old university student, said she has never benefited from any school studies. “I do not remember a time when I used in my actual life what I have learned in school,” she said. She said the few bits of information that she had retained were those relating to scientific subjects. “My knowledge of reading and writing was polished by reading the Holy Qur'an and not by the subjects I have studied in schools,” she said. “I am unable to remember anything from chemistry or geography I had studied in intermediate and secondary schools,” she said. Manal Al-Sulaimani, a graduate of public administration and economy from King Abdulaziz University, said she does not recall any of the subjects she had studied in schools. “The moment I got out of the final exam, my mind erased all the data I had stored,” she said. Hatim Al-Turki, a 25-year-old university graduate, said the only imprint education leaves on the minds of students are the bad memories and the hatred toward the entire process of learning. “The moment the students leave the examination halls, their learning evaporates leaving no traces of anything that they have studied,” he said. Al-Turki said the matter is worse in universities. “The graduates of other colleges made no use of their learning. They only continue their studies for four years to be university graduates at the end of the day,” he said. A female teacher, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the method of teaching is obsolete. “The ministry is making good syllabi but the method of teaching is backward,” she said. The female teacher also said the lack of adequate budget and corruption among a number of school principals was responsible for the deterioration of education. “The existing style of teaching makes the students hate learning and so they tend to delete from their minds whatever they were forced to learn,” she said. She called for the establishment of enough number of labs to enable students make live experiments on the subjects they have studied. “This is one way of keeping the data live in their minds,” she said.
