The criterion of quality in education

Title

Creator

Cinco, Vicente G.

Language

English

Source

Volume XIX (Issue No. 2) February 196

Year

1967

Subject

Educational quality

Educational standards

Educational evaluation

Universities and colleges—Evaluation

Universities and colleges--Standards

Rights

In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted

Fulltext

THE CRITERION OF QUALITY IN EDUCATION The improvement of a college should primarily find expression in the fine quality of its products. This element is identifiable in the vigorous growth of the intellectual ability of its students and in their acquisition of a discriminating sense of values. Such a resulting condition is in general a reflection of the challenging attitude of the college teachers towards scholarship and their dedication to the cause of edu cation as a pursuit for effective brain power and as a process of developing integrity, of thought and per sonal conduct The formal procedure and methods of teaching should serve as operating techniques for guiding the mental and emotional development of the learner to wards higher stages of maturity. They could be varied and diverse. For as the saying goes there are many and different roads to Rome. There are straight and direct pathways; and there are step by step ap proaches, passing through rugged, arduous, and for midable obstacles, but all leading or pointing ahead toward some beckoning goal of fulfillment. But methods, devices, and procedures are not the end of educational instruction. Neither should they be given as much importance and value to the student as the substance of education and science and as the purpose of educational development. They only pro vide the means of teaching; and the mere adoption of any of them does not necessarily bring about fruitful results. It is through their actual, serious, and intel February 1967 11 ligent application that their merits could be judged and their effectiveness tested. But there must be some objective proof, some authentic evidence, of the successful realization of the purposes of teaching methods and learning procedures. The effectiveness of instruction and study is best shown by the ultimate outcome of its intelligent and persis tent observance. It is the attainment of quality performance for the purpose it is intended that counts. It is the acqui sition of a disciplined mind and a responsible charac ter. Has the student improved his knowledge of lan guage, or mathematics, or history, or science, or eco nomics, or any other subject he has taken? Or bet ter still, has he learned how to make a more effec tive use of his senses, his imagination, his perceptive faculties, his critical power or creative ability? Has his college work and performance broadened his mo ral views, his mental horizon, his aesthetic sensitive ness, and his emotional attitude towards man and man’s personal strivings and social preferences? Methods and procedures are intended to bring forth the right answers to these questions. Properly em ployed, they may lead the learner to a thorough under standing of the content of their courses of study and a critical appreciation of their meaning in relation to their personal aspirations and reasonable expectancies in their place in the economic and social order. But the attainment of quality in the educational record of a student may not be taken for granted. It has to be tested by a fair and unbiased examination and observation of accomplished tasks and developed traits. It needs to be tested through some form of valid assessment and evaluation of acquired practices of study and dedication to work. ‘ It is the student’s achievement of superior performance in such tasks and what such performance reveals in the refinement of 12 Panorama his sense of values, the vigor of his critical faculties, and the adequate formation of his mental habits that count in the last analysis. Obviously, no method of testing and measuring may be expected to show ac curately the reality of all these qualities of mind and character. Given their subjective nature, it is enough for a test to reveal indubitable traces of their dis tinctive potentialities for fuller development in the course of time. All these acquired qualities and talents form the composite and distinctive hallmark of genuine quality in learning, in education, and in practically all other branches of human endeavor. -They are exceedingly more useful and valuable than the mere acquisition of information and the reproduction of second-hand knowl edge. They are the valid symbols of the educated and progressive individual. Their development should be the aim of the teacher and the purpose of a college. It is high time that general recognition of this test of quality in education be given by Filipinos anxious for intellectual and cultural advancement as the chief vehicle towards national progress. — Vicente G. Sinco. February 1967 13

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