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SOCIAL PROMOTION
Failing grades; passing kids
Training Handout
What are the advantages or benefits to society of the practice of social promotion?
Social promotion is the term used to describe the practice of passing a pupil from one grade or level to
the next when the child has not completed all the requirements to qualify
for that promotion.
The practice is justified by saying the child may obtain damage to her or his psyche.
The disappointment may contribute to the pupil having lower self esteem or a lower sense of self
worth.
It is further justified by the notion
that it is the responsibility of the school to ensure that pupils are happy
and have high self respect.
It can be questioned
that social promotion avoids lower self esteem.
If the socially promoted pupil finds
out that s/he has been given a promotion without achieving the requirements,
that, too, may equally contribute to low self esteem.
It also contributes to people obtaining
creditation without having the qualifications implied by the
creditation.
In general, and throughout society,
if it depends upon those certifications for the distribution of jobs and
privileges, it puts unqualified individuals in positions where they are
expected to be qualified.
Our urban industrial and post-industrial
society is one which relies on creditation, so its strength is
reduced.
Drivers who pay for their licenses
when they could not pass a driving test, doctors, pilots and persons in
life-or-death occupations, get their positions because of their
certificates.
If they obtained them without having
the qualifications, society may be hindered in its functioning.
The question of why a college or
university level instructor would "socially promote" a student takes the
concept out of the text book (where it implied something done at the public
school levels) and asking if it might apply to the giving of grades to
College students.
By extension, it would mean giving
a passing grade instead of failure, or a high grade instead of a low grade
because that would make a student feel better.
It is my opinion that giving a higher
grade than one earned by a student serves no social benefit, or serves
negative benefits (costs) to society.
It would allow untrained
persons to obtain certificates (or entrance into a university).
Instructors are often approached
by students who complain about their grades, because they are upset, or
because they need a higher grade to get into the university.
Raising their grades on those bases,
instead of their academic achievements, serves to lower the college standards
and contribute to more people having certificates that do not reflect their
abilities or achievements.
Apart from giving higher grades to
make them feel better, if an instructor gives higher grades in return for
receiving favours of any kind, it is more than social promotion. It is
corruption (bribery) whether what is offered is sexual or
monetary or otherwise.
I have worked in many countries where
this is a common practice rather than an occasional deviation, but that
has not changed my opinion that is serves no social benefit, or rather
generates social costs.
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2011.08.16
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