Lean Pedagogy: Using Lean Thinking to Improve Student Results and Optimise Classroom Costs

CHAPTER 1: THE EDUCATIONAL CONTEXT

Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world. ∼ Nelson Mandela

Educational institutions are vehicles for maintaining, redressing, and transforming cultural and socio-economic interests, many of which are embedded in school curriculums. Achieving certain desired social and economic outcomes through an effective curriculum increases the likelihood that individuals will emerge from an educational system better suited for tertiary education and/or employment.² As asserted by Abraham Lincoln, The philosophy of the classroom today will be the philosophy of government [society] tomorrow. ³

When deciding upon the desired outcomes of an education system, a relevant curriculum is developed and implemented in schools, with the expectation that students will attain the desired output (as illustrated below in Figure 1.1).

Figure 1.1: Flow of inputs to outputs of an education system

Education is now widely regarded as a universal human right, and in many countries, education consumes more money and employs more people than other public institutions. Education systems also have more significant influence on citizens’ values, skills, as well as work and leisure habits. Populations that are more educated show greater prosperity through higher levels of scientific innovation and military prowess. ¹There is also a correlation between the percentage of a population that advances to higher education and that country’s overall gross domestic product (GDP).⁴ Quite astutely, John F. Kennedy once noted that, The progress of a nation could not be swifter than the progress of its education.

ISSUES IN SCHOOL SYSTEMS

Despite education’s clear social and economic importance, schooling systems in many countries fail to meet their stakeholders’ needs. Chief among chronic deficiencies are poor student results, with fewer students completing the minimum recommended years in schools, and inadequate budgets which prevent the achievement of the intended objectives.⁵

International reports on the comparative standing of pupil attainment in mathematics show that the problem with quality of results actually begins in lower grades.⁶ Deficiencies that go uncorrected in the early stages of schooling are carried forward to subsequent grades, thus creating higher-level defects that are far more difficult to reverse. For example, in some countries the average student performance in mathematics drops from about 60% in the first year of schooling to 13% eight years