This refers to a practice where students are promoted to a higher class without actually grasping the material to be learned at the current class. With this concerning promotion comes the fear that students who are not strong enough might end up failing in future grade levels; since their current academic problems were not dealt with on time.
Educators supporting social promotion say that students who’re are held back a grade experience a negative impact on their educational experience. They are more prone to develop behavioral problems and even drop out of school before graduation. According to these educators, social promotion favors the child’s psychological and social well-being. However, there’s another side of the story.
Studies suggest that social promotion does little to help a child’s academic career move forward. Opponents of social promotion claim that the practice just hides the failure of the schools to educate their students properly and does nothing to help those children match up academically to their peers. These people consider social promotion to be of little use as it tries to remedy problems after they’ve occurred, instead of nipping them in the bud.
Social promotion is often looked down upon as a gross oversimplification of the educational experience. Since this method overlooks the need of repeating a full year of schooling, overwhelmed students may tune out and end up developing a negative attitude toward the educational world at large. Due to their inability to catch up, socially promoted students are more likely to become alienated from school. As a result, they face a higher drop-out rate in later years because they fail to handle the mounting load of schoolwork, grades, and tests.
Social promotion creates the potential for students graduating without having the essential know-how and skills required to get a good job. As a result, these students won’t be able to contribute productively to modern society. Institutions for higher education will be forced to set aside a significant part of their budgets to run remedial programs. That’s because socially promoted high school graduates won’t be ready to succeed in postsecondary education without this additional help and guidance. Even employers will need to invest heavily in their training to bridge the learning gap. Social promotion may also give students the idea that hard work and achievement aren’t that important. It’ll create a false sense of confidence in parents too, as they’ll start believing their children are ready to handle the rigors of higher education and the modern workforce.
