The U of N is Success-Based
by Dr. Tom Bloomer
International Provost
One of the distinctives of the University of the Nations is that it is success-based. This doesn't mean that we subscribe to worldly values of success, but rather that our courses and methods are designed to help each student succeed in finishing their courses. This may sound reasonable and normal to some, but actually most national school systems are failure-based.
Most nations have decided that they cannot afford to educate everyone fully, so they design the lower levels of school in order to weed out most people and identify the elite, the ones who will be most likely to complete university. In many nations only five per cent of the population attends University, and even in some developed nations the figure is only 20 per cent.
At the University of Lausanne , for example, beginning students in the Economics faculty are told on the first day that half of them will be failed, because there is only room for half their number in the second-year classes. Also, in most Swiss cantons, students are put into separate classes of three different levels of academic standards by the age of 12.
Even though education research has consistently shown that less intelligent students are helped by being in class with more gifted ones, and that the gifted ones are not slowed down by them, it remains politically impossible to put all students into one class. So people learn even before adolescence that their possibilities of education are limited. The worst thing about this system in Switzerland is that there is no way an adult can return to university later on; their formal education level is fixed for life.
Also, in the French -based systems papers are often graded on the number of errors, not on the number of correct elements. Add to this practice the systematic shaming of students who do badly, and we have the perfect recipe for what we call "educational wounding". As we talk to our students about their experience of school, many end up in tears. I can identify with them, I was asked to leave two different universities because of bad grades. I've often thought that one of my principal qualifications to be Provost of the UofN is that I have been through edcuational failure.
But some of the most wounded are those who succeed in the educational system! They have been taught that they are somehow better than others.
The good news: because all of our UofN students have already completed at least a DTS, they have already begun to walk into the healing of their past painful experiences. They are understanding that their self-worth is not based on what they've done or haven't done, but on God's love for them.
Our UofN staff work hard to help the students through each course. Many of them are close in age and experience to the students, all have already completed the course they are staffing, and they know what the students are going through. Each student has a one-on-one meeting with a staff member once a week, and the staff pray diligently for them.
In one of our Leadership Training Schools, the staff serve tea to the students before the final exam. They have already prayed with each one that they will succeed, and they encourage them. The fear is therefore removed from the process, and the exam becomes what it should be, a strategy for learning and retaining.
In the modern history of education, it was John Calvin in Geneva who insisted that every child had a right to a full education, no matter what their social class or financial level. Even the girls! He believed that it was the privilege and duty of every Christian to be able to read the Word of God. So before the citizens of Geneva were permitted to become Protestants, they had to promise to build a school for all the children, and fund it. That investment in the education of every citizen was one of the foundation stones of the new prosperity of Geneva .
Today most nations realize that education is the most certain path to development. But instead of fully educating only the elite and educating the rest to an average level, the most prosperous nations of the mid-21st century will be those who have made the commitment fo fully develop the gifts of every citizen, to the maximum of their potential.
Our ultimate example for being a success-based University is the Lord Himself; He is not willing that any should perish, but desires that all people should come to repentance (II Peter 3.9). He desires the ultimate and eternal success of each one of us.
We are committed to our students and their success, not just academically but in spiritual maturity, growth in relationships, and sensitivity to the needs of this world.
Because of Him Who first loved us. All of us, without distinction.
Yours in Christ,
Dr. Tom Bloomer
International Provost
YWAM