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A good bit of time will be spent by a couple of million college students in our country at the remedial classes trying to figure out what they were supposed to learn till now and did not. The sad state today is that the benchmark standards was met by only one third of high school graduating seniors for science and most of them failed to do so in math. In reading and English, many students are still below par.

This is a depressing situation and most students in science are far away from the ACT benchmark standards. We all know that certain population groups are not as well prepared as certain others. Preparedness varies with different population groups too. ACT criteria is met only by 5 per cent black students and only 1:2 white high school graduates meet the standards.

Today, most students are not completely prepared for college and this has led to a situation where remedial courses in English, science and math have become very common. The courses are not as effective and they do not address the issue and correct deficiencies confidently.

Remediation is definitely a broken system says a group that helps promote academic success rates in college. Complete College America determined through a study that most of the community college students attend at least one remedial course. One-fifth of students at the four-year schools also attend remedial programs.

In community colleges, only ten per cent of students who attend remedial courses graduate in three years. In six years’ time, sixty-five per cent of remedial students at four-year colleges still do not have a degree. In comparison, only 44 per cent of students who do not attend remedial classes fail to graduate in six years.

The reasons for this could be many. One of the main reasons is that remedial classes in a typical university are taken by not well-qualified professors but low-paid graduate students or adjunct instructors.

We are well aware that our country desperately needs high quality high-school education in order to be internationally competitive. We can see only a modest amount of change even after decades of reform efforts.

We need more choices and competition in public education. There must be no undue barriers in the path of change and innovation. Non-merit compensation structures and teaching seniority rules that are outmoded must be completely removed. There must also be a strong cooperation between faculties who are aware of their student’s exact needs in terms of curriculum and those who actually create the curriculum.

Colleges in our country must start facing their own responsibilities. They must be made to realize that remedial courses have been in existence for decades now and are programs that miserably failed.
According to Complete College America group, a positive first step would be to include subpar students into regular academic classes and doing away with remedial courses.

Students must be helped to master advanced course materials through timely tutoring. Though there is no guarantee that this will be a successful approach, we could always try it out and see if it is effective.