• Today: October 6, 2026

The making of a student

There was a time when being a good student could be measured rather neatly.

Attend class, listen to the teacher, complete your homework, study hard and, hopefully, leave school with good examination results.

Those things still matter. But for a Bruneian student growing up today, education has become a much bigger proposition.

They are coming of age in a world where information is available almost instantly, artificial intelligence can answer questions in seconds and the careers they eventually enter may look very different from those available today.

In such a world, what a student knows matters. But who they become matters just as much.

LESSONS WITHOUT TEXTBOOKS

Character development can sometimes sound secondary to academic achievement, particularly when grades remain one of the clearest ways of measuring progress.

Yet many of the qualities young people will depend on throughout adulthood cannot easily be graded.

Can they work with someone whose opinions differ from theirs? Can they admit when they are wrong? Can they distinguish reliable information from something designed to mislead them? Can they remain respectful when disagreement is easier behind a screen?

These are lessons learnt not only through textbooks, but through friendships, school activities, mistakes, responsibilities and everyday interactions with teachers, families and classmates.

Brunei’s education system recognises this wider development through areas such as the 6Cs – critical thinking, creativity, communication, collaboration, character and citizenship – alongside the values fostered through Malay Islamic Monarchy (MIB) and religious education.

Together, they point towards an education concerned not simply with producing knowledgeable students, but responsible people.

GROWING UP IN A CHANGING WORLD

This becomes particularly important when technology can increasingly do some of the things once expected of students.

A machine can retrieve information, solve certain problems and generate a convincing piece of writing. What it cannot decide for a young person is what they believe, how they treat another person or what responsibilities they carry towards their community.

Those decisions belong to them.

The workplace they eventually enter will also demand qualities beyond qualifications. Knowledge can become outdated. Industries change. New skills emerge.

A willingness to learn, communicate, adapt and work with others can carry a person through those changes.

WHO LEAVES THE CLASSROOM?

Perhaps education has always been about this, even when we did not describe it in such terms.

A student enters school to learn how the world works, but somewhere between their first lessons and their final examinations, they are also learning how to live within it.

For a Bruneian student, that means carrying knowledge alongside identity, values and a sense of responsibility towards others.

There will always be another examination, another qualification or another skill to learn.

But eventually, the student leaves the classroom. The person they have become goes with them.

File photo of students during a nationhood programme. PHOTO: CONTRIBUTOR

 

SOURCE/AUTHOR : BORNEO BULLETIN

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