Pros and Cons of Financial Rewards On Learners
Hi Friends!
The discussion for today needs a professional touch from my perspective. Giving learners money prizes for academic excellence is just one aspect of what is called motivation in education. Motivation is one of the terms that is adopted when talking about boosting the morale of students in a school, classroom or any form of the teaching-learning process. Hence, let's take a look at what motivation is in education.
WHAT IS MOTIVATION?
Motivation is an internal desire or willingness to do something. Motivation is what encourages people to set goals and then to take action to work toward achieving those goals. For example, someone who loves running may challenge themselves by setting goals of running a 5K or 10K source.
From the above, there are several models for which a learner can be inspired to do more. Hence, motivation pushes a learner beyond his or her ordinary limit. It is through this that a learner puts all his effort into studying to get better grades and retain what he or she has learned.
In education, there are two basic types of motivation, internal and external motivation and these two types of motivation are aimed at bringing the best from the learners.
This clearly states that giving money rewards to exceptional students isn't a bad idea at all though we all know that whatever has an advantage also has a disadvantage. In this case, the advantage is more.
Attention and Encouragement
In a world where the reading culture among students is dying on a daily basis because of influences from all facets of life, giving money as rewards to students who turnout to be high flying in their academics would call back the attention of those other learners who have wandered away or not taking their studies very seriously.
Taking this step can amount to encouraging the already high-flying learner to keep his game up.
Honour and Recognition
People should not only be chastised for doing wrong, when one does what is good like the scientists who make an invention, a father who led his children right and so on, they should be honoured and recognized too.
In my former school, year in year out, we rolled out special bow ties for learners who did well in their classes or during assembly. This has however made the learners to compete healthily in public speaking, impromptu speech, debate, and so on. The learners who won the award for best student proudly displayed their ties and were accorded that recognition even if it were for a short time.
In the case of financial reward, it goes down into history for such an individual. Hence, the body or organization responsible for such an award should make it huge unlike what we have heard of some higher institutions in Nigeria where the best graduating students get less than $10 as a money price.
Scholarship and Support
Through this model, a lot of students have received support to further their education. Fortunately for some of those learners, it would have been difficult to continue their education.
Internationally, a learner could go as far as experiencing another level of education that his or her mother nation cannot give. This is what financial rewards for outstanding learners can turn out to be.
Family and Communal Pride
A learner who has earned a financial award from his or her school becomes the reference point when speaking about good virtues. For instance, Africa's first Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka is a pride to the continent, then Nigeria, then Ogun state, then the Egba people, then to his family. The song goes on like that.
Consequences:
As good as it could be, giving financial rewards to learners for being exceptional may turn out sour due to the following:
Unethical Behaviour: Learners could begin to consider another shortcut to success. Professionals have opined that due to financial rewards, lazy learners have resorted to examination malpractice to pass exams at all cost not for the sale of placement but for reward. A school of thought have however stood to discourage financial reward for exceptional learners.
Non-fun Learning: Students begin to see education or learning as the beginning of an end (external reward). They would no longer long to have fun when learning, they become too careful, thereby losing the intricate part of having fun while learning which can lead to easy remembrance. Some may go to the extent of cramming for the sake of passing an assessment and afterwards, they do not remember the concept that had been taught.
In my view, motivation should be encouraged using gift items to boost learners morale and at some level, especially in research, money rewards can be given to bring about new invention in any field of study and life.
Hello @mrenglish
We've noticed that your engagement with other authors is a bit poor, and that's not encouraging at all. You need to make more comments on the post of others and also reply to comments on your posts as well. This is to foster growth within the community.
Good morning, @bruno-kema. The last post I made was the only time I didn't engage with other authors because I got busy with work.
Kindly check, you'd see how much I have engaged with other authors over time.
I was thinking how the money given as a prize will be spent and forgotten but it's not the same with scholarships and honors.
There are numerous advantages to giving money as rewards for academy excellence but the disadvantage mustn't be overlooked because in the long run, things can get very messy.
Rightly said.
Money is good though, a lot of caution should be considered when given learners money rewards.
Truthfully, adding money as an incentive should be done carefully so learners wouldn't compete based on financial rewards alone but for other positive reasons too.
Especially in this generation where money is considered first before hard work.
There are indeed pros and cons to giving cash rewards to brilliant students but judging from all you have talked about here, I would say that there are more benefits than consequences. I think giving gifts and things like scholarships would be much better than actual cash
Well said, bro.
We cannot remove motivation from the teaching-learning process but giving financial rewards could be considered at a higher level.