The College of Education, Health and Human Services has always had strenuous entrance requirements with at least a 2.75 GPA needed to enlist in the college. However, today the faculty senate will vote on a proposal, which if successful, would lower the requirement to a 2.5 GPA for admission.

On one level, this is simply a bureaucratic move designed to make the entrance requirements uniform throughout the college rather than having different guidelines for each program. But there are other factors at play as well.

We’re already in the beginning of a crisis regarding a lack of trained teachers in this country. A problem which is sure to worsen when the baby boomer generation, which still fills the majority of secondary teaching positions, begin to retire en masse in a couple of years.

The simple truth is we need more teachers in America, and even if they aren’t necessarily the best ones ever, they’re definitely better than nothing. Therefore a maneuver to provide more teachers to fill those slots is, to a certain extent, justifiable and even noble.

The other major impetus behind this change is that it would provide greater opportunity for students to become teachers. The theory being that otherwise capable candidates are put off by the GPA requirements and never attempt to join the college, or by that same token are inhibited by said requirements.

However, for a variety of reasons such a move should not be allowed to go through.

The main reason for the requirement in the first place is that a student’s work in the college is among the most time-consuming and strenuous in the entire university.

Right now the students currently enrolled appear up to the task, as education students’ average GPA is usually among the highest average GPA in a major on campus, scoring a 3.8-3.9 every year.

The question which needs to be asked is if a student can only muster a 2.5 what makes anyone think that they will be able to handle this greatly increased workload? After all, a 2.5 translates to only a B-/C+ average, which isn’t particularly high. Especially considering it will be the graduates of the college who have the responsibility of educating the next generation.

Also, when a graduate is looking for a job in the “real world,” the level of prestige of the institution from which they received their degree is a major factor in whether they actually can get hired.

Lowering requirements will harm Kent State in that regard, as the prestige of the college will be lessened and in turn future employers will wonder whether their candidate is fully qualified.

The lacking quantity of teachers is alarming, but so is the lack of quality as more and more new instructors seem to be outgunned when dealing with the troubles that can arise in teaching situations. Creating a new generation of teachers under lower qualification standards will just make things worse.

While the reasoning behind this proposal is well intended, the standards of the College of Education, Health and Human Services need to be upheld.

The above opinion is the consensus opinion of the editorial board of the Daily Kent Stater.