The reason why focus is lost on academics
As we come to know of it, Education is very important to a man's life, it opens his eyes to understand his environment and people around him. Asides from that, it opens him to opportunities in which he can make a living form and live the life he wants to live. The richness of our life is based on the knowledge and information we have gathered, known and put to practice. This is why every child is sent to school in order to become educated, understand and choose his path of life so that someday he can make a living of his own too.
Every child in school today is pursuing a certain academic certificate or degree because of the sole purpose of being able to make a living, being able to make money for themselves. Therefore, the main reason why students get distracted from their academics is mostly when they see that there are means of making an extra income asides from their regular pocket money, which might not be enough to stay through the troubles and expenses of school, and instead put more focus on the side hustle than their academics itself.
They lose focus on academics and worry more about surviving because that is the only guarantee they see to solve the troubles they face. Hence you find that students of this generation fail more and have lower grades as compared to before all because their main focus have been shifted from academics to the state of survival.
The Need for Cash Reward for Academic Brilliance
Students are failing more in this generation, not because there are not brilliant but because their focus are no longer on academics, but now on making money. If there was a reward system for academic brilliance, this will bring their attention back toward their academics and bring up competition that will make students sit up so they can get a chance to at the prize or reward.
If there are no rewards for academic brilliance, a lot of students will not see their academics worth taking seriously because they are shortsighted on the advantages of having good academics or distracted from the need to survival instead of studying.
Imagine if there is a grand prize given to students who make it to a certain score or mark in their academics, or a form of scholarship that will help support the student living expenses like housing and feeding through the semester or term. There will be a lot of students putting a lot of work and sleepless night on the line because these rewards provide a way to solve the foundational issues they have, the main reason why they are distracted.
Imagine if this is funded by the government in different school. Imagine the turn around that will happen in the grades of many students. It will definitely be a massive one.