Academic
- In the context of schools, a prefect is a pupil who has been given limited authority over other pupils in the school, similar to the authority given to a hall monitor or safety patrol member.
- In some British and Commonwealth schools (especially but not exclusively Independent schools), prefects, usually students in fifth to seventh years (depending on how many years the school in question has), have considerable power; in some cases they effectively run the school outside the classroom. They were once even allowed to administer school corporal punishment in some schools (now abolished in the UK and several other countries). They usually answer to a senior prefect known as the Head of School (though in Canada, Head of School is more often seen as a gender-neutral term for headmaster or headmistress) or Head Prefect or Head Boy or Head Girl or Senior Prefect. Larger schools may have a hierarchical structure with a team of prefects, a team of senior prefects, and a Head Boy and Girl. The Head Prefect may also be the School Captain if that is an appointed position in the school. However, due to Health and Safety laws the staff have tended to become stricter about what responsibilities prefects may hold, for fear of being held responsible in case of litigation. This system is also practised in Hong Kong, a former British colony.
- In India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Singapore and Malaysia, prefects are student leaders in primary and secondary schools, often along the lines of other Commonwealth schools, but with superior powers. The prefect systems in these countries have changed little from when they were under the British, as the present governments have seen them as effective.
- In Sweden, a prefect (prefekt) is the head of a university department.
- In Jesuit and other Catholic schools this title was given formerly to members of the faculty, a prefect of discipline in charge of student attendance, general order and such, and a prefect of studies in charge of academic issues.
Many college preparatory boarding schools utilize the position of Prefect as a high student leadership position.
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Famous quotes containing the word academic:
“I was so grateful to be independent of the academic establishment. I thought, how awful it would be to have my future hinge on such people and such decisions.”
—Jane Jacobs (b. 1916)
“If we focus exclusively on teaching our children to read, write, spell, and count in their first years of life, we turn our homes into extensions of school and turn bringing up a child into an exercise in curriculum development. We should be parents first and teachers of academic skills second.”
—Neil Kurshan (20th century)
“The academic expectations for a child just beginning school are minimal. You want your child to come to preschool feeling happy, reasonably secure, and eager to explore and learn.”
—Bettye M. Caldwell (20th century)