Indian education system, since ancient times have been a teacher student relationship, a relationship considered way above any other, where the teacher is the centre of this ‘knowledge giving and taking’. Since time immemorial, students were ‘receivers’ of knowledge rather than participants of discussions about knowledge. Though our society has progressed and we are in the 21st century, this notion about teaching and learning still prevails.
Students, after going through a rigorous schooling period of 10 years, have to choose between three streams, the majestic science, the ‘for average students’ commerce and the ‘last option left if you aren’t that meritorious’ arts (according to our society). The streams have limited number of subjects to choose from and those subjects, majorly, decide the higher studies a student is going to pursue.
When it comes to choosing a career option, it widely depends on parental and societal choices rather than the student’s choices. As a large number of families in India come under the middle class economic category, higher studies and career are chosen and opted according to job security it offers and the amount of money it pays at the end of the month (placements into big companies and MNCs are a major option people consider while choosing a career and a college). For parents, as well as students, higher studies and careers are limited to engineering, medicine, law, administrative and civil services. Also a major portion of our youth works in IT sectors. Teaching is what society and family regard as the last option left if one cannot find jobs in these ‘perfect’ sectors. What needs to be understood is that there is lack of knowledge about different and versatile career options to both students and parents. Although internet has helped a lot, still people either cannot come out of their glamorous stereotypical careers ideas or are afraid about their future if they choose an ‘offbeat’ one. Even in conventional careers, for instance, engineering, students and parents do not choose anything other than civil or computer science or electrical or mechanical. There are very few students who study the subjects because they are passionate about it and majority of them whine about the education system rather than contributing something to its dwindling quality and reputation.
Indian schooling system is largely based on long-hour lectures, assignments, mostly copied out from internet or from a classmate, lab practicals, exams and marks percentage CGPA. Overall development of a student and the evolution of teachers and their methodology are nil. As stated earlier, very few people take up teaching as a profession because they are passionate to teach young minds and those who are, end up getting sub standard salary which hardly encourages them to be focused or interact with the class or teach differently, in a new way.
Personality development, social interactions, learning new skills is negligible even among the minds of students where they are forced to write assignments upto late at night, learn and learn, mug up their books and write exams at a speculated date. Nobody wants to learn website development if they are in computer field learning coding. Very few people want to face their career in real life before their graduation. Very few students want to intern, learn things outside their books and develop themselves and the sad truth is that, companies now look into a person’s skill more than their marks.
A good learning atmosphere requires interactions among teachers and students and for this, there must a proper student to teacher ratio and proper infrastructure in an institution. Not every experiment can be shown first hand to the students so television and smart classes are necessary. Very few high school students actually understand what magnetic eddies are in real life. They just learn them in books and never are shown how magnetic eddies can affect a material.
Assignments given to students hardly test their practical knowledge. They test their copying skills. Students and teachers know about it and do nothing.
Examinations are based on how much a student can mug up and vomit into a paper. Although in an educational system examinations play a very important role, our examinations are not suited to examine our knowledge. The thing doesn’t lie in difficult or easy questions. It lies in the framework of the question and how much imagination students have to put in while answering them.
The future of this country lies on the hands of the children and the youth. Proper education is the only key for the development of a country. India needs better professional, better academicians, better scientists and better people, not to forget better politicians and government officials who are dedicated to bring change in this country and evolve it, right from the grass root level because we all know, pruning leaves may help the appearance but fertilizers help a plant to become healthy overall.
תגובות