Education system in India needs reform

Indian education system needs to be reformed so that it could incorporate culture-based education and link the younger generation with the older one

"The present education is based on Macaulay (a British academician) system. It delinks us from our culture....we have to link the younger generation to our generation and culture,"

Same time we need to build great career for our students with the use of technology
Children in the present generation major cities and towns are more focused towards their career and can take decisions without much confusion as they are not only educated by text books but also through internet. E-education is really becoming popular in the present scenario, now students are getting an opportunity to learn online. That's really great.

EDUCATIONAL REFORMS

Education builds the man so it builds the nation. Today we claim to be the biggest human resources supplier for the world, but are we concerned what quality of human capital we are building and for whose needs? We supply bureaucrats to the government, software engineers to the IT companies around the world, highly paid managers to the multinationals, we supply engineers and science graduates as researchers to the foreign universities. What capital are we building for ourselves?

India aspires to be powerful, it wants to play a role in the international community, for that to happen, its economy has to grow multifold and for that to happen, it requires a huge force of entrepreneurs who could transform it into a nation which produces, from the one which only consumes. India needs a huge force of innovators who could make it self reliant in all kinds of sciences and technologies. India needs artists who could make its culture the most popular in the world. A culture which is not only saleable itself but also helps in selling India’s products across the world. In a nutshell, India needs Henry Fords, Bill Gateses, Thomas Alva Edisons and Michael Jacksons born and educated in India.

One may say we had few. Yes, we had. M. S. Swaminathan who made India self reliant in food grains, Dhiru Bhai Ambani who proved a common man can become a billionaire, Dr. Varghese Kurien who is the father of Amul milk movement, Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam who dared to build missiles for India, Pundit Ravishankar who is the ambassador of the Indian music to the world. Such people though in small numbers, were always there. But they are not the products of this education system. This system did not teach them how to become innovators or entrepreneurs or artists. Had it done so, they would have been millions in numbers. These people were inspired themselves. To some of them, their education may have given the technical know-how (though it is hardly conceivable), but not the dream or the inspiration needed. It is the education which should inspire one to become something one really wants to. Education should make you free, should make you experiment and it should make you ask questions. Ultimately, it should make you realize what you are.

Youngsters in India, do not have the freedom of selecting there career, it is said. They are forced to become engineers, doctors, MBA’s and IAS officers, it is said. Yes, agree. But that is not the problem. The problem is, youngsters in India do not have the vision to think beyond. Neither their parents, nor their grandparents had that vision. This is where the root of the problem is. Generations have gone through a system which sucks. Now the beauty is even the law-makers and educators of today’s India are products of that age old system. That is why no less than a revolution is needed in the education system in India.

What do we expect from such a revolution?

A revolution means big changes. We expect the revolution in education to bring lots of changes. These changes will result into:

1. Best talents of the country working in the education sector.

Today, education is not the career of choice, but it is the career of compromise. If you are a teacher, people sympathize, they curse the prevalent unemployment in the country. Education is one of the highest profit making ‘industries’ in the service sector, but its workers are the least paid compared to those working in somewhat glamorous sectors like the IT industry. This has to change.

2. A world class infrastructure.

The experience of shopping at malls is better than the old dirty bazaars. The experience of traveling in a metro train is much better than suffering in the city buses. The experience of driving on four or six lane highways is much better the same way. The same way, infrastructure has a meaning in education. World class universities and schools with world class libraries, laboratories and classrooms, in a world class building make a world class infrastructure for education.

3. Greater investments into education, public as well as private.

We need world class infrastructure and best talents in all schools and universities of India. These resources should not remain limited to a handful of IIT’s or IIM’s. Each village should have a school with all resources and facilities. Each university should have whatever it needs for a better education. This would require huge money and hence, huge investments.

4. Education which encourages innovation and creativity.

When farmers in the villages of Punjab make a vehicle from the diesel engine and name it Maruta (A male version of Maruti), that is innovation. When villagers of the Rajasthan and Gujarat transform the Bike ‘Enfield Bullet’ into a local auto-rickshaw, that is creativity. How many automobile engineering students could do likewise? The question is, how many?

5. Education which encourages entrepreneurship.

In a Hindi movie ‘Nayak’, the father of the actress refuses to permit for her marriage with the actor because he is not a government servant. At last, he permits, but then the Actor had become the chief minister of the state. This mindset of the society, particularly of the middle class, has to be changed. You are not a respectful person if after education you start a business, as that is seen as a failure in getting a job. It is the task of the education system to change this mindset. It also has to inspire the youth for the necessary courage and vision for entrepreneurship.

SHARING CHILDREN PROBLEMS

All parents desire that their children share their problems with their parents. However, many children do not share the same desire. Why does such a situation arise?

It is very often painful for children to bring up their problems to their parents. If, what they get in return from their parents are nothing more that irrelevant, and sometimes inappropriate, responses and instructions, the children will feel that it is not worth their trouble to be open with their parents. Also, sometimes, the responses are so dis empowering to the children that they are actually not only counter-productive, they can be very damaging to their children’s development.

We, as parents, have to understand the reasons why giving out advices without careful understanding is not helpful. We will have to learn to respond to our children’s problems in such a way that we empower them to solve their own problems.

We shall now discuss the reasons why giving advices to our children the usaul way is not helpful to our children.

We assume that we know what the problems are and forget to first listen carefully in order to better understand the problems. As a result, due to lack of in-depth understanding of the real issues, the advice that we so readily provide will not be relevant and will not solve the problems.

Without sufficient probing, we may not understand our children’s points of view or perspectives on what trouble them. As a result we do not provide the solutions that our children need. When our children share conflict that they are having with their friends, we may start advising them on how to stay away from those friends while they actually may be feeling guilty for not treating their friends right and want to gain the courage to apologize to their friend. As a result we may be doing further damage to relationships that they are trying so hard to salvage.

In our eagerness and haste to provide the counsel, we forget to extend empathy to our children for the problems they are facing. Our children will not feel connected to us, and they may feel that whatever suggestions we provide have no bearings on their problems and are unlikely to be accepted.

As we are the one dishing out the advice, if the advice turns out to be good, the credit goes to us and not to our children. On the other hand, if the advice is taken and implemented but does not turn out to be successful, it is taken to be our children’s fault as the advice is likely to have been one that was successful when followed by another person. In this case, it is a lose-lose situation for our children because if the advice is successful, we claim the credit and if it is a failure, it is a reflection of our children’s incompetence and stupidity.

We take the position of the experts who have the knowledge and wisdom and we talk down when we give advice, instead of speaking as equals. We treat our children as if they have neither the knowledge nor the skills to handle the problems. It is a one-way traffic and likely to be resented by our children because they feel that we treat them as if they have nothing good to share with us.

We give the message that we think our children cannot develop the solutions themselves. This is disempowering for our children and will do great harm to our children’s development.

We do not show appreciation for the efforts our children have taken in solving their own problems. This will discourage them to take great efforts in coming up with their own solutions and taking the necessary steps to solve the problems when other problems crop up in the future.

They may just want to share their problems with us and do not want or need any counsel from us at all. Whatever advice we provide may not only be futile, but damaging to our children’s self esteem.

We shall now discuss what we shall take into consideration when we respond to our children’s sharing of the issues that they face.

How are you going to understand their problems and help your children gain a better understanding of their own problems so that they can develop their own solutions? As parents, we encourage our children to connect the various aspects of the problem that trouble them in order to help them to have a good grasp of the specific issues that trouble them and encourage them to develop their own solutions.

How are you going to show sufficient empathy with your children so that they feel fully connected with you enough to express their real thoughts and feelings and be receptive of what wisdom you may have to offer? Our children want to feel that we are there with them - not just physically, but emotionally as well. We want them to feel that we do feel the way they feel. It is vital that we do not belittle their feelings.

How are you going to make the situations “win-win” for them? That is, how are you going to encourage them to develop their own solutions and they take the credit when they succeed and also take the credit for the efforts taken when they fail? If they are the ones who come up with the solutions they should be the ones who claim the credits when they succeed. On the other hand, if they fail, provide the encouragement that they have taken the efforts which are by themselves very admirable. When they fail, encourage them to get up again, examine the reasons for failure and try again.

The last, but definitely not the least, question is this: “What else can you do to make them feel that it is always good for them to bring their problems to you?”

EDUCATIOPN REFORMS

Lets not not train our students to learn by force and harshness, but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that we may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each.

Why not we can introduce open book examination for post graduate studies and also a mini project every semester which in turn will lay foundation for future innovations

REDEFINE HIGHER EDUCATION

The present system of higher education does not serve the purpose for which it has been started. In general education itself has become so profitable a business that quality is lost in the increase of quantity of professional institutions with quota system and politicization adding fuel to the fire of spoil system, thereby increasing unemployment of graduates without quick relief to mitigate their sufferings in the job market of the country. So, the drawbacks of the higher education system underscore the need for reforms to make it worthwhile and beneficial to all concerned.We should redefine the system of higher education in our country from memory based to application oriented learning system

education and politics

Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education. Let educated people like us should start taking lead in politics

MAKE INDIA PROUD

Let us think of education as the means of developing our greatest abilities, because in each of us there is a private hope and dream which, fulfilled, can be translated into benefit for everyone and greater strength for our nation. So friends lets join and share ideas to improve our nation by contributing our skills and knowledge to build a strong India / wish educated people like us should come to politics in a big way and save our country from present set of politicians / Jai hind / proud to be Indian

EDUCATION SYSTEM

Education would be much more effective if its purpose was to ensure that by the time they leave school or college every boy and girl should know how much they do not know, and be imbued with a lifelong desire to know it.

AIM OF EDUCATION

The aim of education should be to teach us rather how to think, than what to think - rather to improve our minds, so as to enable us to think for ourselves, than to load the memory with thoughts of other men.

jpgandhi speaks

I am beginning to suspect all elaborate and special systems of education. They seem to me to be built upon the supposition that every child or student is a kind of idiot who must be taught to memorize . Whereas if the child or the student is left to himself, he will think more and better, if less "showily". Let him come and go freely, let him touch real things and combine his impressions for himself... Teaching fills the mind with artificial associations that must be got rid of before the child can develop independent ideas out of actual experiences. Lets have more practical oriented subjects rather than theoretical

jpgandhi views

Education would be much more effective if its purpose was to ensure that by the time they leave school every boy and girl should know how much they do not know, and be imbued with a lifelong desire to know it.