These days education specialists like Aamir Khan and Kapil Sibbal ji are stressing on one simple issue “The Restructuring of Indian Educational System” to make it more stress free and more oriented towards students. The emphasis of education according to these reform supporters should be on one single issue and that is what ever is given to the students is not a burden but a matter of bliss for them. Before we affirm or reject their views completely its better to look into below stated few instance.
Remember the day when you get less marks in mathematics and returned home with a sad face and dropped shoulders. What encouraged you more? A red face of your father or a soothing hug of your mom who simply kissed your forehead and said my son will do his best I know and will be a winner next time.
A reputed US research agency designed a test for checking the mental toughness of fighter pilots and most of European armies were consulted for conducting the test. But the US agency’s request was turned down. An engineering college in India was consulted and a few hundred rupees were offered to students appearing in the test. 95% passed it successfully with excellent grades.
And why is second case told here, just to point you one thing My friends Indian educational system is unique highly unique because it puts students into most severe brain storming conditions and the family support system in the country makes the students so much tough at mental level that they face all UPs and DOWNs with convenience and regard it as a part of life. JEEVAN EK SANGHARSH hai.
So my view is YES education should not be a burden and tell you, during my school life between 1983 and 1997 (Nursery to 12th) I never felt education as a burden even at the later stages of educational life. Learning was never a burden and despite a highly formal educational system we all enjoyed our university days and most of us still remember those days of fun filled learning. Yes a few dissatisfied were there. But for them educational system was lesser burden and higher burden was the day by day growing expectations of their family and parents who were never ready to accept their child as a looser in the race of life. Yes they were people for whom success was more important than anything else.
So my point here is, we may incorporate a varying degree of innovativeness in our educational system but if we really want our kids to be at their best than there should be a simple agenda. Make them competent enough to handle the stress of life. It will be possible only when we expose them to controlled level of stress through our educational system and provide them moral support at family and school administration level so that they learn to handle the stress without affecting their efficiency. And this could be done by just one minor level train the parents, the teachers and school and college administrators. And let the kids face all tough challenges with full courage in their own skills and abilities, because in this cruel world of market economy, only those will win who are tough at mental level.
4 comments:
the whole system needs to be changed. Parents, teachers, social expectations and attitude towards education that focus more on knowledge seeking and skill building than passing some silly exam and getting mere numbers. Parents need to be blamed for carring their unfulfilled dreams to the children's lives, building their social status based of their kid's school performances. What most parents know is to build a sense of guilt in the child's mind than giving a warm hug and assuring that failure isnt the end of life. Teachers need to be trained in making their approach of teaching more inclusive, non- discriminatory and creative. As a student interested in painting and liberal arts i was always out of the system than anywhere near to it as it didnt count as education. And teaching needs to be reformed beyond mugging up, reproducing whats taught to conceptual understanding and applications. And above all social attitudes to knowledge have to change. In my home town every second home has an engineer, a doctor and a dentist whether these esteemed proffessional ever chose these streams with heart or no...
The eduaction systems must be reformed, but the refoemations that are taking place isnt really better than what used to be at our times. I was giving consultancy for a prestigious NGO on reforming teaching but was pretty dissappointed to see their techniques. As an alternative to the mainstream teaching, they are coming up with designs that reproduce the same structures (which can be more dangerous) than liberating teachers from the older ones....
Good Write up. The article could have critiqued the existing system of which we are the products of, afterall its not rosy either. But the point you make is quiet strong that the system makes us capable of handling stress.. But one need not to forget that there are diversity of students with different learning abilities, absorption levels and picking capabilities and any system should be inclusive rather than being exclusive and favouring a few. Many in our country drop out of the system for losing interest in education which strongly restricts further capacity building thus affecting the quality of life and the future of their children. So the system is equally to be blamed for putting up unrealistic targets and creating burdens that many a times can be just invisible for us to take note of.
Survival of the Fittest. . .
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