By Bharathi Murali:
On a bird’s eye view, Indians seem to perform well in academics, sciences, arts but there is an invisible abysmal reality behind the system of education which is currently prevailing in the country. The style of learning is very perfunctory and short-lived in the brain.
There is a fundamental disparity between the Indians and the people from the West in the delineation of the thought process. One observation has led to the inference that Western students have their basics deeply engrossed in their minds.
IQ level is same among all the children, no matter where the kid comes from – be it Springfield or Somalia Desert. The Pedi-thought levels know none; the mental frame which is fixed at a juvenile age plays an exceptionally crucial role in determining the educational, lateral thinking capabilities, off-academic interests of a child.
Understanding the educational vicious circle is critical when one has a far-sighted standpoint.
The current education system we have has been obtained after constant reformation since the late eighteenth century. As a matter of fact, late eighteenth century is late; it began even before when Plato found that true essence of learning depends on one’s interest. No learning can be envisaged when it is made compulsory. Mandatory schemes may be successful in elementary education but not at higher levels.
Same holds good in India, when taught and made to learn out of interest it stays momentarily (which is useless). Method of teaching should be varied from place to place yet keeping the curriculum constant. It is analogous to a journey where different routes may lead to same destination, provided the voyage is safe, memorable and enjoyable. Set of study should be the point where all the Boards converge.
The current scenario:
- Constant reformation is not a sign of growth; it is rather the symbol of instability. When the system is restructured the purpose is lost, when the office is purpose-centric, the structure is mislaid.
- The school or college going students is under the incessant spoon-feeding mechanism. The grey-cells lose their vitality and become too dormant to be resuscitated. Delving into the subject is altogether different from absorbed into academics and knowing it by-heart. The latter gives a shallow recall while the former carves the concepts hard into the heart.
- For instance; the difference lies in unveiling of the practical applications of the academic knowledge gained. Here, a highly imperative juncture, the Western students have their fundamentals deeply-seated. Learning ‘centrifugal force’ is different from realizing that it is the same force that actuates the drying mechanism in our washing machines. This is just a fragment of imagination, in reality there are zillions.
It is like a rat-race where all students run for the numbers and trade-off on the concepts. On the statistical profile this will look attractive and inspiring, now from that bird’s eye view on moving closer towards this issue, that is, trying to uncover that invisible abysmal pit in the structure it is very shocking to discover that no true purist still exists.
Dark-memories from the past have highlighted — major accidents have occurred due to poor manning of the plant and the processes (owing to weak basics), recommended-entrants into the working world (explains how money is the immediate enemy of education), most significant explosions all over the globe (education for misanthropic cause).
Education is not just academic ritual which one undergoes in the first twenty years of their lifetime, it involves multitudinous dimensions like:
- Exemplifying on the practical importance
- The other side of the education, the destructive side where are born the makers of explosions and rebellious cult.
- Channelizing the wealth of knowledge for the have-nots and the deprived.
- Have you really closed the debt which you owe to the knowledge you have received? In simpler way, what is your contribution to it?
Acquiring knowledge has two forms; one to elevate the self-standards where one treats education as mere marital degree and does all the related works unthinkingly. Another is when one understands that education is not a tool to provide you a chair to sit comfortably in the society, but provide you with legs to stand even when the chair is lost, it completes one’s identity.
Looking at education for fixing a place for oneself in the stairs of social hierarchy is what is happening; looking the same with a motive to set the skills so that self-gauging at any context is plausible, is what is desired.
Where do you fall into?