You must remember the popular ‘definition of machine’ scene from “3 Idiots”. This scene depicts an almost similar scenario of our education system today, unfortunately. There’s not a single day I’m not disturbed by the consequences of the existing education system. Throughout the post, I will be describing the problems that I have seen and faced during my education. It’s high time to do something about this. It’s high time to not turn our backs and withstand the ‘just do it’ attitude in our education system.
I want you to imagine a scene. A tired kid walking back home with a bag full of heavy books. They have to carry these heavy books to school every day. If there’s even one book that they forget to take, there is punishment. And when the kid reaches home from school, they keep them busy with this homework from different subjects. If the homework is not completed, kids will be threatened with ‘parents call’ and all. I can’t figure out the motive behind this torture to keep kids busy.
Grading is the next poison. How can they grade someone who is yet to understand what competition is? But yeah, they must compete to top the class! And then they judge the kids, grade them and call some of the little brains a failure. What a harsh system this is!
What if we nullify this pressure? What if we stop judging them? What if we let them explore whatever they want to explore? I bet they will learn more! If we have a look at the primary school education system in Finland and Japan, they don’t grade kids up to the age of 10. They let the kids free; provide them with pen, pencil, colors and let them make whatever they want. The only lessons they get are on moral science with a view to making them a better human being first. In Finland, kids are hardly given any homework. They say that homework keeps kids busy that they will not get enough time for other important things like playing games, maintaining a hobby. You must’ve heard that Finland is acclaimed for having one of the best education systems in the world.
Back to the education system in India. Once the child grows up and tries to keep pace with actual learning, things start getting confusing. Finally, they start to get involved in the topics they are studying, they start imagining and relating things in the books to real life. But the exams speak otherwise. The moment kids start enjoying the things they’re studying, the exam in front says ‘stop enjoying and start preparing notes’. Too frequent exams are killing creativity and imagination. Semesters are doing the same thing. You don’t get time to even prepare answers for exams. Imagination, enjoyment in education has become the last thing you wish and can expect.
We are under an education system that says attendance is the new education. A system that hates you if you use your creativity and write own answers (correctly). By saying this, I’m not exaggerating. This prejudice is real. This system wants us to attend every class, and copy whatever the professor ask us to and also wants us to write the very exact thing in the exams. Where is the training in our education system? We are more focused on memory than on training our brain.
Didn’t we have a better education system in ancient times when students went to Gurukul and got lessons on all-round development? Students were at least free to think and imagine and it didn’t even cost them an exam. Moral science and classes on behaviour were not neglected as they are right now. But with the passage of time, we rooted out this awesome system.
In my opinion, parents are busy thinking about unimportant extensions. Like ‘saving’ their kids time by preventing them from sports, enrolling them into high fee tuition classes for nothing, expecting too much without even knowing their child or maybe pretending to know their child. It might sound not good but it’s the truth. We really need to work to change this mindset. Again when we start expecting things to get changed by the Government, they seem more focused on schemes like midday meal. Why should this be something that attracts students? What about using learning to attract students? It doesn’t even need any higher funding. Just some systems and mentalities need changes.
Education has gradually become the root of survival in this modern era. But unfortunately, this sector is always undervalued by people as well as the governments in India. Governments come and go. As they see no public talking about changing the education system, they hardly value this issue. I want my next PM to understand how a child feels while carrying a bag full of heavy books to school every day. I want my next PM to understand how grading in primary classes demotivates little brains. I want my next PM to understand that attendance is not the new education. I want my next PM to pay attention to this still underrated sector, do in-depth research and work to strengthen the real essence of education.