This month has seen some major turbulence in terms of sheer disruption of law and order, a health crisis and some remarkable administrative promises. The latest in the last category are:
a) first, the Delhi’s government decision to pay off the board exam fees for students and
b) second, introducing entrepreneurship as a subject from grade 9 in government schools in Delhi.
Till now, not much public reaction has been noticed against each of these policies, however it may attract a great number of criticism just like it had happened in the case of free metro rides for women passengers. Well, that was a different case. Here, if we examine the positive sides of the these upcoming policies, we shall see that the public money will be used for the segment that needs it the most: education.
It is very important to understand that education is not a luxury or privilege rather, it is one of the basic civil rights besides food and shelter, though we lack all of these in India. It’s not that this will be a revolutionary move towards achieving major feats in the direction of accessibility of quality education. This is because there are many other objectives like the appointment of qualified teachers, improved infrastructure, timely monitoring of government schools and getting more children to schools have not yet been achieved.
However, we can look at it as an incentive for studying further with encouragement for those who cannot afford resources for higher education. This can also be take an the first step towards what should be the long term goal of the country – making quality education free. Time will tell if this policy is going to materialise, and that too in right way.
The second policy in which CM Arvind Kejriwal announced: entrepreneurship is now to be included as a subject in Delhi government schools. This is a move towards reviving the Indian high school curriculum in such a way that it enables students to acquire practical education and not just remain confined to text book chapters. He added that a sum of ₹1000 will be given to the students to encourage them to come up with great business ideas.
Earlier this year, CBSE had announced to add a few non-academic courses to their curriculum that included entrepreneurship as well. Being a country where so many start-up organisations have come up in the past few years, with some of them being extremely innovative, it is all the more necessary that student get an idea of what it is to conceptualise a business quite early in their academic life. This however needs to be implemented with keeping few things in mind.
The teachers who teach the course should be trained well enough to facilitate the course effectively. The responsibility of generating interest in students and guiding them further in coming up with their business ideas will lie with the teachers. Also if something on the lines of a think-tank is developed, it should be practical so that even parents take these seriously and help out students as and when required.
Keeping this course under ‘ungraded’ category is best because these kind of subjects should purely be based on interest, more than being just a reason to score. Such activities are well practised in many private schools and they often gather good sources of funding. But now, irrespective of their financial background, students will get an opportunity to showcase their talents in this field.
We now wait to see something really positive happening to our education system.