1.) Govt schools: need of the hour
It is not difficult to understand that why the condition of the govt. schools have not been improved much because their has been no real involvement of administration with these schools. In my view, government should take full control of education in their hand. There should not be a single private school. In present scenario, there should be a cap on school fees collected from the parents. Even fee of school dress and books are on the higher side. Syllabus and books are being changed every year. Every parents can’t afford such hefty amount.
All the well to do people should send their ward to government school. This would ensure that they become aware of the problems at the basic education level. That will improve the structure of primary school. Otherwise, they would not care as they have access to private education.
This will also boost social equation. It will give an opportunity to children of common men to interact and mix with children of so-called high or semi-high society, giving them a different kind of atmosphere, confidence and other opportunities. This would give a boost and bring revolution in changing society from grass root level.
2.) Teacher’s role in shaping the students
Teachers should factor out at the age of 10 that towards which field/department, child is attracted or can perform better and accordingly categorise and make remark at the time of giving transfer certificate.
Parent teacher meet should not concentrate only on grades on child’s report card but also whether or not child struggles with their home work, graded work, test/quiz & participation of child inside the class room, child’s mood, body language, what child tells about their school and about their family engagement and most importantly how well their children doing academically, socially, psychologically and sports wise. We must remember Report cards can’t only be sole criteria for understanding student’s achievement.
3.) Revision of old syllabus
These days children are carrying bags full of books. Every day, they use to carry separate books and copies for each subjects. It seems that their parent and teachers have completely forgot about their childhood. I think it’s high time that we should revise our syllabus. The syllabus which we are reading/studying is very old and it is not of any practical use. I never understand the purpose of including factual history like when was Akbar born or died? Who is the first president of Russia or America? What is the use of their studies as these include only rote learning. Instead of this, a story/biography on Dr. A.P.J.Abdul Kalam, Swami Vivekanand etc. to be taught which can transform one’s human life. New syllabus should include moral science, yoga and meditation. It should also include teaching of Bhagwada Geeta, basics of Law and philosophy and these should have been taught at least upto XIIth standard.
In the words of Albert Einstein, everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by it’s ability to climb a tree, it will live it’s whole life behaving that it is stupid. Likewise, gradesheet should not be decided only on the basis of one’s academics performance but it should have been considered on the basis of overall participation in sports as well co-curricular activities. The same criteria has been adopted by countries like USA, etc.
4.) Originality and creativity to be rewarded
Have we ever question since our childhood that why have we been taught that ‘A’ for Apple and ‘B’ for Ball and why not ‘A’ for Animal or Angel and ‘B’ for Bead or Beauty. Here, we are suppressing creativity. Opportunity are not given to our next generation so that they can’t think out of the box.
Memorising is no learning. Here, students are cramming information in order to score max in their semester exams and once semester exams are over, knowledge are forgotten to a larger extent. This is one of the biggest flaws in our education system. Our education system must reward ideas, original skill, talent, research and innovation. Marking system should recognize creativity, original thinking and innovation.
In the words of Maimonides, “Give a man a fish and you fed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a life time.” So, there should be a gradual shift from knowledge based education to skill based education. And accordingly, skill to be tested and rewarded. Truth of the current education system is that we are purchasing books, copies, uniforms, bags, shoes & belt from the same school and for education, we are preferring coaching centre outside the school. In my view, coaching centre needs to be closed because it is supressing the real talent, skill and innovation. Let me explain further. Coaching centre is providing short tricks using different formulae by which you can solve a question in lesser time than the students who could not afford to get admission in that coaching institute due to their fees and when entrance exams like IIT, AIEEE, NEET, CAT, MAT, CLAT took place, the students who were enrolled in the coaching institutes get better marks than those students who could not visit the coaching institutes. As a result, they do not get admissions in a good college. Although, they might be having genuine/real talent which can create wonders when they will be given equal opportunities. In this way, real talent are not coming out. Policy makers should give a thought over it.
One can easily make out more money at his shop than the job. Then, what’s the need of job. Someone has completed engineering degree and applying for the job in other sectors due to unemployment. What is the meaning of that degree. There has to be government master plan for generation of new employment. Examination agencies to be limited. Government is working on National Testing Agency to conduct exam on all India basis in various domains like engineering, medical, I.T. etc.
5.) Motivation and counselling classes
First Nobel Laureate of India, Rabindranath Tagore said that “The highest education is that which does not merely give us information but makes our life in harmony with all existence.” Teaching skills like collaborating with peers, managing emotions, and feeling empathy can help children be better students and citizens of the world. They should have been taught the importance of compassion, cooperation and collaboration as compulsory skills to survive in this world. They should have been taught not to become man of success but rather try to become man of value. Main purpose of education should not only to get a job(Naukari) but to be good human being. A human being who has developed good sense of reasoning, broad thinking and better level of understanding to deal with the things factually or objectively. They should have been taught that education is seen in one’s behaviour, to respect their teachers and old parents not because they are elder than them but because what they are today is because of them.
There has to be motivational lecture series about hard work, perseverance, struggle of great personalities and stories of their success. Classes has to be organised to motivate students to become a researchers, scientists, economists & teachers as there are very few who wanted to pursue research or wanted to become scientists. They should be motivated to not to leave their country and government should come up with good packages/allowances for the brighter students who wanted to leave India. Young students should also be motivated to join politics as young and brilliant mind can take our nation to a greater height. Every students wanted to become engineers or doctors. There is a rat race in this country.
Government should support the students who shows extra ordinary talents in sports. We can learn from China that they are utilising their population to fetch more and more gold at every Olympic. We can also perform better than them once we realise our potential and reorganise our talent. Large no. of students are committing suicide after getting failed in the particular examination or not getting good percentage. They should have been taught how to deal with the failure, rather they should be prepared for it/live with this. We need to figure it out where are we heading towards. Failure of students is basically a failure of education system. We are a country that has given to the world yoga and vipassna. Success is nothing to do with the degree. You can take example of Einstein or Newton, who could not pass even class IX but gave their own theories on which whole world is researching till date. Dhiru Bhai Ambani could not pass even class IX but he has built up an empire of Reliance of Lakhs of Crore.
(Author is Law Officer of Bhagalpur Zone, Muzaffarpur Zone and Siwan Zone. The author can be contacted at rahuldeo.cnlu@gmail.com.)
