I was asked by one of my relative, what
should my son study further post K-12. Not to mention that engineering has been
their undaunted choice following the herd. I have never been much sure about
myself having completed post graduate education. Should I study further with so
much facts and concepts to grasp from the ocean? Or should I just learn to
swim, skim and enjoy the ride with the confidence to face the rising and ebbing
tides. I must say that I am a victim, a witness and a rebel to the prevailing
education system. It doesn’t stuff you with necessities for life but with flab
of unwanted content. It doesn’t enhance or encourage thought process albeit at
some level in some institutions.
Recently, I happened to read a news article
in Economic times and also an excerpt from the book “Creating Innovators: The
Making of Young People Who Will Change the World"by Wagner. It mentions
that colleges and K-12 are not adding value or teaching skills that matter most
in the market place. As rightly said, knowledge is out in the open for
anybody’s grab. It is not confined to few specialists of yesteryear. With the
internet clouding this world, people can get to know about things quite easily.
What is lacking is the ecosystem that pushes students for different thinking.
The practicality and intensity to encourage application of knowledge has been
profusely lacking.
On the other hand, cost of education has
been raising and this is expectedly high at the primary education level. Even a
lakh would not be sufficient for meeting primary education expenses today and
this could go on a high ride if we are looking for school that pays more
attention to extra-curricular activities. Not to mention the extent to which
every school at the district level has been fighting amongst themselves to
secure district level ranks. They see this as a public attestation on the
quality of education. I would never prefer a school that brags itself of ranks
and marks. Parents on the other hand look for these kinds of schools so that
their son/daughter may land up with good marks which could fetch them a seat in
decent college. Education is seen as a tool for making money by many and as a
means for some job by those who pay. How many parents pay enough attention to
the thought process of their children? How many of them encourage creative
thinking? Never shut them off with “Don’t do’s” but hand hold them through the
activity in the process making them learn. There could be shining light at the
end of tunnel with some parents encouraging certain extra-curricular activities
such as sports, singing, dancing etc… as a means of life and joy. If we could
spot a particular job or activity or any field to which your child is really
interested then just provide them with sources and they will find a means out
of it.
Strikingly, there were additional thoughts
mentioned in the same news article which I have been mulling over for quite a
long time. That is, we test students on subject they are never interested in
and they will never need it anyway. I
really liked this statement from the article, “the longer kids are in school, the less motivated they become”. This
is quite apparent in my case but I didn’t realize this until I went to college
and spent years brooding over years of studying, grabbing marks and landing
nowhere. I would think umpteen times to enroll my kids to the school. I want to
provide him the tools and means of survival with the application of knowledge
not to just know the facts.
All these incoherent thoughtsraise the
question about the need for education. Being from Indian educational
background, I would like to quote the scenarios from what I have seen.
Education, when I was studying was like a dump yard with too much information
to remember than nourish. The concepts weren’t very attractively diffused by
faculties except for a bit of understanding. I sometimes question myself, is
this kind of education system necessary for very survival in the future. Even at
the employment level, people are questioned on what they know instead of how to
react to a situation and bring up some enriching thoughts.
The need for motivation, direction and an
ecosystem to encourage the young generation to take distinctive steps is
paramount. Exploration and experimentation is an important aspect of study
life. I wouldn’t really be bothered about marks or some great university
education for kids. The greater requirement would be for kids to generate
ability for creative thoughts, problem/need identification, pulse of people,
sense of market, fighting ability and innovative solution for everyday
problems. The ability to gain knowledge and applying it to common problems seem
to lack while there have been quite a number of success stories all around. Making
money by doing some job is not gonna stand tall going forward. I wonder what
the thousands of engineering institutions churning out millions of graduates
are doing to equip students with necessary tools to address the problems
prevailing in the world.
There has to be complete makeover, though
it might be gradual, to our existing teaching system where parents nurture
their kids to follow their interests and give them enough exposure to practical
problems and elicit a response to the problem.Parents should understand the
importance of independent thought rather than reciting a fact. They should
enable him to travel different places, read books and not the text book from
schools, listen to stories that convey moral principles, meet different people,
collaborate with people on different ideas and apply logic to problems. Parents
should spend enough time with their children providing them a conducive
learning environment than sending them to tuitions to study the same text from what
has been taught at school. Faculties on the other hand should value the
creative ability and present an environment that supports new ideas. Never
banish students for their shortcomings as they are all abled but in different
phases and in different fields of interest.The ultimate goal should to equip
students not only with degrees but with the ability to think, act and endure. Author
Taleb in his book says that human beings are empirical decision makers who have
to act under complete uncertain and incomplete information. To encounter such
prevalent uncertainties, it may need instant and innovative thinking to resolve
them. It may be time for us to prompt people to step outside from written rule
on cause and effect reaction to an unsettled and innovative mindset. That is,
the system should move from “Education for mundane job”
to “Education for enriching thought”.
