E.A.Rs of India
Introduction:
India, a global hub for IT, tech support and tourism is now finding its way into becoming self sufficient and a leader in manufacturing practises. With the population set to exceed that of China's, it would be redundant of me to speak any further without pointing out the importance of manpower in the requirement of a country to becoming one of the strongest in the world as a hub for development, if led politically and diplomatically well. That being said, India is yet to realise her potential herself, contained by her own policies that predate the 70s with regard to education reform, with a wide variety of political involvement in what should be taught and what should be left to forget, salaries and infrastructure that refrain from motivating even the most underprivileged in rural societies. How then can a country and its citizens grow, if members of the educational and research wing be regarded lesser than caretakers of society; where teachers, researchers, scientists, doctors and architects are the first desires any parent impresses upon their child.
School education is the foundation of the learning principles, a temple where one can derive their inspirations and role models from, and truly explore the paths and opportunities given to them. All this, so they may one day achieve or become someone of their own choosing and in turn become a role model for another student. How better can I define the very purpose of a school without quoting the need for an inspiration driven model of education, and how can a student derive inspiration if their teachers themselves are uninspired and frustrated with their life. Gandhi, Kalam, Oppenheimer, Newton, Alexander, etc are all but names to a child that once were. A teacher however is right there, an inspiration if he can will enough to become. I, for one am a strong believer that the highest paying profession with the maximum credentials necessary for the role should be one for teaching. This must become the starting point in our quest to make India, or any land of people a place that values education and learning; when it starts to see the struggles a teacher must go through to stand before them with the authority, knowledge, kindness and initiative to impart not just bookish knowledge but values necessary to make a good and useful human. But it is not the struggle to become a teacher that can ever inspire, it is the mental resolve, the creativity in teaching, the confidence, humility, self assuredness and self criticality and yet not lose their humour, that is what will attract the heart and soul of a child towards the subject. To quote a line I feel summarizes this all:
"No such thing as bad student, only bad teacher"
Mr Miyagi (The Karate Kid, 1984)
Politics and Privatisation
It is a different matter that we involve politics while quoting history that is no longer relevant in modern society; asking history to be forgotten is like extinguishing the suffering and struggles that have brought us all to where we are today. If that wasn't problematic enough, education in India is not free. One that has turned education in itself into a playing field for private players, thus running a wide gap in facilities available to children with regards to sports and education. Government schools are naturally considered to be lower quality and require NGO assistance to be run with the government involved more on photo-ops and less on actual development of the curriculum and infrastructure. Very few constituencies and cities have actively involved themselves to improving schools in their jurisdiction. It is noteworthy to mention that private schools are run by capitalistic ventures with the principles and teachers getting paid far lesser than what the management earns. How can the country's leaders that speak,"Padhega India, Tabhi Badhega India" (An India that studies, is an India that will grow) not realise the most basic error here, education must be free for all. Privatisation insults that very establishment. I would hope to see a day where private players are involved in the improvement of education infrastructure but the teaching staff are selected based on merit, not by network through standardized government agencies that are closely monitored and regulated.
Need for active reform
The population increase makes matters extremely difficult because the amount of staff available are outrageously outnumbered by the number of students who need to be educated. Another matter of concern is the Indian syllabi and method of teaching and assessment. India education system has not changed much post-independence. We still rely on rote learning and are hardly interested in ensuring that students learn through practical application, instead we hope for the inverse (theory first, practical maybe). We are more interested as a nation to create a rocket scientist and a doctor per classroom that we forget, not everyone is built for the same things, everyone is different and that cannot be explored through subjective assessments on core theoretical information. Science, arts and history are meant to be fun, a field for pioneers and explorers, unravelling the truth of the world. Not muddling through one classroom to the next hoping for salvation somewhere along the way. Education must not be treated as a formality. Education cannot be taught by making students memorize equations and dates, facts and figures just to pass an exam. The student may pass the exam of school but he will fail at realising the tests of life. Education should be teaching you the art of learning and applying your thought actively, implementing them effectively because they understood instead of memorizing.
What will your neighbours think?
There is a common phrase used actively since late 2014 when a photograph with the caption (translated) read, "Look at how successful Mr Sharma's son is, what have you become my son?". The stereotype here is that Sharma's are a common surname of people that come from well to do backgrounds and the father here is complaining about the incompetence of his son in comparison to that of his neighbour, Mr Sharma. The original meme went viral and was used extensively by school children, college students and adults across the spectrum up till the age (of what I can assume as approximately 50 years old, mostly because I feel they were still trying to understand what a meme was then). Why do I feel this is relevant? I'm glad you thought to ask. You see, every child in Indian households is subjected to being told at least once in his/her/their life that they should become a doctor, lawyer, architect, engineer. It is not that the parents or guardians had taken their time to actively understood what the child is good at. It is them impressing upon their child what they feel would bring more honour into the household. It is rather ironic, because the same desires fall flat when weighed against how much these professions or academic achievements are worth in contrast to a business owner or sports player or even a youtuber in modern times (if you are lucky enough, talented enough or silly enough). The irony here being that the desires parents impress upon their children is one from a generation long gone, the 60s India saw a high demand for pioneers in the fields of science, commerce and history but today, circumstances have changed, the mentality hasn't.
While we are on the subject, the requirement for having their children become students in the greatest professions to pursue in the world (as mentioned by a parent I had the honour of interacting with recently), sports and arts are largely disregarded as loser professions. I quite frankly disagree with this stereotype because if being a dedicated sportsman, working tirelessly and straining ones body to the absolute limit is termed pursuing a loser profession then I have been working for a loser society itself. We wish to see more PT Ushas, Sania Mirza, Milka Singh and Sachin Tendulkars but are not sufficiently concerned with providing the facility, infrastructure, recognition, financial and mental support to the same aspirants. Why do we let stereotypes of society and past, mandate what a child's future should be. A child's future is for him to make of his own choice, through guidance and intervention to keep him focused on his goals, not to force him into a path he cannot excel at. To be a successful businessman/woman you do not need to possess an engineering degree or medical degree, same goes for any other profession. The greatest advantage any man woman or child will ever have, is their age and the sooner you are exposed to the world, in all its harsh realities and acts of kindness, the more they will grow. More than what any diploma or degree will teach you because the degree is a certification that you learnt what they wanted you to, but what is to say that the child hasn't already surpassed the limitations of the schools learning much earlier by directing his focus and energy on what they wanted to pursue in life?
Hope?
The India of today seems to have gone from a country of states to a country of the world. There is much for India to do before it can achieve its place as a strong self reliant country. India may manufacture and produce all the hardware and machinery she wants within the confines of her border but if the bureaucracy and politicians do not open their eyes towards a growing need to reform the way we assess the quality of candidates it has produced, not like the manufacture of bullet for a gun but like seeds in a garden that must be cared for, nurtured and evaluated by the type of flower or fruit they may choose to become. The Indian assessments are currently done by a rote learning method as explained in the previous section, leaving little to no scope of creativity within the individual candidate. There is much that can be learnt and seen from a child's perspective, things that are often lost as we grow older because the roughening of our own perspectives, like elephants tied by ropes.
Evaluation using practical questions in an essay based assessment to not be submitted within the day but with ample time (a week or more) for the candidate to develop a unique answer to. On the other hand, this format will be requiring the assessors to read through each and every submission and understand the perspective of the child, so he may understand the strong and weak areas of a candidate better. Plagiarism is made easier to catch and the possibilities of an institution to grow through creative debate are increased plenty-fold.
Closing statements
This article is in no way intended to be used to insult or incite disharmony between policy makers and citizens but it is intended to provide general masses and policy makers with an insight into how a citizen involved in these fields might feel about pursuing higher education or a role as a faculty of research and medicine in the country with low pay, low salary, poor compensation and low reputation in contrast to what the international community can offer. I am a staunch patriot and there is nothing I would love to do more than contributing to the betterment of the human population by starting to make life easier for those in India and her allies.
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Very well articulated, the swords that is dangling in the education system high time to remove it.
ReplyDeleteI absolutely agree. A topic that i find too sensitive to have added here was the reservation system in Indian education. Thank you for your comment.
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