Indian Education System

By Vishal Ramachandran

The day a child is born, parents start to plan for its future. Finances are planned to save for a child’s education. Standard dreams that parents wish for their kid is to be an Engineer, a Doctor, a Lawyer, etc. As time has evolved, the competition and expectation for a kid to excel has increased highly. With the steep rise in the cutoff, kids are pressurized immensely to achieve good grades.

Every year lakhs of students appear in competitive exams but only 5% of them succeed in securing a seat in prestigious institutions. The cut-off is so high that students have started preparing for entrance exams from middle school itself. Spending 7 hours in school and then 4-5 hours in coaching classes. And then only a handful get the desired results. The plight of teenagers these days is not hidden from anyone. But, my concern is not on this side of the education system.

My question is what exactly are we learning?

The knowledge we gain by going to schools is making us subjectively well versed. But education is not only about technical knowledge. What about social knowledge? How do we behave on roads, public places, offices? How considerate are we about the impact of our behavior on others? If someone misbehaves, how do we react to them?

In my opinion, we are not truly educated as there are various ways we create inconvenience for others. On top of my head ‘Not preserving water’ is one of the examples. World is dealing with water scarcity in several regions, but still we see people wasting water casually. Another general example is, ‘Mishandling traffic etiquettes’. Riding carelessly on the road, driving in high beam during night, jumping lanes, etc. and all this causes risk and inconvenience to others as well. Be it how we treat people or the resources we avail, we casually take everything for granted. And several other ways we have messed the normal lifestyle around us.

It's not that efforts have not been made to bring people’s attention to these issues, but still people don’t make changes in their habits. The fact that we are not taught since childhood to be responsible towards public property and make efforts to preserve them is a result that we end up taking these matters casually.

Earlier in schools, Kids used to be punished if they were being indisciplined, or didn’t complete assignments, etc. but with the advancement in Education methodology even punishment is being prohibited in many schools. The present education system is just mimicking the act of running school to justify the fees being paid. I mean if there is no punishment for wrong doings, and the kids are not made to understand the implications of their actions, how do you expect them to lead a responsible life in the society, where they are not obliged to listen to others. And don’t get me wrong, by punishment I do not mean beating a child black and blue or keeping them standing under harsh sun for hours, but actions should have consequences, a misbehaved child should be made aware of the degree of his wrong doing and must learn to make things right.

“Teaching is not about telling what is right and wrong, teaching is about making one capable enough to decide.” But how will the children become sensible enough if there is no authority or regulations which will modulate their grades/results. And if kids are not taught to be disciplined from childhood, it cannot become a part of their habit and as they grow, changing habits becomes difficult. So, it’s important to inculcate the right learnings since childhood and thus should be an integral part of our education system.

So, what needs to be done?

Simple…. Education system needs to be reformed. ‘Moral science’ should be given as much importance as ‘natural science’. The focus should not only be on making children technically knowledgeable but socially capable as well. The important etiquettes, public behavior, and sensible characteristics need to be imbibed in the kids. Grades and points for these characteristics should be made mandatory to qualify for the next standard. And of course, it would be unfair only to expect teachers to teach them. Parents should also encourage this practice and monitor their kids closely and rectify their mistakes and guide them. In this fast-moving world, parents are so busy with their race of survival that they don’t get time to pay attention to their child’s actions. But these small ignorance results in forming the mindset of a child as they grow up and then it becomes hard to change.

So, it is really important to give more emphasis on making a child responsible, sensible human being towards his surroundings, than being just an educated individual with no care for inconvenience to society due to his actions.

By Vishal Ramachandran