Current Scenario of Indian Education System
Every creature on this planet is actively engaged in their life race, starting from the fulfillment of their day-to-day requirements to their aim of achieving the so-called lifetime goals, and we human beings are no exception to that. India, the second most populated country in the world with 125 crores of people in numbers, despite having good infrastructural facilities and workforce resources, is nowhere near the top rankings as for the education system is concerned.
Why is it so? This question is the basis for the evolution of this article. This article gives a sneak peek of the current scenario of India’s education system. Come. Let’s find out.
The life cycle of a successful student should start from getting over 90% in schooling, getting into an engineering college/doing graduation, and settling into a branded corporate with the assured job. Generally accepted life graph formulated by our neighbors, relatives, and the entire society surrounding us to label someone as “successful.” And the parents are mentally forced by the community to develop their childrens in this standardized format failing which, they will also become prey for this society. And the cycle continues. Simple. If all the fingers in our hands themselves are not identical, it is of utmost idiotic to expect all the students to fit into a pre-defined circle and get labeled as “successful in life.” And hence, it is indeed essential for us to look into this issue from its root cause rather than commenting on a macro angle.
This article keeps on using the term “Education”… Well. What does it mean? Education facilitates learning or the acquisition of knowledge, skills, values, beliefs, and habits. It is what Wikipedia says. Whether our educational system puts a tick mark to all the above items??? The answer is a STRICT NO.
Schools, the starting point for any student’s education career, are tagged popularly as “FIRST HOME” as nowadays students spend more time here than their home. But whether it works in the way in which it has to work? Yes, and it’s a big question mark.
The primary goal of school education system nowadays is not mainly targeted towards imparting good character, developing inter-personal skills, enabling the students to active application of their mind but, is confined purely to the completion of SYLLABUS within the time allotted and conducting the prescribed number of model tests and extra coaching classes. As a result, students are considered mere mark getters, and their overall personality development ranks a big ZERO.
The students are not given the freedom to think over an issue except to accept and memorize the lessons taught and vomit in the exam answer sheets filling up the pages. This becomes a contest among the students to find out who has written more pages. The brain-building fundamental questions such as What, Why, and how are erased from the students’ minds and instead given the options YES or NO. The students are trained only to clear their exams with good marks, and out of the box, thinking is strictly prohibited. Over time, students even stop asking meaningful questions due to fear factors, and the same gets buried in their minds without any solution. It is not right to fault the schools or the teachers but to blame the entire system.
And w.r.t sports activities in schools. Sorry. Some people may even argue that schools have nothing to do with sports and are often treated as an offense/misdeed by most parents. In most schools, the time allocated towards sports is negligible, and the other subject teachers also occupy even those classes to finish their uncompleted SYLLABUS. And then, we feel envy of other countries like China, the USA, and Great Britain while seeing the OLYMPICS medal tally cursing our Indian contingent to the core. The training and passion for sports can only be taught in the earliest stages of one’s career, i.e., school life, and once it is missed, the opportunity is lost. We need to feel pity only for ourselves instead of being jealous of other countries.
And the situation even worsens when they step into college with their irrebuttable presumption that they have learned everything, got good marks, and come here only to get a graduation. Of course, you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.
Despite all these things, if there is one area that should be mentioned where the students get themselves developed with the latest changes happening, it is ENTERTAINMENT. We need to feel pity for the current scenario of the students focusing more on reviewing the Friday releases and meme creations in social networking sites compared to their overall personality development. The pressure that has been put on their shoulders by the entire society is the only reason for their distraction towards studies, and I should say that evolution of social networking sites and modern technologies is leading every one of us on the wrong path.
Even though there may be a school of thought saying that the literacy rate in India has developed considerably, the social crimes happening in our society have increased even more at a rapid pace. It makes us think about where this education system leads us when our grandfathers/mothers have lived more happily even without going to these schools and colleges.
Having said all, now you may think that this article conveys something identical to that of the messages transmitted in movies like 3 Idiots (Hindi), Saattai (Tamil), etc., But I think if the same hero-heroine-villain concept itself is portrayed in an enormous number of movies, it is worth to talk about an essential issue haunting our society even if it is identical to some of the film. At least people will get a chance to remember and reinstate in their minds what is happening around in our country’s education system.
While the changes we desire to happen may not happen immediately still, we can be that ignition to bring out the revolution we want, at least for the generations to come.
