We need more education, less schooling.
India boasts of a Human Resources dividend because of a young working population in the present times and in the foreseeable future. Actually going by present trends India is heading towards a Human Resources disaster. Here is why.
Schooling refers to not only schools but also colleges. One does not have to dig very deep to understand the poor outcomes of schooling.
No schooling is probably better than bad schooling. Bad schooling wastes resources and time, it misleads children and harms their potential to be successful and happy.
Surveys have always confirmed what I have experienced in recruiting employees. Our schooling system is out of sync with the needs of our society and our humanity.
As per ASER (Annual Survey of Education Report) India, 25 per cent of Class 8 students can't read Class II text.
Another statistic, 56% of Class 8 students cannot do simple basic math.
As regards college graduates one survey revealed that 47 Percent graduates in India are unemployable for any job.
Another report reveals that, over 80% Indian engineers are unemployable, lack new-age technology skills.
The causes are numerous and blunders of historical past cannot be undone. However with understanding and commitment, transferred into action the future can be created.
The sure sign of an impending disaster is that in spite of knowing that the situation is very bad, we are unable to or unwilling to act.
Though Schooling and Education are terms often used interchangeably, there is a big difference.
Schooling is the pushing out of facts, figures, data, instructions, and the regimentation of the student, by instructors but called teachers so as to get students to think and behave in a reliably predictable manner.
Society has evolved and changed dramatically but the approach to learning remains mostly unchanged. Mandated by government bureaucrats and effected by various boards, schooling as is currently effected is damaging, if not disastrous to society.
Schools nowadays may have modern infrastructure but their soul has mostly been lost. Schools currently do only two things, they babysit students and deliver curriculum.
At the end of their schooling, an intelligent, innocent and pure child will in all probability be converted into an indoctrinated arrogant creature lacking values. Will possess at best a lot of facts and figures and struggle to live a wholesome, happy and successful life.
Most schools now focus entirely on ensuring that students pursue and achieve high marks in various mandated board examinations, so that the student can join the next level of rote learning and progress to being further dumbed down in colleges.
Only a small percentage of students with the guidance and support of their parents and some committed teachers be able to escape the trap. They will join select institutions and rise to become something.
Anyone or anything that provides a lesson is a teacher. In the schooling system of today, the teacher only transfers the information from a syllabus to the student so that the student can pass an examination based on his or her memory.
Education is the creation of an environment which stimulates the student to thirst for information and knowledge, which they will find exciting, relevant and useful. Education is a pulling of knowledge from formal and informal sources. Education is also experiential learning while schooling provides only rote learning.
Schooling significantly disregards the numerous natural intelligences, and natural inclination of individual students, so as to produce identical products which will be considered normal. While education excites human intelligence and therefore inspires, schooling tends to deaden and degrade human intelligence.
Schooling certainly enhances intellect and memory, but it is not the same as enhancing intelligence and creativity which comes only from education. Schooling is a top down approach whereas education is multidirectional. Education can come from ones research and experiences, from public sources, internet, libraries, peers, seniors, juniors, colleagues, associates and even strangers. One of the most impactful source of education are parents and family.
Demotivated by school managements running as businesses or as ineffective and inefficient government bureaucracies, overworked and distracted by excessive regulations, and curriculum, intimidated by aggressive parents, teachers in schools have little or no room to really facilitate student learning.
As a result the student receives information in such an insipid manner, and without understanding its relevance and application, that, whatever is taught is crammed and quickly forgotten after the examinations. Most schools at best convert ignorance into arrogance by providing vast amount of information.
Many of my friends are men of extraordinary character and capabilities. We owe much of our achievements and happiness to the great education we received from our parents, companions and teachers. Pursuing education and not mere schooling made all the difference.
The only way to build a better society and a better humanity is to provide more education understanding and awakening and less of schooling and testing.
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Interesting References:
Annual Status of Education Report - ACER 2018
India's demographic dividend - BBC news
Gurvinder Singh
Dec 2019
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Credits: Class pic by Yogendra Singh
