Need of the day: An Educational Reform

Having a degree is considered to be synonymous to getting educated and has been the standard since traditional times. We often forget the purpose of what we have been doing in the conquest of becoming educated. The top most accusation is to be put on ourselves after the education system. We are the ones who have given it so much autonomy as to decide of how things will operate, thus putting the future of our generations at stake. And we forget to realize that we are relying too much on the degree and not the curriculum and the learning. As observed by many, our education system has many weaknesses highlighted below:

1) Market knowledge is not being imparted. Students know concepts but lack the application part. Especially teachers who have a lot of teaching experience but no work experience tend to focus only on theoretical aspects.

2) A lot of focus is being put on the bookish knowledge and important things like ethics, career building, counseling, and personality development are being neglected. Schools are social institutions where the learning process is transformed by inculcating these.

3) Mentors, guides and guest speakers are not being invited to talk to the students to give them an exposure of work life and environment.

4) The examples quoted in most of our books are from the international markets’ and authors’ perspective and are not relatable at all. Since the conditions shaping our surroundings are very different from the international ones, quoting local examples would be better. Also the ones that we follow have been the same for ages. Their editions haven’t been updated either and they give examples after pages of monotonous text passages.

5) Not all fields are being given equal exposure. Fields like arts, media, dance, sports, theater etc. are being ignored. Students end up choosing the same redundant fields leading to cognitive dissonance, frustration and dissatisfaction throughout their lives.

6) Students are not being given good training on time management, stress management, communication barriers bridging etc. and thus later in their professional lives they lack the power of handling pressures.

7) The system is completely devoid of understanding and reasoning. A research by psychologists shows that students who ask excessive questions in the class are not only left unanswered but also are discouraged to do so. The student who asks the maximum questions is the one considered dumbest and gets the least marks.

To summarize it all, the education system that is dominating our nation right now is far below the caliber of the international ones. We are forgetting that this is giving birth to an incompetent future generation that will lack in almost all fields of global competition. The only thing that can secure our futures is an educational reform. Just like we cannot expect a recipe to turn out into a well cooked and delicious dish if we don’t put in the right ingredients in their required proportions; we can’t expect a bright yielding future if we are feeding our upcoming generations with the wrong milk in the name of education.