How can the Indian System of Education Be Changed For a Better Tomorrow?

The following essay was my entry for an essay contest organized by the Tatas: How can the Indian System of Education be changed for a brighter tomorrow?

To Sir, With Love?

Am I a Bramhachari, seated in my Gurukul? Marcus Brutus, in the text before me, fervently begs to differ. Doesn’t the fact that our syllabus includes ‘Julius Caesar’ and not ‘The Mahabharata’ amply justify the notion that our Indian System of Education, ironically, doesn’t seem to be very Indian and certainly quite unlike the ancient Sacred Syllabus? Another conspicuous difference between our ancestral ‘pure-blooded prodigies’ and us is that, though we too are born with ‘The Right to Education’, we need not prove it by means of an exceptional lineage. Education today is for all. Therefore just as India, and the meaning of ‘Being Indian’ have changed, so has Indian Education aptly metamorphosed out of ever-altering necessities. Hence, Brutus, ignorantly, makes a fourth error of judgment.

Evolution, they say, is a constantly accidental process. Therefore, one cannot fairly expect perfection from such accidents. Similarly, education, too cannot be just a carry over of its form in the past. Nothing in the education system today is as astonishing as the amount of ignorance it accumulates in the form of inert facts which demand to be ‘known’ for the sole purpose of ‘making the grade’. And that translates exponentially into the number of ‘dropouts’. The applicability of today’s education stands doubted.

Learning – and not wisdom - today is a requisite for survival, which brings us to the question: What is, after all, a brighter tomorrow? It cannot be a mere projection, or an increment in the definition of ‘success’. A brighter tomorrow demands better ‘humanitarians’, eco-friendly citizens, original leaders, and a more congenial society; and education is the fulcrum of it all.

“Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.” And that should be the impetus an education provides. It shouldn’t be the answer that enlightens, but the question. The system needs to be re-modeled into one that entices to think and reason instead of merely remember. The foresighted educationist must remember that spoon feeding inert facts in the long run teaches students nothing but the shape of the spoon. Syllabuses should be interwoven with applicability and practical projects. The goal apart from knowledge alone should achieve skills of leadership, self-reflection, values and etiquette, nuances of team work, people skills, personality development, strategy and perseverance modeled into simple, interesting and palatable projects and practicals; exercises enhancing conceptualization, creativity and originality should be carefully formulated and implemented.

A poor surgeon hurts one person at a time. A poor teacher hurts 100. Education is one of the most responsible careers and deserves incentives to make it worthwhile for skillful professionals to thrive in this field and in turn multiply their skill by reflecting it to the multitude of untempered metal. And if that makes you think education is expensive, try ignorance.

A good school should be like a good restaurant. You need nutritious, palatable food cooked by a recognized and remunerated chef, served aesthetically & in good ambience. And as far as caliber is concerned, we Indian students sure have the appetite and more.