Flaws of the present day Education System
In the present day education system, creativity has taken a backseat while students are stressed with information from text books stuffed into their head. In this scenario, there is hardly any conceptual understanding. The students have fixed answers, which they learn by rote and dump on their answer paper.
The modern system of education gives importance to answers, rather than questions. It kills the questioning mentality of the child at an early age, destroying his unique ability to think and come up with his own answers. Children are made into robots.
It is the elementary education institutions in India, where mechanized or programmed learning starts for children, based on the mechanized and programmed teaching done there. People who start their lives educated in such a mechanized environment are bound to get replaced, sooner than later, with robots and Artificial Intelligence systems, which have a better work efficiency and are more suitable for volume production in mechanized industries.
Do we want to create people who will make the machines or those who will get replaced by the machines?
What do we want to make with those machines?
The Answer
The solution will be to create an education system with the following focus so that the future is equipped to ask such questions and find its own answers.
Recognize the Uniqueness and Aptitude of Every Child
Every child is different and has his/her own thinking capability and interest. We need to appreciate this diversity and mould the student accordingly. This ability to think is an asset which we should not destroy by giving readymade answers to questions.
Cater to the Questioning Attitude
From questioning, comes thinking, seeking and discerning. The method of education should shift its focus
- from the storing brain
- to a questioning intellect
- to the thinking mind.
This will help bring out the potential of every student.
In ancient India, Questioning was given much importance. The Upanishads, the texts that accompany the Veda, came out of questions. They were the “Question and Answer” sessions between a student and the teacher or between two rishi, seers, recorded for posterity. But the questioning happened with an inquisitiveness to learn, to know, to discover the truth, than out of arrogance or a desire to deride the teacher or the knowledge.
Prepare to move from Education 1.0 and 4.0
The present day Indian Education system is still stuck at Education 1.0, while the world has started exploring Education 4.0.
Education 1.0 is classroom based learning where teachers teach and students learn.
Education 2.0 and Education 3.0 are intermediary stages which focus on combining classroom teaching with digital technology.
Education 4.0 will be a move towards a wholly digital education system, as Internet has become a primary tool of information, work and lifestyle in present times.
The way hardware and software should match, the educational system should match the need of the times. We need to be prepared to make this urgent shift, if are to keep pace with the world.
But all these are only about the delivery mechanism, since an education system is fundamentally only a delivery mechanism of knowledge. It is the knowledge that eventually matters.
What does one teach using whichever be the delivery mechanism?
Inculcate Human and Environmental Values
Ultimately human and environmental values need to be inculcated in our students from a young age by reviving the timeless rhymes, fables, Purana and other moral stories from folk and ancient India that had succeeded in keeping generations of Indians humane and morally responsible.
For, what is the point of learning Sciences and Humanities through Computers and Technology, if one does not learn how to apply them rightly, rightfully and righteously for the rights of Humans and Nature, of which he is a part?