Thursday, August 03, 2006

Education System

"Live the life you have imagined. Go confidently in the direction of your dreams"- Henry David Thoreau


The most important thing that is lacking in indian education is pragmatic thinking!! We always take pride in the fact that our education has discipline. Nevertheless the concept of thinking synchronously aligning their skills becomes paramount when a student goes for a graduation after school.I am not good at statistics and hence am avoiding numbers or percentages;but I can say most of the indian middle class families orient their children in such a mindset that social acceptance,earnings,position,status are important in a populace of 1 billion and that should be the sole goal and objective-so get in to a education which makes you achieve that irrespective of your native skills. All one needs to make sure is to be in an area that mints money.Typical example is software industry where people just flocked like a bee to honey for overseas opportunities and definitely the concept of devalued rupee coming in to play(thanks to all our economy);it looks like a heaven.We can't ask more!! On hindsight this developed a sort of matrimonial profiling where a girl need not have fellowship;her father just needs to catch the right software fella.I am digressing here a little bit and i perfectly understand the implications of all these things and i dont blame anything. Coming back to education,this is perfect case of mismatch where one never knows what he is good at but aligns himself in such a way that he adapts to the new surrounding to make sure he delivers the best;which alternatively makes him defensive.The reason is he is always doing something which he has been given but not something which he gives in with passion! The point here is the vaccum which the education system is creating and how it impacts a student in the future when he/she painfully discovers that they are not suited for that particular job! Reality strikes for many of them and then they start the process of evaluating themselves and get in to an area of their choice if they are lucky.Usually by that time many personally become so responsible that they cant become adventurous with their career.Lot of constraints engulf them and they become totally lost in that eternal loop of balancing their personal and professional constraints.I strongly and sincerely believe that our education system makes us much more smarter and adaptable but the downside of the same is the blinkers it puts on every student and makes them lose the overall perspective.Have we ever thought what we like doing rather than what we should do? This is where the difference springs up and we become a creature tuned for society and parental constraints.We vegetate in that mundane world continually evaluating ourselves whether we are doing the thing we love passionately or not.Thanks to our education system which imparts us so much of knowledge but sadly no wisdom!! This concept can be well proven when you observe the Western Education System where the emphasis is more on independent thinking and less of discipline.I am not here eulogising the western eduaction but the point is to take the best part of any system and integrate in so that the evens are higher than the odds.In the west the focus is given on thinking and then developing themselves as a personality.In essence they think a lot about what they want to do and they just dont do something for the sake of doing it. This is because of education and the upbringing;I dunno the exact split up of these two but i prefer to leave the upbringing part as its more relative.I have consciously left the aspect of economic conditions of a developed country vis-a-vis a developing country for reasons completely unknown to me also as iam not good at economics too. I think the solution to this problem would be to emphasize independent thinking and de-linking money as the sole motivator for doing anything.Its pretty idealistic but the perspective is to make sure our education system addresses thinking as a course and appreciates that.Teachers dont give that embarassing look at students who ask,"why" in the class;Conscious promotion of independent thinking will holistically promote personalities rather than individuals.We have too much of individuals already.

1 comment:

Aki said...

hey,
you make a lottt of sense..
i completely agree with you.. and would like to congratulate you for the way you have put your message across..!!
keep blogging!