Another day passed by and I am still left wondering what do I really love? You know, the dilemma you face when you are about the age of 21 and look upon the internet to find answers to what exactly you should do in your life and all the advice you get is to follow your passion and everything will be good.
But then what exactly is my passion, is the type of question I find myself wondering about in the middle of the night and I tell you, the frustration of not getting any answer just eats you up. I don’t know what my passion is and neither do I know how to find or inculcate one. But is this really the main issue?
Well, no!
I have been a student for almost 18 years of my life and most probably I’ll be a student for 2 more years. But if I was to ask myself what exactly have I learned in these 18 years, I will struggle to come up with an answer. Frankly, I know most of you who are reading this article will stumble upon the same problem, and so I decided to address this issue.
You see, a good part of our life is spent in school, and that is where everything goes for a toss. We were never allowed to explore our likes and interests when we actually had the time, and now, when we are supposed to enter into the real world, society expects us to be successful in whatever we do. But how can one be successful when he doesn’t know what he actually likes to do?
So to address our problem, one can say that our education system just doesn’t give us the breathing space to actually discover what really gives us joy. To actually understand this issue in-depth, let’s take a look at how our Indian education system actually is.
The Current Indian Education System
The current Indian education system starts not in school but at our homes. Remember when we were about to go for our ‘ interview ‘ to get admission in kindergarten?
Well, I remember mine.
I was asked to identify some color blocks and then I was asked to describe different animals and that’s it. I was also asked to introduce myself and that’s all I had to do, and then I was treated with chocolate.
So in a nutshell, all I was asked to do was to mug up a few colors and animal names and when asked, I had to vomit whatever I mugged up.
No one actually took the pain to make me understand why a certain type of creature is called an animal and why only that particular animal qualifies to be called a Tiger. I am pretty sure that even today not many would take the pain to ask these questions from themselves.
So basically my admission to the very basic class or I should say that every building block of my education was totally based on how well I remember what was taught to me. No one cared to ponder about the ‘ why ‘ aspect of anything.
Then the story remains almost the same for each and every class. The difficulty in mugging chapter increases but mostly a student is required to memorize whatever he/she is taught by the teacher in class, and at the time of exams, the student is required to answer everything asked in the question paper and no one questions themselves as to why they are doing what they were doing?
Fast forward to class 11th and you are required to choose whether you want to study Physics or Biology and in some cases Commerce. Even here no one seems to self question their choices and the need to choose one from the lot. Everything seems like a frail system and everyone is expected to follow it.
Once selected, the student must keep his head down and slog his way up the ranks to score good marks and finally to get admission in a good college, you know, for the same story to be repeated there as well. This, in a nutshell, is the Indian education system. A system that is so frail that it survives on the core values of following a routine and not questioning the reason behind anything.
So, now you may wonder, what exactly is the problem with the Indian education system? Well, to answer your question, everything. Yes, everything is wrong with the Indian education system.
Why is the Indian Education System not as Efficient?
The goal of the Indian education system is to prepare a student for a particular job. All anyone cares about is how they can get a good job. No one ponders about the possibility of learning anything else as well, such as how to create stuff or how to solve daily life problems or even, why should someone maintain discipline in their life?
Like the basics are all omitted and you are suddenly asked to sit in the world’s toughest examination because that’s what it feels like when you were not given proper guidance in your nurturing years and so you decide to follow the crowd, you have this belief that somehow the crowd will never be wrong. But the crowd was wrong in the end and everyone is now stuck doing something or the other which they do not like or understand and so now everyone suddenly starts questioning their life choices, which, by the way, they should’ve done in their student life but who is to be blamed here, when we all sail in the same boat?
Well, enough of ranting about our Indian education system.
If I were to point out the faults in the Indian education system, then they will be as follows –
- No emphasis on learning how to be mentally fit or its importance
- No importance is given to the ‘ understanding ‘ concepts
- Rote learning is given the utmost importance.
- The objective is to make employees out of students and not to make a student self-sufficient.
- No skill development at all.
- No guidance is given in order to understand one’s own passion.
- Stereotyping a certain field of study to be better than the rest.
See, I can go on and on but the crux of the matter is, Our Indian education system is in a dire need of change because if things continue to go down this way, one day we will need more psychologists than scientists in our country.
Ways to Improve The Indian Education System
Well, at first, it obviously seems quite a task and mistakes must be avoided, as it is a big one. After all, we all are a product of this education system and so it becomes quite difficult to change something you already have been a part of lately. Anyways, here’s how I think someone like me and you can improve our Indian education system –
Create awareness about the lacking of this education system
It is of utmost importance that awareness about the failings of this education system is aired to everyone’s feed and that every responsible citizen of this country starts to take notice of this grave situation.
Unless this problem faced by students becomes a problem faced by everyone, changing the education system is impossible. So go out there, blog about the problem, discuss how the lack of career guidance, the lack of social bonding lessons, the lack of moral education, the unfair importance given to rote learning is giving you a hard time finding meaning to this life of yours. Awareness is the first step to solving this problem.
Present an alternative to this education system and make sure that it’s valued in the market and in society
Okay, so now that you have created sufficient awareness regarding this issue, the second step is to give an alternative to this education system. This needs to be done so that the policymakers feel the heat of this problem and the students who cannot discontinue their studies can have a way out by the time this problem solves. This is where online platforms come into play.
Go out there and reach as many students as you can and make sure that your approach towards teaching is not like our present approach. Introduce your students to the very basic lessons of life such as the importance of mental health and physical health, importance and ways to harness the power of the mind, inculcation of routine and discipline, and much more.
Indulge in CSR(s) of your own business to develop self-sustaining education institutions
Now, this step is for those of us who have businesses of their own or those who have an entrepreneurial mindset. I have one and so I am willing to share my thoughts on this one. I think that due to lack of money and other resources many students out there who need education are actually deprived of this very basic right. I am not blaming these educational institutions as well because, at the end of the day, charity comes only after one’s own family is fed.
So what I am suggesting is that there can be certain business outlets which are neither NGO(s) nor profitable entities. They can be a mixture of both. The business can do regular business and the profit is then fully used for only 2 purposes, i.e. to sustain the business and to fund an education institution. This way the educational institutions can provide almost free and quality education to anyone who needs it, and it will have its own source of earning to maintain the resources needed for this deed.
Anyways, this is just an idea, do let me know what you think of this in the comment section.
Make education available to the farthest sections of our society.
Unless the penetration rate of educational institutions increases, awareness, that was the first step of our plan of action will fail. So this step is basically to support our first step. Increase awareness and to do so, make education available to the farthest of the sections of our society.
Initiate the change you want to see
This is the final point that I can contribute. Just initiate the change you want to see. See, everything is easy when you have a laptop and you feel like ranting about it so you log on to a blog and just blurt out whatever you feel like and then sleep tight thinking that you actually did anything to make up for the problem.
No, I am no different as you might have guessed by now.
But, everything fails unless I am the change I want to see. Yes, I am very much fed up with our education system. So what can I do? Well, I can start by teaching a few underprivileged students free of cost and make sure that they can stand on their own feet. I can write and make people aware of the problem and share my thoughts on what I think can be the solutions and then follow that plan of action myself. So, it’s all fine to read and study this topic, but in the end, if you really want to change something, then start by changing yourself.
