Indian education system has facing
innumerable problems ranging from inadequate teaching staff to poor
infrastructure and inadequately trained, inexperienced teachers. Our education system has consistently failed
to create self motivated, self disciplined, self confident individuals who can
be creative, emotionally balanced, value relationships, take decisions and
solve problems. Except a very few, who break the barriers of our education
system to evolve on their own, majority of them just succumb to the deficiencies
in the system and end up incapable of handling their own life problems.
Inspite of trying hard the Indian education
system is still finding it hard to come out of
Macaulayism, which is described as “the conscious
policy of liquidating indigenous culture through the planned substitution of the alien culture of a colonizing
power via the education system”
developed by Thomas Babington Macaulay with the intention of
systematically creating an illusion in young minds, that learning in English
was superior to learning in native languages, western culture and literature
were superior to the Indian ones. The ultimate goal was to create a false
belief in that English speaking people, are superior in their intellectual
abilities, administration capabilities and culture. The enforcement of this
pattern over a century by the britishers and later by the subsequent Indian
governments has only strengthened this belief
in the unconscious mind (Jungian model of collective unconscious). This
has only resulted in, we looking forward for acceptance of our work from the
west, rather than feel proud about the knowledge and literature that has been
available for centuries together. Even now unconsciously we believe that
education from universities in western countries is by itself a status symbol
and the degree awarded by even the worst institution has better recognition
than one from the best institution in the country.
The imposed education system and the changes
that has been made in it, over a period of time has been only making the status
worse. At the lower level the system has become mark oriented, with the person
scoring high marks being accepted as the intellectually superior person. This has made the students rely on rote
learning to get marks, rather than focus on an all round development. When
these students reach higher education, they only use their habituated method of
rote learning to clear examinations, rather than understand the utility of the
subjects in their daily life and their development. The set standards of
examinations have virtually created a belief that if someone is thorough with
answers for the questions of the previous five year question papers they can
succeed with flying colors.
Our education system does not empower a child
with the qualities and skills that are mandatory to lead a happy life. Even in
case of the newly introduced activity based education since marks are the
determinants of the aptitude of the child, most of the time, it is the parents
who do the task for child, because they don’t want the child to score less
marks. This prevents the child from understanding and developing responsibility
towards themselves, parents, teachers and the society. It never provides the
confidence in the child to face hardships, manage difficult situations and
handle crisis situations. It never gives opportunities for the child to come
out with his creative ideas or to develop them, analyze problems, find
effective solutions from the available ones by taking all the dimensions of the
problems into consideration or use out of box thinking and create new solutions if the existing ones
are found to be effective.
There seems to be no big difference in the
competitive examinations because these examinations focus more on logical
reasoning. The skills of logical reasoning can also be acquired by practicing
the content repeatedly. This has virtually paved way for mushrooming of training
centers, who can train students in logical reasoning skills by repeatedly
giving them the tasks and creating a habituation to logical reasoning. Even
most of the competitive exams does not have provisions to understand the analytical
skills, creative problem solving techniques and out of box thinking in an
individual. Too much of training and focus on logical reasoning, can damage any
available capacity for the above said aptitudes. In a sense such exams and
training are creating only machines with which can find relationship between
cause and effect, but never provide solutions to new problems as they
arise. Even the best institutions are
only producing managers not creators.
Our ancient system of education, the guru –
chela system had focused on the overall development of the child, providing
appropriate environment for developing theoretical knowledge and life skills.
The made to live a simple life exposed hardships of life and gain knowledge
with reverence to the teachers. Whenever I bring up this thought there are two
questions directed at me.
1.
even our ancient system only used rote
learning by repeating the content multiple times orally
2. is
this system viable for the current modern world
The answer for the first question is, yes
learning happened by repetition of the mantras, but it was only the possible
way because there no papers in abundance to write. Only palm leaves were
available on which new scripts were written. The scripts were creative ones or
analytical about the thoughts expressed by others. I am not sure when the rote approach started
dominating. But the “guru vandhana” -“Guru
Bramha, Guru Vishnu, Guru Devo Maheswaraha. Guru Shatchath Para Bhramha,
Thasmaisree Gurrave Namaha” which is
said as a prayer before the start of edification process conveys a totally
different approach . even though explicitly it may look as if praying to the
gods brahma, Vishnu and siva a deeper analysis narrates what real education and who is the teacher. The meaning conveyed is that every creator,
protector and destroyer is your guru- teacher. You have something to learn from
everyone. But your ultimate guru is “para
brahmam” (the theory of atman – the conscious and brahmam- the infinite
unconcious) which is your nothing but your own ideal self and your experiences
are your real teacher and so salute your internal ideal soured which is the
supreme source of learning.
The answer to the second one is, yes it
cannot be adapted to the current modern world in its original form. But the
system of focusing on individuals, guiding them on introspection, providing
opportunities to know about themselves, help them in identifying their
aptitudes, giving opportunity to analyze thoughts, judgment and opinions of
others, developing creative thinking and problem solving abilities, and
exposing them hardships, difficulties and crisis situations with minimal
support and guidance to handle it can go a long way in developing adults who
are healthy both mentally and physically and who never breakdown when they face
problems. Such a system can also create socially responsible people who think
and work for the development of the humanity as a whole.
