The present education scenario and us

Let us reflect:

Need to create a culture of asking questions
Need to transform students from being passive listeners to innovators.
Student control is a fallacy. Present academia is so busy trying to devise methods of control; that they have forgotten of being a student themselves. Education should not encourage creating cow webs in the brain, but should evolve mechanisms of liberating it from them. The concept of control should be substituted by the concept of objectivity.
Let the student understand the present so that he could develop and evolve it, for maximising effectiveness and thus create his future on those formulations.

Key differentials between the West and the Eastern approaches:
West: Skill enhancement – economics and technical beings. West says that nature needs to be exploited to its fullest.
East: Virtues and values in which skill is a subset. East says’ I exist because I Think’
Hence, exists a conceptual dichotomy in these schools.

Bacon stated: I will distort nature, coerce it, so as it reveals its secrets.
Effective human development is possible only when the body, mind and soul are in harmony and not in conflict.
Desist from transforming students as asses carrying loads of books and teachers as plumbers who fill little. Need to evolve students as creative beings who possesses virtues, human and social skills, so that they can view failures as stepping-stones.
Values assist one in imbibing a sense of belonging, sharing, casing and empathy, basis of our society and humanity. Ironically, new school encourages students to be egocentric, have a me too approach, possess an individualised thinking and create nuclear dimensions in families.
While the old school emphasised an eccentric approach, where nature was integrated in one life, thus one experiencing abundance.
0-6 years  – a period where learning curve is the maximum. Here the parents need to be properly nourished, more so the mother. If she is malnourished, the product (Child) would also be. Thus, education of parents especially the mother/ housewife is critical. Remember a sound mind resides in a sound body only.
Globalisation shouldn’t be limited to  being one big economic market rather it should be one family. The ability to pay needn’t be the criteria of offering service.

Vasudevam Kutumbam: Education is a dynamic process which is based on change- it effects change- it  supports change- it inspires change- then why do we desist in supporting change.
Duties precede the rights and reverse isn’t true. Need to first understand what I contribute rather than what am I getting. India is a great country inhabited by non-Indians; we have fractured ourselves into sects, creed, language etc and hence are disjoint

UNESCO’s five pillars of education

1. Learn to know:                         Knowledge.
2. Learn to do:                              Action – Vocational training.
3. Learn to be:                              Need to be a human with a heart.
4. Learn to live together:           Participative management & a team player.

Indian parliament is a paradox: It’s hypocritical. what it teaches is diametrically opposite to what it preaches. 5000 years of civilisation simply evaporated in 250 years of slavery and in 60 years of independence.
75% of our resources are spent on 25% of the population and thus we create perpetual slums and migration.
Education needs to encourage creativity and a radical thinking. Simply studying and no digestion make a student mentally, socially, physically and environmentally obese. Ponder aren’t we doing the same.
Students are encouraged to hold information to their chests. Sharing simply is disappearing. Result one is frustrated and the other is irritated.

Pathshala ko ban diya dharamshala
Aur dharamshala ko bana diya jangshala

Your call now, folks!

The author is an executive coach and mentor, Excalibre
[email protected]