Scouting For A Meaningful Education

                                                                                                *Saumitra Mohan

            The problem with the orthodox education system is the assembly-line production of degree and diploma holders, with no real value. The focus is always on mechanical transfer of facts and information through rote-learning. Here, the stress in more on passing an exam and scoring better marks, making the learner into a ‘Marks-ist’. The evaluation and marking pattern being variable and subjective, the outcomes never reveal the real worth and intellect of an individual. Students are made to learn such facts, information and details which often have no correlation with the requirements of a real life.

            So at the end of the day, we have individuals whose minds are cluttered with futile facts and information with no worthwhile life skills, the skills which would see them through their life. The school and university pass-outs today have prescribed testimonials, but generally find them at sea to cope up with the challenges of life. They are found cursing the Government or systemic complications for not getting them a job to eke out a living. Hence, all such youths become invalids, looking forward to be supported and spoon-fed through Welfare State handouts. It is such woolly-headed youths who often become deviants while looking for short-cuts to success.

            After all, if we are looking for a clerk with better linguistic and stenographical skills, what use is it to scout for recognized school or university graduates? Why can’t we just look forward to the actual demonstrable skills required for the job, without bothering about a formal degree? This tendency has given birth to a huge industry and network of certifying agencies and institutions all across the world, both in the private and public sector. The stress on formal education with recognized degrees and diplomas has taken the joy out of education.

            Ideally, students should be allowed to pursue education anywhere without the hierarchy and stratification reflected in the variable evaluation outcomes of individual learners in the mainstream education system. The extant evaluation scheme elevates or downgrades an individual learner. The system tars everyone with the same brush while evaluating all against the same yardstick. As all learners are different with different inherent talents and faculties, the impartation of knowledge and evaluation of progress ought to be customised according to individual requirements.

            Our education system, if anything, is making a conformist of us all. Being paleoconservative and status-quoist in nature, our education system is programmed to strengthen and reinforce the extant societal values. The learners are expected to be the carriers and pall-bearers of fossilised wisdom and knowledge. This in itself is not as bad as is the idea and expectation of passive conformism to the same. The students are not encouraged to question their instructors.

            Today, if anyone of us is asked to name a word for ‘A’, the first letter of the alphabet. Without batting an eyelid, we would all say ‘Apple’ while we could have also said ‘Aeroplane’, ‘Agra’, ‘Albert’ or any other word starting with ‘A’. But the unthinking rote-learning compulsively and unwittingly turns us into a conformist. That is how we see anything and everything around us. The learners usually accept all that is handed out, without learning to be discriminating and without learning to apply their mind to tell chaff from the grain. The written words in the book and the class room teaching become the gospel truth for them.

            It is such people who later become a liability for the society as they cannot generally differentiate between a ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ and easily yield to rabble rousers’ harangues because of which the rightist or extremist forces are on the rise worldwide. Such people don’t see any space for ‘grey’; they see everything through a binary of ‘black’ or ‘white’. Such people are easily swayed by polemical arguments of ‘we’ versus ‘them’. So, if the USA or China has ‘Nukes’, we must have it without bothering to delve into the nuances of the same to dispassionately analyse the issue to see the truth behind.

            All the problems and troubles in our day-to-day life today stem from a garbled education system. While the problems of access and outreach of education are being fixed, we still have huge issues with the quality of the same. The stress on livelihood and job-fixation has made the imparting and acquiring of education very perfunctory and monotonous. Often a learner ends up going against her instincts or innate talents because of familial or societal pressure. When a potentially good musician becomes an average engineer against his will, the fallout is dangerous. The individual remains alienated throughout his life as he never derives any pleasure from his work.

            Performance of a work sans interest, affection and devotion is a sure short recipe for a disaster waiting to happen. Factory accidents or collapse of a structure are results of such alienating education. What is more troubling is the fact that all this has long been understood and discussed with matching Govt guidelines also having been issued. However, we don’t have the corresponding executing agency to ensure effective and efficient implementation of the same. We find ourselves at sea while effecting the same because of multiple systemic constraints and complications.  

            That is why, it is high time we started talking about an alternative education system. Our present educational organization needs to be reoriented to ensure our children are able to realise themselves by fully exploring all the intrinsic talents and faculties. The mental capacities of all healthy humans the same, it is the availability of right opportunities and resources which make all the differences. Our education system should be so oriented to ensure the correct recognition of innate faculties of each individual to ensure flowering of the same, without any straitjacketing of formal education.

            An individual growing according to one’s true talents would not only bloom into a satisfied and successful human being, she shall also be able to contribute to the society to the fullest of her capacity. Besides, instead of forcing down one’s gullet useless information and facts, we should ensure that our children and youth have all the essential life skills as would be required to see them through their life without any crutches of governmental support. Today, most of our youths would find themselves rudderless if taken out of their comfort zone of learnt craft or skill. Our education should be such which should make a complete person of an individual. Equipped with basic life skills, as far as possible and practicable, our youths should always feel confident to survive in any situation or circumstances.

            In the fast evolving futuristic world of information technology, it has been suggested that most of the jobs shall soon be taken over by machines, robots and artificial intelligence with only certain works requiring manual labour remaining left out. Today, when we shun manual labour finding it infra dig and when we are fast becoming an indoor generation, it’s advisable that we learn the value of manual labour to remain healthy and fit, to refashion human life to better appreciate its beauty. In times to come, we shall be required to spend more time in intellectual rumination and contemplation to uplift ourselves individually and collectively. To do the same, we would require a speedier reorientation of the extant education system. We shall delay the same only at our own peril.