The Indian Education System

This comes in direct response to the post put by Kartz on the education system of India,not that I don't feel that the system needs a "Revolution" or a "Revival", but I think, without understanding why we have such a system in the first place, trying to change it on the basis of its shortcomings purely may not necessarily lead to a more fulfilling educational system.
Let's start with analysing the socio-economic condition of a majority of our population. A family that barely manages to scrape through the last days of a month does not think about living in palaces, rather their every waking moment is spent thinking on how to ensure a safe and decently comfortable future for themselves and their children.Their primary aim with regards to their children is to see them clear their courses and become capable of earning a decent living.This does not imply that they dont want their children to be the next Tendulkar or Kalam, it merely means that they want to first see to it that their children become capable of standing on their own legs, and then later if they can,then follow their dreams.Why ? Is it because they don't have faith in their child's potential? No,It's simply because they don't have a good enough "Risk appetite".
"So ? How does this justify our present system of education",will be the obvious question in your minds,so read on..
The current education system is faced with two major problems.
1) The lack of infrastructure and funds.
2) Lack of opportunities for non main stream courses in our economy.
One can always come forward and debate over the fact that the first problem mentioned above is not really a formidable one and can be easily achieved via funding from the government and other sources.Agreed,but can a majority of the people afford the cost of such an education?? What I am implying is that there is a certain cost involved in making the education system more practical oriented rather than theoretical, even if we can establish the infrastructure, can we keep it running? Think about the majority of ppl here,those who scrape through the last week of a month and not the well to do families in the metros.The harsh answer is "No"! They cannot afford it, and if we have schools which have the infra and the funding to provide such a medium of instruction,and they have students whose families can afford it,well and good,let them implment such a system alongside with following the norms put down by the boards of education.Its not forbidden by law, is it ?
Secondly,I am myself a person who supports the concept and implementation of co and extra curricular activities in a school to bring out and further hone the skills and talents of a student,and am against a kind of a system which concentrates on mostly making every other student an engineer or a doctor.Whatever I may support, I have to ask one question however.Does a system that lets a child grow holistically and provides him with a wide variety of decisions, have enough sources which engender opportunities that can sustain these students ??
I am talking of fields like music,sports,arts etc.How many of these fields can assure you of a decent living, an assurance that comes somewhere near to the assurance you get after having a btech of Be degree or an MBBS ??Nowhere near that,and this is one reason majority of the arents do not encourage their children or the schools to conduct such activities.They do not have the risk appetite.
The fact is that our education system does have certain flaws but are they really that grave ?Has it really killed innovation? I dont think so,it might have lowered the rate but certainly has not dented it to a great extent because we are here and we are writing and thinking about it and many other things and we are products of this very system and believe me you we are no exceptions.The system may have its flaws but it caters to the primary need of our society,which is to make us capable of earning a decent life and stand on our own legs.The scenario will change slowly and the economic conditions will as well and when that happens you will see changes in our education system.We need to understand that people out there who make these decisions do not always lack common sense.



Kartz said...

"Risk appetite"... A fine way of looking at it.

I do understand the fact that there are the unprivileged ones who may not be able to afford 'quality' education. But what about those who are able to afford it? Do such students get 'quality' education? No. CBSE-ICSE/ISC, State... Name it. The curriculum does its best in laying a pretty solid foundation- but you cannot disagree to one thing; you do find that licking books all night long is seen as the key to score at most places. And sometimes even that is not enough (Remember your Television Engg paper? ;) ) And one more thing; our system lacks a practical approach. Too much stress given to theory...

Otherwise, "Risk appetite" pretty much sums things up...

Si_Lee said...

@kartz .. these under privileged ones make up a majority of our student crowd dude ..anyway i am not contesting the fact that there are flaws in system...all i said was that there was a reason why things were that way

Unknown said...

I wished that some of the unprivileged kids of this world would have some of the benefits which I had. Today in India there is a huge population of unprivileged kids working in hazardous on
i found interesting article on Indian education.

Tushar Mangl said...

I disagree with Sid on this
We have all the resources,Intellectual as well physical
Its sheer laziness of the population that is to be blamed for the educational crisis

Priya Joyce said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Priya Joyce said...

last time u asked me to comment on one of your old posts I proved it to you how money matters. And how economy plays a major role in deciding the status of the husband and wife.
In the same way I would say if the great gap between the rich and the bpl's i mean economic gap is not decreased until then nothing can be done.
As when someone is struggling for food and other basic amenities then who will dare to put their children in good schools.
But the irony is even the so called good schools are not good and that's wat is not agreeable.

Si_Lee said...

@tshhar .. Sorry but you are gravely mistaken ...
@ priya you are right ..
the point i conveyed here was simple ... I said that you cannot change the whole structure of say CBSE or ICSE or the other state boards for a few ten thousand students .. because the other lakhs will not be able to benefit from it ...
I never said this system is flawless... I said t has flaws .... but in a way we need these flaws .. lets be practical here
mostly people first want to get a job .. iif u have had a comfortable childhood you wont understand this that easily .. so I guess u need to interact with parents to do tht ..

Sushant said...

Sid dude.. Kartz in his article was not talking about the LACK of education but what is WRONG with the way education is imparted in this country. There are some NGO's who take it upon themselves to teach underprivileged children for free. It might be that the students there do not have the best of the teachers but its is sure that like the rest of the country they have the worst method of imparting education. Currently we are only taught to be mug-pots.

You said that schools with very good facilities charge a lot and have rich students. i agree. but you see these schools can hold the classes for these rich students in the mornings and have evening classes for the underprivileged children and impart education for free to these underprivileged children. if they want to earn money charge the rich kids 500 bucks extra. Maybe your profits will go down a little but you'll still make a profit. The math can be worked out in various ways.

Imagine that every school in the country does this. in 10-15 years we can have a superb literacy rate. And Education is the ONLY thing that will, in the end, propel this country forward.. The Initial investment might be high but the return you will get will be manifold. You'll never look back.

As for us, well 36 people who think differently is not a great number out of approx 1bn.

I agree with tshhar. we have the resources but not the will power.

Si_Lee said...

@ sushant .. he he ..
Well ok i will use ur statement ... it is because we lack wil power this sytem is the best for us .. :P
ha ha ... bad one I know ... but reallly I just tried something different here ... i for one despise not only the system but also the mentality of our society wrt education

Sushant said...

@Sid... Ohh no reflection on you dude... i was just countering some of the points u made in the blog as well as in the comments.. hehe..

what you said in the post is a very genuine problem we face but one that can be overcome :)

>>despise not only the system but also the mentality of our society wrt education
-dude i totally agree with u on this.