India is a proud country today. Many Indians have excelled in various fields and have been given honorary awards from many countries; I am proud to say that our country is known everywhere. However, the question is, are we empowered internationally in today’s world because of our current education system, or is it because we are the legendary descendants of the lesser-known Aryabhata, Sage Kannadas, or C.V.Raman?
Most people say that the tendency of Indians to work hard has made them successful in life, and education has also played a major role. But, has it?
Let’s find out!
To start with, let’s list out the positive points of our Education system:
- Knowledge of Diverse Subjects: Students have widespread access to a lot of topics. Unlike other education systems, we don’t have a say in the subjects we study till we complete our 10th grade. There are fixed subjects that we must excel in every year. We get to learn the basics of many diverse topics, and in the bargain, we obtain an in-depth knowledge.
- Improved Memory by Tests: Schools in India conduct tests for the students every month to understand how much they have learned. Many despise it, but there is a bright side to these tests. Tests help us understand the chapters and force us to read what we probably would have overlooked. Moreover, we learn how to memorize these chapters and how to retrieve the knowledge we ‘gained’ when needed. In other words, we learn how to prioritize topics and find out by what method we can store them in our brains. We continue this for many years, and by the end of our schooling life, we master this art and give ourselves exceptional memory power.
But our question is whether this is effective.
Hence, let us also lay down the negative points:
- Rote Learning: “You must write this answer for this question. That for this. Blah. Blah. Blah.” Our teachers use this very frequent dialogue in the class. It makes me think, we preach that everyone is unique, everyone is different; then why does the CBSE board say that we all must write the exact answer that they believe is right? Why does the board expect students to quote the exact lines from the textbooks? We intend to learn about a series of events in the past or learn about a cell’s structure, not to memorize it.
- Creativity and Originality are not encouraged, resulting in blunt cognitive skills: Our education system doesn’t reward creativity and other things that deserve the highest academic preference. Deviance from the textbook’s exact lines is discouraged. Risk-taking is mocked. Our testing and marking systems need to recognize original contributions, in the form of creativity, problem-solving, valuable original research and innovation. Memorizing is not learning. The biggest flaw in our education system is that it supports blindly memorizing and duplicating someone else’s originality.
What is the Conclusion?
It’s all in you. Our education system may not be perfect, but every student’s responsibility is to use it efficiently.
To cope with the lack of creativity, they can try to engage themselves in a hobby to expand their cognitive skills. Rather than blaming the system (which definitely will not change), it’s time for the students to take an initiative and improve themselves. Students must possess self-motivation to succeed.
Are you willing to motivate yourself to do things that are in your best interest? Or are you going to blame the system forever?
It’s as they say, my friend, your life is in your hands.
