If we look into the early history of Indian (Hindu) society, we find that in ancient India education was modeled on the gurukula system in which emphasis was placed on the direct relationship between the guru (teacher) and the sisya (pupil).
This system of education laid emphasis on austere life and concentrated on the teaching of Vedic literature. It was mainly devoted to the teaching of theology, philosophy and philology. Education was all comprehensive spreading from philosophy and spirituality to the teaching of cannons of art of day-to-day life.
Education was used to be given on the varna basis. The Sudras and women both were excluded from the right to education. Vocational trainings, if any, were used to be given by old members of the family and community.
In the medieval (Muslim) period, it was the ‘madarsa’ system which ruled the educational scene. The schools (madarsas and pathsalas) were conducted almost exclusively by maulvis for Muslim students and by Brahmin priests for Hindu students.
There was really no change in the outlook of people towards education in this period also because the Muslims, like the Hindus, were traditional in their outlook and laid great emphasis on religions and philosophical education rather than secular education.
Of course, one should not forget that secular education received an impetus even in Western Europe only after the 17th century, and more recently since the 19th century when the idea of scientific knowledge emerged.
In this period, religious leaders and priests were often the only available literate groups, using their knowledge to read and interpret sacred texts. For the vast majority of people, growing up meant learning by imitation the same social habits and work skills as their elders.
As we know, children normally began assisting in domestic farm and craft activities at a very young age. Transmission of skill of the trade used to be handed down from generation to generation. Reading was not necessary or even useful in their lives.
Education, in whatsoever form available, was limited to higher castes only. The untouchables were debarred and discouraged to receive education. There was no much specialization of professional roles as we find today.
The modern education system that we find in India today came with Britishers. They were accompanied by Christian missionaries who established schools to impart secular education to the Indian children but also to convert them to Christianity.
Problems in the education system in India
1.Train the Trainers
Indian education system does have a big problem of bad quality teachers. In rural primary schools, we hardly see the talented staff, and this even happens in universities. University appoints ad-hoc lecturers, there is no loss in recruiting newer talent but there should talent.
Major factors causing this are as follows, teaching is not considered as an appreciated job, teachers don’t get corporate equivalent salaries. That is why teaching is not so glamorous job in India. Existing teaching staff needs to improve their skills. The education system needs to bring the processes which will improve the existing teacher’s quality periodically. There should be exams, screenings for existing teachers. Teachers should get promoted on basis of skills and talent not just based on the number years of experience. Seniority or age is the main factor or in the promotion of the teachers, we need to change this attitude. When teachers know that there going to be promoted only because of their seniority then they tend to not to adapt with latest teaching methods, required skills and knowledge of the world around them.
2.Exams, Marks, Percentage, Grades
In India, A student is measured with his or her academic grades or percentages. Lab experiments, practicals are there as part of the curriculum but they don’t have that much value in the education. Talent cannot be measured by marks so we need to have the different measurement system which can measure the talent, skills and hidden potential of the student. Every kid is special, they all have gifted but with a different gift, the education system should provoke thought process so that students know their inclination early in the process. But it might take a decade or two to change this mark and number based system in India.
This system creates a divide in students, higher the marks you get better student you are; if you lower marks in academic nothing expected out of you. One of the major problems of the Indian education system is that it fails to understand that academics just one part of the student life, sports, life sciences, technology are the areas students should excel at. But in India, we just focus on the academic part, textbooks knowledge only. When these students go out in the real world with this textbook knowledge they face a lot of problems.
3.Entrepreneurship
The education system in India or anywhere in the world for that matter teaches how to be the employee; they never teach how to create jobs how to be an entrepreneur. In the 21st century, it is the need of time that we need to promote the entrepreneurship from the school level. And we need to take it to the next level when the students come to the higher education or a degree/ undergraduate level. Now at the university level, it is been mandatory to have a start-up cell, e-cells but existing college facilities will not able to handle this because and entrepreneurship is completed different thing that teachers will never understand. The education system in India needs to tie-up with the actual businesses, startups, industry leaders to promote entrepreneurship in India.
4.Soft skill
When students go out there in the real life trying to get the job they mainly face the communication problems. To perform well at the job you need to have lots of soft skills like communication, presentation, business email writing, teamwork, SLAs etc. None of it is taught at Indian schools or colleges. If the ultimate product of the education system in India is to create employees then we better make good ones.
5.Life skills
Now, this is a problem with the whole world education system; no education system in the world teaches life skills to students. How to behave in public, what are a relationship and other social aspects of the life needs to be taught at the school and college level. When students go in the real world they need to take decisions which they are not familiar with. Indian parents don’t talk with teenagers, they are unaware of the day to day problems, situations of their children. They don’t understand their children world. Here, in this case, the education system in India needs to take initiative and introduce life skills at the school level.\
Things to be done to improve our education system.
1.Implement massive technology infrastructure for education
India needs to embrace internet and technology if it has to teach all of its huge population, the majority of which is located in remote villages. Now that we have computers and the internet, it makes sense to invest in technological infrastructure that will make access to knowledge easier than ever. Instead of focussing on outdated models of brick and mortar colleges and universities, we need to create educational delivery mechanisms that can actually take the wealth of human knowledge to the masses. The tools for this dissemination will be cheap smartphones, tablets and computers with high speed internet connection. While all these are becoming more possible than ever before, there is lot of innovation yet to take place in this space.
2.Re-define the purpose of the education system
Our education system is still a colonial education system geared towards generating babus and pen-pushers under the newly acquired skin of modernity. We may have the most number of engineering graduates in the world, but that certainly has not translated into much technological innovation here. Rather, we are busy running the call centers of the rest of the world – that is where our engineering skills end.
The goal of our new education system should be to create entrepreneurs, innovators, artists, scientists, thinkers and writers who can establish the foundation of a knowledge-based economy rather than the low-quality service provider nation that we are turning into.
3.Focus on skill-based education
Our education system is geared towards teaching and testing knowledge at every level as opposed to teaching skills. “Give a man a fish and you feed him one day, teach him how to catch fishes and you feed him for a lifetime.” I believe that if you teach a man a skill, you enable him for a lifetime. Knowledge is largely forgotten after the semester exam is over. Still, year after year Indian students focus on cramming information. The best crammers are rewarded by the system. This is one of the fundamental flaws of our education system.
4. Take mediocrity out of the system
Our education system today encourages mediocrity – in students, in teachers, throughout the system. It is easy to survive as a mediocre student or a mediocre teacher in an educational institution. No one shuts down a mediocre college or mediocre school. Hard work is always tough, the path to excellence is fraught with difficulties. Mediocrity is comfortable. Our education system will remain sub-par or mediocre until we make it clear that it is not ok to be mediocre. If we want excellence, mediocrity cannot be tolerated. Mediocrity has to be discarded as an option. Life of those who are mediocre must be made difficult so that excellence
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