Nilacharal

Does our education enhance living better?

The present system enrolls more than two crore children every year in the First standard throughout the country. Among them about one in every five drops out at different stages before coming to the high school level. It is a cliche to mention here that India employs a significant percentage of 250 million child laborers all over the world. Of those children who manage to reach high school level, more than 60 % are declared "failed" at their age of 15. Do we require a system which can only brand more than two-thirds of the children as failures? It is obvious and indisputable that even the one-third of those who are declared "success" by the present system lack essential qualities and are plagued with many shortcomings. The "failed" ones are branded misfit to pursue whatever they were taught all these years.But unfortunately they are not taught what they could do or rather what they are capable of performing. Thus the present system does not have an in-built procedure to identify an individual's latent talents and nurture it from the initial stage. It does not offer opportunities to put the identified talents into practice so that they are sharpened and the individual grows with self-confidence.

Education must groom personality

The present system unfortunately fails to impress upon the young minds that learning is a life-long process and it is not confined to reading books. It sprawls and encompasses the whole. Personality development and infusing leadership qualities are to be taken care of from the school level. Our nation lacks good leaders and statesmen and this can be addressed only through a sound education. Managerial abilities are needed for any job, may be at different degrees. One has to be trained in analytical abilities, zeroing in on the targets, selection among many alternatives, providing quick solutions to a perplexing situation, and swift response to shock and stress conditions right at the school level. Also an individual should be trained to distinguish and assess his creative and innovative capabilities latest by the time he reaches the high school level. This would help in choosing a proper career.

These can be made possible by conducting practice sessions. In order to refine one's qualities continuously, education must equip an individual by teaching how to understand oneself, both limitations and capabilities. Till the system is reoriented, the minimum that the government can do is to start "job training schools" for the rural and underdeveloped sections of society to lessen the social tension due to unemployment problems. This is quite different from Industrial Training Institutes and the proposed schools should be purely informal. Nevertheless job skills are imparted through intensive training and their entrepreneurial skills are developed. Also they must be trained in community planning and development. There is a strong case for enhancing the allocation for education and it is a pity that the government is not even able to meet its own target of 6% allocation for education. We would discuss more on this interesting and important subject in the next two weeks to come.

(to be continued….)