The Education system

I don’t know why, but writing about how unhappy I have been with the education system has always made me happy, and today I am writing on this topic because, one of my friends, suggested that I write about India’s education system the other day when I asked for a suggestion for a new blog post in my Instagram story, and education system is a topic which always intrigues me, so why not write about it. I am not gonna write a well-researched article about the education system but about my feelings and how I believe that the system is a big failure which kills the creativity and confidence of an individual and instead of teaching people humility and making them a good human being, how we all are being converted into robots and machines. I know some people do really like our education system and might be critical of me for writing about it but I don’t want to offend anyone. I am just gonna write about what I think about it.

So as most of you might know that ancient India followed the gurukul system which continued till the time of the Britishers, the Hindus were taught in Gurukuls and the Muslims in Madarsas and both of these systems were a lot identical in many aspects but everything changed when the Britishers came up with The English Education Act of 1835 and formed policies based on the Macaulay’s minute and the most interesting thing was that we have to remember is that Lord Thomas Macauley had no knowledge or value for Indian and oriental literature and considered western science to be superior to all. He had famously said that

“a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia”.

-Lord Macauley

I am not gonna go much on what was in that act and what kind of policy the Britishers introduced but I definitely would mention why they did that. The main reason for them to teach Indians was to communicate with them so they could use the Indian manpower to further their business needs, therefore it’s safe to say that they never wanted to educate the Indian masses but wanted to get some factory workers for them. Unfortunately, there was only a slight modification in India’s education policy when India got freedom and that was for making the mass educated. The way things were taught was never changed and education remained the way to create workers and not intellectuals. Though the exceptions are always there and unfortunately this is a case not just in India but in many parts of the world.

Now talking about why I feel the education system is not so good, the first reason I am gonna go with is rattafication. When schools should be teaching us how and why we are just taught what and are asked to remember the what as it is. Let me elaborate with an example. You all might have studied things like set theory or trigonometry and we all know what Tan, Sin, and Cos are. We also know and remember the formulas behind them. If we are served with a question we all could solve them by applying the formulas and getting an answer but I hardly doubt that many people will be able to tell who invented trigonometry, why was it invented or even how could we practically apply it in real life. The same goes for most of the subjects that we have studied.

The second thing that I could talk about is teaching just for the purpose of passing the exams. I don’t know what schools you guys have passed out from but in most of the schools, the main reason we are taught is just to pass the upcoming exams. There is a fixed syllabus for the exams and the student is required to remember the answers for that exam, and honestly, no one care if you remember anything once you are done with that exam. So our education system just wants to check us for everything that we remember and not what we understood. The most interesting thing I have seen in most of the schools is that the teachers want the same answers in the answer sheet that they made the students write in the classes. So the only thing the education system is teaching us is to write down what’s being told to us and to remember everything from the memory regardless of if it matters or not.

The third thing that I would like to mention here is the lack of technology. We all know that our society is now technologically developed and there is a whole range of new avenues available from marketing to influencing, from creative writing to videography and the interesting part is that this work gives more freedom and more money to an individual then going through the proper channel of education, where you definitely need to have a degree to even get a simple and basic job. Now we all know that unemployment is on the rise and there are people who are geniuses but are without any job, also there are people who were not even able to pass a simple exam but are not earning in millions just because they used the technology and the digital media. Which the school curriculum fails to teach about.

The fourth thing that I would want to point out here is the increasing competition and lack of colleges. Now unlike the US where no one judges you for the kind of work you do, India is definitely a country where everyone is judged for anything that one do. If a teenager wants to be self dependent and joins a restaurant as a waiter or flips burger in Mac D then he might be laughed at or is ridiculed for the kind of work he does and that is why getting a white collar job becomes much more important even when you are not happy in doing that kind of work and giving up on your dreams just to be saved from the ridicule of the society which seems like a fair price. This is a very big reason for the negativity and unhappiness around us. Now lets say someone wants to be a painter or a writer or a mimicry artist, but these kinds of professions are not considered to be a proper professions in our society and are considered a hobby and therefore those students are forced to give up on their dreams and work on something white collar like Medical, engineering or law. The parents have a pure intention in forcing their children towards such white collar jobs as having an earning source is way too important for someone in the middle class sector of the society and as our education system is all about mugging up and learning things it is very much possible that such a student unwillingly gets admission in engineering and/ or medical and it makes it difficult for a person who really wanted to be doctor to get admissions and they too have to give up on their dreams due to the lack of affordable seats.

Not taking a lot of time, I would lastly like to point out here that, our education system is not about educating individuals its about increasing the possibility of an individual getting a job. That is why our parents are ready to send us to good colleges and pay the heavy fees because they want to make sure that we as an individual would get a job in the future. Now ask yourself this question why are you going to schools or colleges or why are you choosing a particular subject or a degree. Is it because you really love that subject or is it because you and your parents think that doing this will definitely lend you a job and there is a possibility that you might understand the point that I am trying to make. Are you doing medical because you want to save lives or are you doing it because there is a surety of job once you are done graduating? Are you doing a simple degree like Bachelor of Arts because you love those subjects or are you doing it because you want to crack the civil service examination. And most importantly do you want that government job because you want to serve the society or because there is a job security and a good pay. Ask yourself these questions and you will understand why are we not progressing rapidly like the society that we should!