Indian Educational System......
In the current scenario of increased urbanization and rampant globalization, the children hitherto are a confused lot. There is a lot of stress on achievement and performance from the teachers and parents. Children are pushed to do much more than customary to get the desired acceptance and acknowledgement from the family and society circle. As contemporary educationists rightly put it, the focus of the current education system is on what the child doesn’t know rather than on what the child knows. With the breakdown of joint families, children are unable to find an anchor, and feel trusted and loved. More often than not, in the absence of such a figure whom they can identify with and discuss their hurts and disappointments, more and more children are tending to externalize their frustrations through aggression and violence, (Kapur, 2012). Sometimes when the pressure of subscribing to high expectations gets overwhelming, they fall back and are labelled by the school and society as a child with ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder). Whichever way the story goes, the end products of our schooling system are children who have moderate to low self-esteem and self-concept, moderate to low tolerance for frustration, and are poor problem solvers and poor decision makers.
So what is wrong with the education system of our country? In an article for CNN Opinion, John D. Sutter quotes Sir Ken Robinson, British author and international advisor on education, as saying that the educational system works like a factory. According to Robinson, a typical school has in it all the qualities of a factory- there is a bell, there are separate subjects, and separate facilities, children are educated by batches and by age group. Education system is based on the model of mass production and conformity and views the child as the product of the mechanical system. It could not have been otherwise, Sir Robinson adds, as the whole idea was developed and conceived in the economic circumstance of the industrial revolution and was driven by the economic imperative of the time.
Applying this factory model in the perspective of the Indian education system, we can say that we too have unmistakably adopted this factory-like system in all its oppressive rigidity to our schools. We have been blatantly influenced by the mechanistic, bureaucratic organizational theories developed at the time of the industrial revolution and have adopted a hierarchical top down management approach to organizing the education system. In the process, the child is being viewed as just a product of the system. The emphasis that should be laid on the personal growth and development of the child has been overlooked. Faith in human capacity defined in terms of ability to assess a problem situation and find solutions, capacity for convergent and divergent thinking, effective interpersonal skills, ability to communicate effectively, has been undervalued. In an article in India Educational Review, March 2012, the Vice- President Hamid Ansari quotes the Yashpal Committee report which states that ‘we have followed policies of fragmenting our educational enterprises into cubicles’ and that ‘most instrumentalities of our education harm the potential of human mind for constructing and creating new knowledge’.
The genesis of this problem probably dates back to the time of the British rule in the country. The present educational system of India was an implantation of British rulers. Wood's Dispatch of 1854 laid the foundation of the current system of education in India. Robert Kanigel, author of ‘The man who knew infinity–a life of the genius Ramanaujan’ has this to say about the system -‘it was designed after all to churn out bright well rounded young men who could help their British masters run the country….not restless ambitious spirits’. The British were very clear that the restless and the ambitious had to be suppressed as they would be directly averse to the British power and interest. They did not want to groom independent, haughty and deep thinking individuals. They shaped and created the Indian educational system accordingly and we, on our part, have accepted the regimented policies imposed by them in the name of education and have continued to obey it in right earnest.
To date, the Indian educational system is obsessed with producing individuals who conform. Rebels are snubbed and thrown out of the system while individuals with passive virtues like patience and tolerance are acknowledged. Independent thinking is discouraged as against conformity and passivity. As a race we are victims of this paradox in the name of education and thereby it is no wonder that the country is unable to churn individuals who are unable to think for themselves or even acquire the knack of independent work, to take ownership and responsibility and to solve problems and take decisions.
The system needs to undergo a paradigm shift in its emphasis on the philosophy of education. It doggedly holds on to the behaviouristic approach to learning as against the humanistic approach. The behaviouristic approach to learning assumes that individuals have no free will and that an individual’s environment determines his behaviour. This means that the individual doesn’t have the capability to manipulate his environment so as to make it convenient for him to achieve his goals. According to behaviouristic theory, cause and effect are what control behaviour and not mind and reason. Thereby rote learning is given more importance as against creative thinking and reasoning. On the other hand, the humanistic approach emphasizes the personal growth of the individual. It argues that human beings are capable of thought and reason. They have a free will and are capable of making choices and taking decisions. The education system needs to harp on this belief that each child has the innate drive to achieve his maximum potential. The system needs to believe in the individuality of each child and to help the child deal with the vicissitudes of life. The education system needs to enable a child to deal effectively with the environment, discern available opportunities and deal with the challenges of society. To enable these behavioural transformations in the child, the system needs to enrich the school curriculum with a highly researched and effective life skills training programme.
What are life skills? According to Wikipedia, life skills are problem solving behaviours used appropriately and responsibly in the management of personal affairs. They are a set of human skills acquired via teaching or direct experiences that are used to handle problems and questions commonly encountered in daily life. UNICEF lists10 life skills as most important under the domain of psychosocial and interpersonal skills. These are problem solving skills, critical thinking skills, effective communication skills, decision making, creative thinking, interpersonal relationship skills, self-awareness building skills, empathy and coping with stress and emotions.
Life skills education is a very important and integral part of educational system worldwide. In Indian schools however, life skills education is yet to be fully initiated and recognized as an integral part of the curriculum. Shiela Ramakrishnan, in her article in Teacher Plus, says that in most schools, value education is confused with life skills education. According to her most schools have value education as part of the curriculum as it is one of the requirements of the NCF, though there is not much emphasis on life skills education. The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) asserts that life skills education has been introduced in class 6th in 2003-4, in class 7th in 2004-5 and subsequently in classes 8th, 9thand 10th. The CBSE has presently introduced (in 2012) life skills training programme as part of Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation targeted at the adolescent students between 10-18 years of age. Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan (SSA) has under its agenda life skills training for the upper primary girls along with providing quality elementary education. Yet, classroom observations of Government schools in few districts of Tamil Nadu, have revealed that life skills education has often been confused with vocational education. When asked about the details of life skills education being offered in the government schools, pat comes the reply from teachers that the girl students are being taught to make dolls, stitch frocks, make candles and napkins. These data indicate that the Indian education system has not yet awakened to the necessity of life skill training programmes in its schools.
A lot of thought requires to be given on how to bring in life skills education into the mainstream curriculum. The schools need to develop a nin-depth conceptual and practical framework of the programme which should be made functional at all levels of schooling starting from pre-primary, extending to primary, middle and the secondary stage. The school curriculum should have lectures substantiated with situational case studies and role plays where children can practice correct behaviour and experience its effects. Efficient networking of educationists, psychologists, mental health professionals and policy makers would be required to develop a concrete workable life skills training programme. The training programme would need to transcend across all development stages of the child and should have an inbuilt monitoring and evaluation system.
In fact organizations like World Health Organizations (WHO) and Udayan Care have developed modules on life skills that could be adapted and used for primary and adolescent children. These modules promote the idea of responsibility for addressing one’s health concerns as well as developing one’s self-concept and self-esteem through case studies and role plays. WHO, in their modules on Life skills training programme for adults and children assert that effective acquisition of life skills can influence the way we feel about ourselves and about others, and equally will influence the way we are perceived by the others.
Promoting efficient life skills training programme in schools would thereby be an ode to the youth in the country. It would be a way of empowering youth to build their lives and their dreams. It would be a means of handholding them through the critical stages in their life and helping them tap their potential to the fullest. Thereby, it is hoped that the current education system with its oppressive rigidity would open up and make life skills education a part of its mainstream curriculum. This would enable the country to build individuals who believe in themselves, who are efficient leaders and administrators, who are able to understand their potentials and achieve them.
This is reminiscent of the verses penned by Richard Bach in his book ‘Jonathan Livingston Seagull’, ‘How much more there is now to living! Instead of our drab slogging forth and back to the fishing boats, there’s reason to life! We can lift ourselves out of ignorance, we can find ourselves as creatures of excellence and intelligence and skill. We can be free! We can learn to fly!’
-Dr. Subitha G.V.