The Indian Educational Congress, 2013, held recently in the Capital, saw dignitaries from all walks of life present their views and solutions to the Indian education system. Most of the speakers felt that there is still a long way for us to go. According to them, for the development of this sector, all it takes is the Centre and the State Governments to work in collaboration with each other. Sangeeta Yadav attended the Congress to bring you the highlights
‘The 4 Es of education’
For, Shashi Tharoor, Minister of State for Human Resource Development, the issue of education is the most important challenge that the country is facing today.
“At present we have around 560 million people under the age of 25 years. If you just take the key education years of 10 to 19 years we have 225 millions that fall within this age group. In another three decades, we will have a dynamic population who will be our workforce and work engine of the country. But only if we educate and train them to take white collor jobs. Those who can’t, we can give them vocational training so that they learn the knack of how to go about a job. This is vital for a growing economy like ours,” Tharoor says.
According to him, “If we don’t get our education priorities right, then we are looking at violent incidents like the maoist violence. We will be looking at frustrated unemployed young men with no stake in the system and with no hope in the economy, these men will prefer picking up the gun, as an alternative to finding the right job. That is the danger that we need to avert. To my mind, education is not just about the social and economic future of India, it is no less than a national security challenge,” Tharoor tells you.
He adds that there are 4 Es of the Indian education — Expansion, Equity, Excellence and Employment. “Expansion is the key. When we got independence, our literacy rate was 17 per cent, we had barely 30 Universities in the country. With only a handful specialised colleges, India had not arrived.
“Today, things have changed for the better. We have an impressive 74 per cent literacy rate. And over 700 universities. Today, we have around 33,000 colleges across the country,” he says.
As for the second E, Tharoor insists that it stands for easy Equity. “Out of the 74 per cent of the literate population, 82 of them are men and 65 women. This gender gap needs to be filled by an active equity policy which will support students in many ways,” Tharoor states.
The third important factor is Excellence. “We have many outstanding and renowned Indian education institutes like the IITs and the IIMs. But the foremost challenge is to improve all-round excellence and raise the standards of students, teaching, infrastructure, etc,” Tharoor tells you.
The last and the most important being Employability. “Many companies conduct classroom sessions to train the employers. Due to the lack of quality employment skills in the freshers, it has become very difficult to generate fit candidates for the job. By Government and private sectors collaborations, the crises of unemployability can be filled. We ought to ensure a right mix of curriculum, vocational skills, internships, wide array of opportunities etc,” Tharoor concludes.
‘leadership training is vital’
With an aim to develop leaders, Gowri Ishwaran, the founder Principal, Sanskriti school has come up with an curriculum model that has been successfully running in 85 schools of the country.
“We don’t do enough in our schools to educate our children who are the leaders of tomorrow. If you ask a child who a leader is, they will name Shah Rukh Khan, or Sachin Tendulker who are celebrity icons. Our school going children have no idea what the definition of a leader is. Nor can they give you accurate examples. Why do we call Mahatma Gandhi and Hitler a leaderIJ While, Abrahim lincoln, a leader won a war, on the other hand Mahatma Gandhi led us to our Independence by propagating non-violence as one of his principles. Both were political leaders so what was so special about themIJ We must teach our children to differentiate between kinds of leaders,” Ishwaran tells you.
She adds that apart from defining leadership for our children we should also discuss the value team work, teach them how to negotiate, help them to acquire necessary skills, remove their doubts about an ethical dilemma, etc. “This practical knowledge is going to teach them many things in life,” Ishwaran tells you. At the Indian Educational Congress 2013, held recently. Ishwaran pointed out children who score 190 percentile are not the need of the hour. Schools should churn out good human beings and disciplined leaders.
According to her, what we need is to revamp the teacher training process. “The teachers need to become facilitators and not just a teacher. They should be guiding and mentoring the learning process and encouraging their class to think. They should not just take ideas from book but encourage children to explore,” Ishwaran advises.
There is a buzz about multiple learning strategy that focuses on the different styles of teaching. “We teach children according to the old pattern. But all children don’t learn the same way. Some learn by moving little bit, some learn with a lot of attention, some like to learn through pictures etc. But as a teacher, how can you pay attention to them allIJ For instance we have observed that the quietest children are well behaved. If we put them at the back and bring the naughty ones in the front, it would disturb the whole situation,” she concludes.
