Education is the process of facilitating learning, or the acquisition of knowledge, skills, values, morals, beliefs, and habits. If this were to be true, then we all should be very well aware as to what are the skills, values, morals, beliefs, habits and knowledge that a student is likely to possess after a specific number of years of education. What are the deliverables that the present education system is promising  to our children ? What are the short term and long term education objectives that have been determined ? What can we expect from the educated after a specific number of years?

With loads of information and data , children today have been made to feel as if they are totally in the unknown and that they need to learn from the text books which are the Gospels of truth and knowledge . Without going into how the syllabus has been structured to meet the larger objective, children burn the midnight oil to master the information. Some score 100 per cent and some 40 per cent. The student who scores 100 per cent develops the attitude that he knows it all and that the one with 40 per cent feels that if he were to master the books, it would give him taste of eternal knowledge.

The point in question here is what should be the goal of education? Whether the present day education system is achieving that goal? What is the set of specific and broad goals that our children should acquire after a long 14-15 years of school education? Has the end become more important than the process?

Without going into the correlation of the education goals with the subjects and syllabus being covered in schools; even for a moment if we say all is well; why does the system needs to send hundreds of changes/additional circulars to schools on newer practices almost on regular basis? Even it being so, we may like to conclude that the system is ever evolving, ever expanding, ever developing. So isn't the process standardised to not achieve the goal which is supposedly earmarked in the first place, that we need to keep adding newer activities every week or fortnight as additional curriculum. Why doesn't the system delete some activities which may become redundant. It is anybody's guess that no school would be able to complete the set of stipulated exercises as enshrined in the system' s requirement. Is this a calculated way of putting the schools on back foot to always?

Where are the parents in the process ? They are the most important stake-holders. Do the parents even know about the teaching objectives or what they can expect their children to be after they pass out Class XII? Or is it too mechanical that everything that goes in the system comes out and further goes in and then again comes out and on and on. What is the accountability of the system? With school toppers languishing in jails, being unemployed, most disillusioned, with no morals, values, beliefs and habits, it is high time we have a re-look at the education system of today.

Let’s take the exam system; it can be anything except being perfect. The focus of all school children, teachers and parents is on examination. Exams are not adjusted on completion of education but education is adjusted seeing the exam timelines. The process is being taken care of by people who seldom teach in classrooms. The system has become a test in itself.

Have exams become a toy in the hands of the system to use? Are we losing crucial time for education for exams? Exam reforms have always been advocated in this country, but nothing seems to be happening on the ground. We were not able to implement the last NPE in 34 years. Now the country has another NPE 2021. Hopefully, the new music beats are melodious to the ears, but the question is how and when?

The writer is Sachin Gupta, Chancellor, Sanskriti University