In an age of globalisation, knowledge can be acquired via technology. We can go beyond the traditional ways of learning. Peer and parental pressure and increasing levels of competition have put our children at risk, writes Kamal Wadhera
Sorry for being weak, and not showing courage, but I am tired now, no strength left.” This is what Kriti Tripathi, an intelligent, enterprising, Indian Institute of Technology-Joint Entrance Examination aspirant wrote in a five-page suicide letter.
The letter has exposed the tremendous emotional cost at which our children are increasingly adopting their parents’ dream as their own. But the question is: Are Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) the only way to succeed in engineeringIJ
Venkat Ramakrishnan, the 2009 Nobel Prize winner for chemistry, was an IIT-reject. He settled for physics at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore. The current chief executive officer of Microsoft, Satya Nadella, is not from any of the IITs, the legendary Vinod Dham, the father of the Pentium chip, studied at the Delhi College of Engineering.
So, that settles the question on the importance of IITs for your engineering career, but then it raises another question: Are Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) courses the only way to career successIJ
When we look around, do we see many people with non-STEM backgrounds who have earned name, fame and wealthIJ Do we see wealth creation only around products that rely solely on STEM subject expertiseIJ
While unveiling the iPad, former co-founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of Apple Inc Steve Jobs explained that, “It’s in Apple’s DNA that technology alone is not enough — that its technology married with the liberal arts, married with the humanities that yield us the result that makes our hearts sing.”
We are all familiar with the huge success story of Facebook. Its founder, Mark Zuckerberg, was a classic liberal arts student, majoring in psychology with a deep interest in computer science. We all know that Facebook’s innovations have a lot to do with psychology. In Zuckerbeg’s own words, Facebook is “as much psychology and sociology as it is technology.”
So, there we have our answer — that there are many avenues, be it cooking, travel, writing, singing, dancing, story-telling, design or anthropology where one can embrace his passion to make it a successful career. Then, why are we forcing our children to swim against the tide of their own passion, to chase dreams with which they don’t connect emotionallyIJ Why are we trying to put a square peg in a round holeIJ
Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba, recently said in a speech that the Chinese lag behind Western countries in innovation and creativity because China’s educational system, which teaches the basics very well, does not nourish a student’s complete intelligence, allowing him/her to range freely, experiment and enjoy himself/herself while learning. This is true for most of the Asian education systems, including India.
The problem is not the lack of avenues as we have argued earlier, but the lack of knowledge and the confidence that there are other ways to succeed. This prompts parents to choose the safe way, and the safe way is to push their kids through the IITs and the Indian Institutes of Management.
The million dollar question is: How exactly do we address this issueIJ Does technology have a role to play in this journeyIJ Can it help a child discover where his/her passion lies and what he/she is born forIJ Can it prevent him/her from being diverted by contextual pressures posed by the society and family to abandon his/her true passion and competence in favour of a safe path to successIJ The answer is ‘yes’.
The answer involves capturing and recording skills, traits, habits, interests early on from his/her interaction with a technology platform which may be in a formal or informal setup. It may even be an assessment or gaming engine with which the child starts his/her interaction early on and continues for a longer period of time.
Such an assessment engine can systematically capture data about the child and use data science to analyse and update the stake-holders at any point of time towards the possible avenues which would fit his/her interest and passion and where he/she would demonstrate excellence.
It wouldn’t be long before technology transforms the way we think of our children’s careers, diminish the relevance of degrees and bring to forefront individual excellence, passion and creativity in different areas as the criteria for success.
let’s hope to raise a nation of happy kids chasing their true dreams and passion. let us aspire to be a super powerhouse of human innovation and spirit. let us leverage technology and assessment to help us achieve it. let’s be determined to help every learner become what he/she is born for.
(The writer is CEO and founder of TCYonline, an ed-tech Company)