Throughout my academic journey in India, I was determinant to achieve excellence in my student life. I was pushing myself too hard for tasks that were elusive. Ultimately I was discontented with myself for what I have become. I was resentful on where the course was taking me, somewhere I didn't want to be and where I didn’t belong. That’s when I decided to be a rebel, but it was too late. Nevertheless, I wanted to resolve this problem that was faced by almost every Indian student. I begin to inspect all facets of Indian education system. Education plays a vital role in social, economic and political development. So it is important for us to comprehend the influence of education in our society. Indian education has roots from our ancient period but has evolved into more complex system that we know today.
Since the beginning of Indian civilization till contemporary times those in power have directed the course of education but it was only with the advent of modern times that a scientific approach began to be adopted. In the ancient education system, during the vedic period, the prominent sources were the Rigaveda , the Aryanakas, the Upanishads , the Epics and Purans. Ancient Indian thinkers regarded education as a tool which guided an ignorant person on the path of an intellectual, progressive, moral and ethical course of life. Students were required to study the subject not only from the perspective of making themselves capable of handling life but also from the point of view of engaging in research and work towards creating an advanced body of knowledge in that area. This is when the glorious period of Gurukulam was eminent.
Over succession rules in India by various empires, education became more religion- centric. Brahmanism tried to reinforce hierarchies in education. Thus, for many centuries education continued to be monopolized by a few groups, with ‘caste’ and ‘gender’ determining both access and utilization of educational opportunities. Perhaps this is why reservation system prevails in our society yet, as reparation to the victims of injustice.
The introduction of western education has great historical significance for the emergence of the modern education that we follow today. Before the introduction of modern education, opportunities for learning were generally restricted to a very small portion of the population. Those from castes and classes placed lower down in the social hierarchy had hardly any access to education. The pioneering work in the field of education under the British was done by missionaries. They did take efforts in spreading the modern education but often motivated by the desire to spread Christianity among the natives of India.
During this period did the British realize the need for a standardized language to educate Indians who were linguistically divided, thus making English has the common medium of instruction. This gave British to exploit us eternally. They required man force in the lower levels of administration like clerks who would blindly obey the orders from the senior superiors. So they made an education system that prepared Indians to work as labourer under the colonial rule, curbing the freedom of thinking novel ideas. The dark truth is, we are still confined to this education system without any major reforms even after post independence.
After independence when everyone was rejoicing their freedom, a new covert race in the society begun through education. Education was used as a tool in determining the social status and development of an individual which was enforced on them over ages of caste and gender discrimination.
The Indian Education System should be probably renamed to Indian Examination System. Basically, it advocates the need for testing the knowledge of a student through examinations. Everybody is a born genius. But if you are to judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing it is stupid. This is what the Indian education system is trying to accomplish. It fails to discover the skills of the student instead concealing them. We are compelling our children to get good grades, go to college, work hard in order to be successful but we fail to understand that no one has ever changed the world by doing what the world has told them to do.
The system is feeding students with facts and expecting them to reproduce it in exams which I feel is futile especially in today’s world where students can easily google the facts they want to know. So what is our system trying to achieve then? Education is not the learning of facts, but training the mind to think.
It also makes students believe that mistakes are not allowed. By doing so, students are not only restrained from making a mistake but also afraid to fail. If they don’t make mistakes they will never learn, if they never learn they will never improve.
Is this what we want for our children?
Both the system and the society has to change in order to resolve this issue. Publishing the result of board exams is more like public shaming of students which I personally feel should be revoked and also parents comparing their child’s performance in the exams with the so called achiever students should be stopped. We fail to realize the amount of ‘Psychological Stress’ all these inflict on the students. What every parent has to realize is that their children are not a symbol of their social status where his/her value is assessed by the exam scores. Art and humanities subjects are slowly dying because of this reason. Instead of just focusing on Engineering and Medicine we should allow our children to diversify and explore the vast opportunities.
At this point, you would have a question in your mind. How can I blame the Indian education system when most of our dynamic minds have landed up at Silicon Valley? Well, the answer might be skeptical for you. One thing the Indian Education System has thought us is to work hard despite any obstacle. After all the exams that we come across as a student in India, we are trained to work hard at any cost and learn something even when we don’t understand it completely. The world adores these qualities of Indians, that’s why we are outsourced throughout the world specifically in Information Technology field.
India has many glories which include finding the number zero; hosting noble laureates like Rabindranath Tagore, C.V.Raman and various other prodigy mathematicians; holding the world’s oldest university and pioneer in Ayurveda. But yet, it has failed to bag a single noble prize in the field of science and technology or literature post independence. India has won only 28 medals in total since its participation from 1900 and ranked 67th in the 2016 global Olympic chart. Where has India failed? Is it the tedious education system or the apathetic society? The average age group of an Indian is estimated to be 29, but the average age group of the cabinet ministers in India which is always above 50. Comparing these figures, where and why does the difference arise? Where are we leading the youth generation? Most of the elite educated people fear to be part of any politics due to many unethical reasons. How many parents encourage their children to take polity studies for their bachelor degree?
Even though we had many commissions and reforms after post independence they all were focused on giving education to every citizen of India by making it one of the fundamental rights and providing reservations for underdeveloped citizens but failed to focus on its delivery system. I believe that there should be a radical overhaul of the existing framework of the education system incorporating methods to improve the intellectual, cognitive, athletic and academic ability of a student both at the school and university level. Our education system should teach how to think instead of what to think.
India from being the pioneer in arts, medicine, mathematics, science and technology we have become labourers in this modern world losing our own identity over the centuries. At least now, let us all realize our blunder and take appropriate actions in fixing the nation. Let us create opportunities for ourselves in our own nation instead of imploring for it from other countries. What I hope is not just some reforms but a revolution. Let’s MAKE INDIA GREAT AGAIN!
Arun Ragavendar
Executive Director
Youth Empowerment Society