Sandeep Pandey questions the purpose of education in India
June 3, 2009 at 10:00 pm 2 comments
A friend of mine forwarded the following article to me where Sandeep Pandey questions the purpose of schooling in India. Sandeep Pandey is a social activist and also the co-founder of Asha for Education and Asha Parivar.
Click here to access the article.
Mr. Pandey starts off by pointing out the most commonly given reasons for imparting education to individuals- becoming progressive and building a civilized society, assimilating knowledge and becoming employable.
But has the Indian education system been really achieving this?
Take the most desirable reason today in peoples’ minds for receiving a good education – becoming employable. The reality in India is that the number of people receiving education and going without a job is growing at a faster rate than the number of job opportunities that are being created by the economic liberalization.
Or take the issue of becoming a progressive individual by receiving good education. Even educated people would agree that they are no more happy than uneducated people. Nor are they any more sensitive or sympathetic towards other human beings.
Or take the notion that educated people are more knowledgeable. Who decides as to “what is knowledge”? Do the skills and capsules of information that the state has designed as”knowledge” for the majority of the schools enough? Do the products of the education system and it’s most advanced programmes (like doctorate programs) feel knowledgeable enough to be able to provide answers to all queries related to his/her specialization?
Take this opportunity to reflect on some of the most fundamental questions about the Indian education system by reading this article.
Entry filed under: Curriculum, Indian education system, Rethinking the education system, What is worth learning?. Tags: higher order skills, india education, meaning of intelligence, purpose of education, redesign of education systems.
1.
Reforming Education | July 16, 2009 at 6:27 am
Dear Gayathri,
| “Take the most desirable reason today in peoples’ minds for receiving a good education – becoming employable.” |
So true. But they haven’t been left with much choices! The rift between IIT’s / IIM’s and traditional courses is palpable and widening by the day!
With just a handful of quality educations institutes, not may are privileged enough to have quality education. In such situations the employable quotients of majority of youth is below par. Even the employers are not lft with many choices!
Rampant reforms is need of the hour! Kapil SIbal is making a head start for sure, but the direction of the thrust needs to be calculated.
2.
gathu1 | July 23, 2009 at 11:12 pm
I agree that there needs to be lot more quality institutes in higher education.I feel that just by improving the quality of the higher education institutions alone isn’t enough. The bigger problem exists in the quality of the basic education system of the country. The basic education system must engage the students, connect the learning to their real-life context and build critical skills in them rather than just imparting a set of memorized facts. All these are important to motivate them to pursue higher education and also to stay engaged in learning during their college years. Addressing the quality issues in higher education, without addressing these issues in basic education is not going to help.