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Crumbling Educational System
June 03, 2011
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The major defect of our existing educational system that requires the immediate and earnest consideration of all those who are interested in the welfare of the country, is its excessively passive and mechanical character. The student plays no active role in the attainment of knowledge. His entire education is passive and mechanical. Things are loaded on to his mind which he cannot digest. Our educational system is just "cramming the student’s mind with a lot of disjointed facts poured into the head as into the basket, to be emptied out again in the examination room, and the empty basket carried out again into the world."
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There was a time, when Indian sub-continent was noted all over the world as a glorious centre of education and culture where student came from all over the globe. The educational and cultural centres like Nalanda, Taxila and Parayg attracted students from places as far as Egypt, Greece, China, Sri Lanka and Indonesia. It was an ideal system of education. But now when we look at the present states of affairs in our country, it shocks us deeply.
Unfortunately, our educational system has not undergone any change with the change brought about by political independence. It bears no imprint of freedom and appears to be as listless and academic as it used to be during the days of slavery. Our universities still remain anchored to the pattern that had been introduced in a century ago by our British rulers to serve their administrative needs. The imperfections of that pattern are now keenly felt and there is a cry for introducing a radical change in the educational system -- a change that will touch not merely the methods and curricular, but the very objective and ideology of education, in accordance with the needs of the new social, economical and political setup in the country.
The major defect of our existing educational system that requires the immediate and earnest consideration of all those who are interested in the welfare of the country, is its excessively passive and mechanical character. The student plays no active role in the attainment of knowledge. His entire education is passive and mechanical. Things are loaded on to his mind which he cannot digest. Our educational system is just "cramming the student’s mind with a lot of disjointed facts poured into the head as into the basket, to be emptied out again in the examination room, and the empty basket carried out again into the world."
This is the reason why a student who succeeds so well in college examinations fails so miserably in the examination of life. The best product of our examination system is an owlish looking boy who knows nothing of the world beyond the world of books. He is physically poor, intellectually blank and morally insolvent. He has no proper grasps and assimilation, no views and visions of his own. He has no desire to form convictions, arrives at no conclusions and his will seems to be suspended. He simply covers the window of his mind with the pages of books. Our present system of education, therefore, makes the students dumb-driven cattle rather than enlightened citizens; bookworms rather than creative thinkers; machines rather than ideal men.
The existing system of our education is predominantly academic and theoretical. It is theoretical as a rule and practical by chance. As Maulana Azad observed, "there is no adjustment between the system of our education and the needs of our life. The students is taught lesson from books, but no lessons from life.” In other words, he is provided with knowledge, but not wisdom. He is obliged to know the history of Greece of 2,000 years ago, but he knows more about the English Country councils, than about own municipality of his town. He is so busy in leaning about great and distant things that he has little interest in life's little thing around him.
It's time to take effective steps for making our educational system better, and it can be done only if, "Education is served as education not like a business".
If our educationists maintain their level of teaching for the betterment of this society and generation, then, in result, we'll surely get great results, and those results would be in the form of a marvellous and exemplary educated society.
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