Alvin Toffler says that the present school system should be replaced by a school system that could make available customized education. A school that would open 24 hours a day, could let a student in any time, has a diverse curriculum and teachers teach while doing other jobs as well. Students could get the liberty to begin their formalised schooling at different ages. Such a school would cater to the needs of new economy, the knowledge economy.
India's school system was designed by Macaulay, reportedly, to produce clerks. It I use Toffler's words, it is a system that produces an educated individual by forcing him to go through a 'rote repetitive' stuff. An individual who is educated in this manner is no doubt a wonderful clerk material. Government sector was and still is the biggest provider of white collar jobs in India and thus Macaulay model seems to be extremely successful in the supply of an educated individual in India, may be for the last 100 years.
India is a young country, about 65% of population is under 35. A young educated guy comes out of the school roughly at about 17 years. But that is not enough to seek a basic white collar job. He has to go through at least three more years of education to seek a job. Two more to seek specialization, and a few more years to contribute to research and innovation. The fact remains that it is these students who excel in doing 'rote repetitive' stuff, in their formative years, usually reach the stage, where they learn the skills to do research and innovation.
First question is - Does present education system in India, suffocate these students in their formative years, who have the potential to do research and innovation later? In order to find an answer to this question and reach a conclusion, an extensive research needs to be carried out. I tried to look for some such research but could not find anything. If I have to answer this question myself, I would say yes, I hated rote education wherever it was relevant, and failed miserably to do well in those areas. However, the family and society where I lived provided an amazing access to knowledge, in terms of books, library, newspapers, magazines etc. A large part of my learning in formative years came from 'outside classroom' activities like reading and participating in extra-curricular activities. I often wonder - In the absence of outside classroom learning opportunities, would I have been a case of a failed student, one who had major learning inefficiencies? My biology and chemistry school teachers should have definitely vouched for that.
Second question is - Does school education do anything to those who seek something like a basic government job? A research study conducted by P Duraisamy published in 2002, states that school education undergoes a diminishing rate of return, the returns up till secondary level rise and after that they decline. For women its the reverse, 'the returns to women's primary and middle levels of education declined while those to secondary and college levels increased during the decade 1983–94'. Investment in women's education back then, seemed to be a more profitable proposition. May be a new study in 2015-16 may bring diminishing returns for higher education for women as well. If a student does not attend school at all and studies all by himself at home for 8-10 years, will he be good enough to qualify a 10th class exam? Someone who starts his education at an age of 8-10 would be able to gather enough knowledge by the time he is 15 to qualify 10th or not?
A bigger question is - Did we go to school to gather knowledge? or Did we go to get friendship, companionship, which could foster our social and emotional development? or Did we go to school to get values? My personal answer to the second question would be yes, definitely. My answer to the first and third questions would be yes, in parts.
Coming back to the question of the challenge of educating a young country like India should lie in creating a model of Increasing returns to education. What if we provide each child with an I Pad and an internet connection? What if we construct public computer centers and public libraries instead of schools? A pilot could be done to find out if investment in laptop/ I Pad and library brings increasing returns to education. Let schools then be fun places to make friends, play, learn some language and maths, drawing, painting, music and other disciplines of performing and applied arts in the basic years of education, lets say 10 years. Let them learn yoga and meditation as part of formal education, for the first ten years. Let a student have a choice to continue formal education after that or to continue with an informal education and sit for his 10th and 12th exams.
Investment in this kind of education would be much lesser and thus the essential difference between cost and revenue would widen in school education and would reduce in college education to make it a proposition of increasing returns to scale. As it is, in a country like India, teachers are absent in government schools and colleges classrooms. Those who wish to educate themselves in that system resort to self learning. We don't need these educators anymore in the education system, who take away assured pay packages with them every month and make education a proposition of diminishing returns to scale. Instead, we can have artists, musicians, physical trainers, sports men, Yoga experts, etc. working as part time teachers in schools.
Let the budget for education be spent more on universities nurturing research and innovation, on labs and equipment and on developing IT enabled education material. Let school education be freed of shackles of Macaulay.
I remember, as a kid I once came back from school and declared that I wanted to change my school. A raised eyebrow asked for a reason. 'There is no discipline in school', I answered. 'Oh! you better keep yourself disciplined rather than change your school', the raised eyebrow said. That discipline seeking child doesn't remember clearly what was the real reason to demand for a change of school. What she does postulate is that schools need to get some discipline for a better economy.
India's school system was designed by Macaulay, reportedly, to produce clerks. It I use Toffler's words, it is a system that produces an educated individual by forcing him to go through a 'rote repetitive' stuff. An individual who is educated in this manner is no doubt a wonderful clerk material. Government sector was and still is the biggest provider of white collar jobs in India and thus Macaulay model seems to be extremely successful in the supply of an educated individual in India, may be for the last 100 years.
India is a young country, about 65% of population is under 35. A young educated guy comes out of the school roughly at about 17 years. But that is not enough to seek a basic white collar job. He has to go through at least three more years of education to seek a job. Two more to seek specialization, and a few more years to contribute to research and innovation. The fact remains that it is these students who excel in doing 'rote repetitive' stuff, in their formative years, usually reach the stage, where they learn the skills to do research and innovation.
First question is - Does present education system in India, suffocate these students in their formative years, who have the potential to do research and innovation later? In order to find an answer to this question and reach a conclusion, an extensive research needs to be carried out. I tried to look for some such research but could not find anything. If I have to answer this question myself, I would say yes, I hated rote education wherever it was relevant, and failed miserably to do well in those areas. However, the family and society where I lived provided an amazing access to knowledge, in terms of books, library, newspapers, magazines etc. A large part of my learning in formative years came from 'outside classroom' activities like reading and participating in extra-curricular activities. I often wonder - In the absence of outside classroom learning opportunities, would I have been a case of a failed student, one who had major learning inefficiencies? My biology and chemistry school teachers should have definitely vouched for that.
Second question is - Does school education do anything to those who seek something like a basic government job? A research study conducted by P Duraisamy published in 2002, states that school education undergoes a diminishing rate of return, the returns up till secondary level rise and after that they decline. For women its the reverse, 'the returns to women's primary and middle levels of education declined while those to secondary and college levels increased during the decade 1983–94'. Investment in women's education back then, seemed to be a more profitable proposition. May be a new study in 2015-16 may bring diminishing returns for higher education for women as well. If a student does not attend school at all and studies all by himself at home for 8-10 years, will he be good enough to qualify a 10th class exam? Someone who starts his education at an age of 8-10 would be able to gather enough knowledge by the time he is 15 to qualify 10th or not?
A bigger question is - Did we go to school to gather knowledge? or Did we go to get friendship, companionship, which could foster our social and emotional development? or Did we go to school to get values? My personal answer to the second question would be yes, definitely. My answer to the first and third questions would be yes, in parts.
Coming back to the question of the challenge of educating a young country like India should lie in creating a model of Increasing returns to education. What if we provide each child with an I Pad and an internet connection? What if we construct public computer centers and public libraries instead of schools? A pilot could be done to find out if investment in laptop/ I Pad and library brings increasing returns to education. Let schools then be fun places to make friends, play, learn some language and maths, drawing, painting, music and other disciplines of performing and applied arts in the basic years of education, lets say 10 years. Let them learn yoga and meditation as part of formal education, for the first ten years. Let a student have a choice to continue formal education after that or to continue with an informal education and sit for his 10th and 12th exams.
Investment in this kind of education would be much lesser and thus the essential difference between cost and revenue would widen in school education and would reduce in college education to make it a proposition of increasing returns to scale. As it is, in a country like India, teachers are absent in government schools and colleges classrooms. Those who wish to educate themselves in that system resort to self learning. We don't need these educators anymore in the education system, who take away assured pay packages with them every month and make education a proposition of diminishing returns to scale. Instead, we can have artists, musicians, physical trainers, sports men, Yoga experts, etc. working as part time teachers in schools.
Let the budget for education be spent more on universities nurturing research and innovation, on labs and equipment and on developing IT enabled education material. Let school education be freed of shackles of Macaulay.
I remember, as a kid I once came back from school and declared that I wanted to change my school. A raised eyebrow asked for a reason. 'There is no discipline in school', I answered. 'Oh! you better keep yourself disciplined rather than change your school', the raised eyebrow said. That discipline seeking child doesn't remember clearly what was the real reason to demand for a change of school. What she does postulate is that schools need to get some discipline for a better economy.
