Yesterday's papers ran a whole section on how a majority of high school teachers in U.P. and Bihar could not spell two moderately difficult words (by Class V standards), could not solve a simple area problem involving a rectangle, and so on. Many of them could not even sign their own names. All this in lands that boasted of the world's oldest and greates universities. How those big institutions came crashing down, refusing to be resurrected, is something I cannot digest. That apart, one doesn't need to guess as to the quality of education offered in these places. Thousands and lakhs of students graduating with high grades and degrees and what-nots, but with little or no education. Being a largely services-oriented country, it fails me to understand why the lakhs of qualified graduates and post graduates cannot yield a few thousand efficient teachers. The issues that swoop down my brain as I wrote the previus sentence are money and respect. We have seen and heard of cases where both are found wanting by teachers. The unfortunate and most inhuman case of a professor being pumelled to death in Pune brings to the forefront the ill treatment meted out to many teachers across the nation. Of course, exceptions do exist and will always do. About money, it is no secret that teachers are hardly paid what they deserve, pay commissions or none.
This also brings in another disturbing issue - does the Indian schooling system offer knowledge sans education? I observe the three Class X students who come home to study Maths with my mom. I find them quite intelligent and smart, and they also seem to be doing pretty well with their grades. None of them, however, seems to be loving the subject, and all of them slog it out only for the elusive 90 plus score in the end. I remember my very own days, when, for twelve long years at school, I had scarcely thought about what I liked and what I wanted to do after school. The courses were a mere formality that one went through and the final examinations meant a whole year of subjects and topics to be forgotten.
While the stress on examinations here to stay, grades or no grades, one way of improving the situation could be to offer more choices of subjects to students in high school. This could lead to an early development of interest in a particular area of study. While this suggestion, like most others, may seem promising to a few, it is the implementation that holds the key to its succes. The advantage here is that high school is not under the jurisdiction of the Board examinations and a body of schools can chart out their own syllabus. Many private schools in Delhi offer foreign language course to primary classes and most of my little friends are pretty kicked about learning them.
Studying the same set of subjects for twelve years is pretty tough. A friend exclaimed recently that school was the toughest part of his career. 'Imagine sixty students', he said, 'studying the same text and being expected to write the same answer to the same question.' That's one hell of a job, I thought. It is ironic that the same set of students are then expected to essay different jobs in life. I thought school prepared one for life!
With such a muddled approach to teaching and studies, it is no wonder that as a nation, we stay
This also brings in another disturbing issue - does the Indian schooling system offer knowledge sans education? I observe the three Class X students who come home to study Maths with my mom. I find them quite intelligent and smart, and they also seem to be doing pretty well with their grades. None of them, however, seems to be loving the subject, and all of them slog it out only for the elusive 90 plus score in the end. I remember my very own days, when, for twelve long years at school, I had scarcely thought about what I liked and what I wanted to do after school. The courses were a mere formality that one went through and the final examinations meant a whole year of subjects and topics to be forgotten.
While the stress on examinations here to stay, grades or no grades, one way of improving the situation could be to offer more choices of subjects to students in high school. This could lead to an early development of interest in a particular area of study. While this suggestion, like most others, may seem promising to a few, it is the implementation that holds the key to its succes. The advantage here is that high school is not under the jurisdiction of the Board examinations and a body of schools can chart out their own syllabus. Many private schools in Delhi offer foreign language course to primary classes and most of my little friends are pretty kicked about learning them.
Studying the same set of subjects for twelve years is pretty tough. A friend exclaimed recently that school was the toughest part of his career. 'Imagine sixty students', he said, 'studying the same text and being expected to write the same answer to the same question.' That's one hell of a job, I thought. It is ironic that the same set of students are then expected to essay different jobs in life. I thought school prepared one for life!
With such a muddled approach to teaching and studies, it is no wonder that as a nation, we stay
1 comment:
Good one ranga. Almost all the points u made were valid. But i would like to disagree with the plan of introducing optionals in school. Because i feel this leads to specialization at a very early age, which will create biasness towards subjects. Instead of that the teachers along with explaining the subject should also let know the students the importance of the subject in the context of their lives. In this way teaching will be more meaning full with a holistic development of the student.
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