Swami Vivekananda once said,
“To me, the very essence of education is concentration of mind, not the collection of facts.”
This is true, indeed! It makes us question, what makes a person truly educated?
An education is a cumulation of lessons and experiences that gives the child an ability to cope up with the future and further the quality of their life. However, the current education system is not one that lives up to these standards.
It is systematic, almost like a factory focusing on producing machines instead of well-rounded individuals. It harbours a one-size-fits-all philosophy that focuses on mugging up facts and creates an unhealthy environment for students. There is a light on numbers. It is not only focused on bookish knowledge and outdated teaching methods but is also unsustainable for students with special needs. Overall, the system of the upcoming infrastructure education is a weak foundation, especially educational institutions. They introduce their curriculum to children via fun advertisements with famous actors, and encourages the parents to enroll in it. It is marketed as a futuristic model where children are taught through videos and interactive sessions that are helpful to small children in making the lessons enjoyable. But, we need to question whether they really give the education of qualities, experiences and lessons to our children which make them good citizens?
For older children, there are promises made of top ranks in competitive exams, and campus placements if you take a certain package. Although, it may or may not give these results to one’s child, is it truly giving the education that our leaders thought the future should recieve? This infrastructure education teaches students how to win a rat race, but not how to win in life. It does not teach them values that are necessary to the functioning of society, like empathy, leadership skills, inclusivity, compassion, kindness and honesty. Especially for young kids, developing these values early on should be our priority, no matter which education system we follow.
Keeping this in mind, it is necessary to teach our children through a system of education that gives us these results. That can be done by quality education the best where, there is an open, safe environment for students to learn conceptually, learn the art of asking questions and understand the different perspectives, they can learn with each other, rather than competing in a race, they can have a strong foundation that can make their further education even stronger.
This shows us that in order to build a bright future for our world, the main focus should be on quality education of our children. After all, it was the great Nelson Mandela who said , “Education is the most powerful weapon that you can use to change the world. “
This is true, indeed! It makes us question, what makes a person truly educated?
An education is a cumulation of lessons and experiences that gives the child an ability to cope up with the future and further the quality of their life. However, the current education system is not one that lives up to these standards.
It is systematic, almost like a factory focusing on producing machines instead of well-rounded individuals. It harbours a one-size-fits-all philosophy that focuses on mugging up facts and creates an unhealthy environment for students. There is a light on numbers. It is not only focused on bookish knowledge and outdated teaching methods but is also unsustainable for students with special needs. Overall, the system of the upcoming infrastructure education is a weak foundation, especially educational institutions. They introduce their curriculum to children via fun advertisements with famous actors, and encourages the parents to enroll in it. It is marketed as a futuristic model where children are taught through videos and interactive sessions that are helpful to small children in making the lessons enjoyable. But, we need to question whether they really give the education of qualities, experiences and lessons to our children which make them good citizens?
For older children, there are promises made of top ranks in competitive exams, and campus placements if you take a certain package. Although, it may or may not give these results to one’s child, is it truly giving the education that our leaders thought the future should recieve? This infrastructure education teaches students how to win a rat race, but not how to win in life. It does not teach them values that are necessary to the functioning of society, like empathy, leadership skills, inclusivity, compassion, kindness and honesty. Especially for young kids, developing these values early on should be our priority, no matter which education system we follow.
Keeping this in mind, it is necessary to teach our children through a system of education that gives us these results. That can be done by quality education the best where, there is an open, safe environment for students to learn conceptually, learn the art of asking questions and understand the different perspectives, they can learn with each other, rather than competing in a race, they can have a strong foundation that can make their further education even stronger.
This shows us that in order to build a bright future for our world, the main focus should be on quality education of our children. After all, it was the great Nelson Mandela who said , “Education is the most powerful weapon that you can use to change the world. “
By Devashree Nene, Std 10 A