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History with horse riding
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The eternal debate seems to be whether our educational system is equipped to build a confident tomorrow or if it is just burdening the child with rote learning. MEENAKSHI SHIVRAM checks out what parents expect from schools.
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Both children and parents are under stress, thanks to the system. — Photos: K. Gopinathan
"THE INDIAN education system is radically flawed. Our syllabus still belongs to the Industrial (Revolution). We are even now only interested in bringing out assembly-line workers," declares Gen. Arjun Ray, CEO of the Indus International School.
It is no exaggeration that the moment a baby is born, parents look around to book him or her in a school befitting their aspirations and status. After all, they want the best for their young ones. Schools are a powerful medium for moulding young minds and today's parents are well aware of that. So when parents queue up outside a school for an admission form, what is it that they expect the institution to deliver?
"Schools are chosen on the reputation of their academic excellence," says Mitu Jayshankar, a business journalist. "I would look for a holistic approach," says Ganesh Raja, manager in a multinational firm. "The idea is not to equip my child pursue a career. I would like a school to identify my child's traits, evaluate her merits, focus on her strengths, and provide a curriculum to suit her requirements." A very tall order indeed, but several other parents too agreed they would prefer to have a customised, tailor-made curriculum for their children. And they mentioned, in almost the same breath, that most schools were not equipped to handle the individual needs of students.
Sumita Banerjee, principal of the pre-primary school, Poorna Prajna Education Centre, fails to understand all this fuss about "holistic education". "Schools have to focus on academics because colleges and centres of higher education insist on cut-off percentages. There is, in any case, a mismatch between our qualifications and the jobs we take up. So, it would be a great thing to encourage your child to be a photographer but he had better have that MBA from Ahmedabad first. It is the parents who are keen on schools that focus on academics."
What if your child is that great artiste waiting for the right environment to help him or her bloom? What if the creative writer in your child is suppressed under the debris of compound interest? What if your child is a prospective Abdul Kalam, a Sachin Tendulkar, or an M.F. Husain? This is where the alternative schools pitch in with their winning formula. They claim to provide individual attention to all students. The teacher-student ratio is 1:12 or 15 and learning is treated as a fun exercise.
"When we were in school, fun ended when the teacher entered the class," recalls Ms. Jayshankar. For her, the atmosphere was strict, austere, and serious. And, there was too much emphasis on discipline. The maxim used to be that students must be seen, not heard. But when she went to Prakriya, an alternative school in Koramangala, she was thrilled to see students run to hug their teachers.
"Schools like Prakriya are ideal for parents who are busy. Children enjoy total freedom but they do tend to convert everything into play! There are a few other limitations. One, the schools are not prevalent enough, which means that when parents move out, it may not be possible for them to find a similar school close by. Two, schools like the Rishi Valley or the Chinmaya Mission place students in idealistic surroundings and remove them from reality. Most of us are ordinary people. Our children do need to be pushed occasionally. Not all of us are geniuses," says Usha Ganesh, who teaches in a leading business school.
Gen. Ray is of the opinion that geniuses can be made. "Our education system, with its horrifying emphasis on rote learning and regurgitation, has so far manufactured only `cybercoolies'. NASA may have 40 per cent Indians but not a single Indian has yet been to the moon; Microsoft may have 30 per cent Indians in its employ but Windows is American, he says. We have developed managerial skills, but have lost out on leadership skills. Intelligence needs to be redefined. From being understood as a unitary concept, logical and mathematical, it needs to be seen as a multiple concept, as also being emotional, kinaesthetic and spatial. Which means that Tendulkar and Kalam need not be taught the same syllabus!
The debate is really between `ordinary' schools that lay equal emphasis on all academic subjects and the `other' ones that lay emphasis on students' individual needs. Parents perceive a few problems with these otherwise ideal alternative establishments — they are expensive and carry an element of `risk'. For instance, Rishi Valley takes in children after they are six years old, and parents confessed that they did not have the courage to see other children go to school at four while their own little ones stayed at home.
Meenu Shekar, a business correspondent, wonders what if at the end of 10 years in school, the student is smart, capable, independent, bright, but does not have the marks to get into a good college? Ten years is too long to see if an experiment works, she feels.
Most parents are anxious about the kind of values children will imbibe from these elitist schools. Indrani Chowdhury, marketing manager for a publishing house, raves about her children's alma mater. A teacher actually taught a difficult concept in physics, taking an example from classical Hindustani music! But students from such schools, she says, have little pressure to succeed in the country itself. Most are from the business class who take their annual holidays abroad and are generally sure of getting into a fairly decent college in the U.S..
What are the parents hankering for? For ordinary schools with an extraordinary curriculum. They would like to have a reasonably priced education with a syllabus that makes available history and horse riding, that can replace maths with music to suit their children's leanings, that will make their young ones independent and balanced and socially conscious. And they would also want to have their children home by evening.
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