The term “fast-forwarding education” is a rather confusing collocation. When I was told that “Fast-forwarding Education: Making It Happen” is the topic for the panel discussion, four questions cropped up. The first question: Do we have a common definition of the words: “fast-forward” and “education”? The second question: What is our concept of education? The third question: Is it a good idea to fast-forward education? The fourth question: Should we make it happen?
If we want to have a meaningful discussion on the topic “Fast-forwarding Education: Making it Happen”, we should first know what we understand by the terms “fast-forwarding” and “education”.
I have been in the field of education as a teacher, teacher trainer and education columnist for over a quarter century. must say I have been obsessed with education and have been constantly asking myself what education is all about.
Defining education
The term ‘education’ is defined by different people in different ways for different reasons on different occasions. Each person defines it the way the definition suits their interests. For some people, education means gaining knowledge and acquiring skills. For some, education means accumulating degrees and qualifications. For some others, it means spending a few years in educational institutions, being certified that they have completed a particular program successfully and adding a few letters after their names. Some equate education with its synonyms: teaching, coaching, schooling, pedagogy, training, indoctrination, enlightenment, edification, and so on.
In my view, education and qualifications are two different things. Education enables us to love human beings unconditionally and look at things critically but qualifications enable us to get a job and earn money. It is possible that highly qualified people may remain highly uneducated. In a way it includes enlightenment and edification.
The word “fast-forward” refers to the function of advancing or winding a video or tape without playing it. It is the process of skipping a part of something. It is the opposite of ‘rewinding’ or going back. Metaphorically, it refers to accelerating or forwarding (advancing or promoting) something. What is the need for fast-forwarding education? Is it possible to accelerate the way we learn things? Do we have the capacity to learn things faster?
Very recently, while discussing the topic with a colleague, a student approached me with a question on the essay he had prepared on APJ Abdul Kalam. “If Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam had studied in a top international school in India, would he have become a humane person as he was known to the world?” The eleventh President of India was called “People’s President” as he had many beautiful qualities. The education he had received in ordinary educational institutions moulded him and helped him acquire knowledge, learn skills, imbibe values and gain wisdom. Dr Kalam and many others could experience “fast-forwarded education” even though such terms did not exist in the lexicon decades ago. Can so-called elite educational institutions really help students experience such “fast-forwarded education”?
Today, some educational institutions think fast-forwarding education means “catch the students young and coach them”. As a result, coaching for IIT JEE and NEET is offered to students when they are in class VIII. Coaching starts at class VIII onwards. Coaching has replaced teaching in many educational institutions. Pathetic, indeed! Students are treated as robots and not as human beings.
I strongly believe that we cannot fast-forward education. It is a natural process. It is a journey. It takes its own time. In a fast-paced society, everything is fast. Fast train. Fast food. Chickens and meat animals are dosed with antibiotics to achieve fast growth. Crops are genetically modified to achieve fast growth. What is the outcome? Loads of side effects. In the same way, when education is fast-forwarded, it may lead to disaster.
What ails education in India? Have efforts been made to reform education in the country? Very disturbing questions, indeed! No sincere efforts have been made to reform education in the country. We have outdated curriculum. We have untrained teachers. Teachers are not appointed based on merit. In many private educational institutions, knowledgeable and talented teachers are employed on a meagre salary. As years pass, they get frustrated. Expecting such ‘frustrated’ teachers to do wonders is a sin.
Our education system does not promote critical thinking. It kills students’ creativity. In engineering colleges, campus recruitment has become synonymous with “visits of IT companies”. Should institutions of higher education prepare students only for IT-related jobs? It shows that educational institutions do not have broader visions.
Academics lack intellectual courage. They feel insecure and are scared of questioning the system. They allow things to happen. As Paolo Freire, a globally well-known Brazilian educationist, said, we have submerged in culture of silence, teachers too have submerged in culture of silence. As long as we allow things to happen, no change will take place. What is needed is movement that fights for these reforms in education. Education is a real complex process and it cannot be fast forwarded. To make positive things happen in the education sector, we need to be reform-oriented. Only those who have intellectual courage can break culture of silence and initiate reforms.
The author is an academic, columnist and freelance writer. Email: rayanal@yahoo.co.uk
