“So, what do you plan to become when you grow old?”
I was sitting with my uncle’s elder son who was in Class VII at a private school. I had asked the most common, unimaginative question that a 28-year- old could ask a kid just to break the awkward silence that had filled the room. I kind of pre-empted the answer, considering his father was a doctor. I wondered if there was any hint of a rebel in him. I wondered if he wanted to be an engineer!
“Well, I’m confused. I love cricket but I did not perform very well in the school tournaments. Can I do what people do before a cricket match starts — discuss cricket?”
“But don’t you want to become a doctor, just like your dad?” I asked.
I was amazed at the audacity of a seventh grader from a middle class family to even utter those words. Even rebels in a typical middle class family go through the indoctrination of ‘engineering / medical’ before they start thinking of something different (photography… maybe the wildlife ones?). Since I had achieved ultimate success in my life by studying both gravitational forces and Porter’s Five Forces, I expected queries on books and tuitions from him to replicate my path of success. But here he was, in complete innocence, speaking from his heart about what he really enjoyed doing. I was not wired to respond to this. The awkward silence continued.
The Indian education system is an epitome of misguided priorities that glorify scores, grades and salaries as the only criteria for defining success. The amount of media coverage that is given to toppers across a host of competitive examinations is phenomenal. And the way students are portrayed is even more interesting. Headlines such as “Pune girl who scored 99.6% studied only three hours a day”, and “I’m not a genius: CBSE topper”, are common across the media as soon as the results of any national-level examination is declared. Next will be the coaching institutes, which will immediately jump on to the bandwagon to come up with innovative programmes such as “Fortunate 10”, “Special 26” (isn’t that a movie!) and “Awesome 40” to further segregate students based on a few hours of assessment (I always wonder why these 10s and 20s could not expand their intake with some more investment!).
Some of them will go one step ahead to even recommend how to ensure a strong value system for your daughter / son. The impact it has on the psychology of the parents, teachers and students is damaging. And I say it is detrimental for all, not only those who could not achieve what is perceived as success but also those who did cross this imaginary line of accomplishment. What are we celebrating here? An examination in India is just a unidimensional, time-bound process of identification of students who are deemed fit to study a particular course or a set of courses over a defined period of time. It does not create any tangible output — no intellectual property, no creations. (Live projects as part of annual assessment has been taken as seriously as the Internet during Mahabharata!)
These students are just on the verge of starting what could be a successful career, but that is also dependent on a lot of other factors such as alignment of interests, good mentorship, strict discipline, and so on. So why this premature celebration! Premature celebrations are always harmful (a certain neighbouring country of ours had a bad experience of it during a global cricket tournament!).
Additionally, the pedagogy followed in all our schools is detrimental to any form of creative and original thinking. I remember, as a kid, taking pride in being able to reproduce answers verbatim from my teacher’s notes during school examinations. I had been wired to do that, and society applauded me for it and hence I complied. This is what every student in India aspires to do — conquering those horrendous examination hours. And, in the process the creativity and originality of a student is lost. This has a direct impact on the way we form opinions, the way we analyse and react to situations. The last thing our country needs today is a brigade of young followers who just follow a curriculum and a template blindly, without experiencing the joys of curiosity and creativity.
So how do we solve this problem? How do we ensure that students come out of this trap of achieving success through unidimensional metrics such as test scores, salary packages, grade points and so on? We can improve access to education by improving our enrolment numbers, but how do we ensure that the psychology of the educational ecosystem is transformed towards more collaborations and creations?
Our highly educated leaders who are in charge of public education have demonstrated only an inclination towards numbers (which are convenient for election manifestos), be it the enrolment ratio or expanding the catalogue of institutes of national importance. So the responsibility lies with all of us to ensure that going forward, learning becomes an important part of the dialogue. There is a need for all the three stakeholders — teachers, students and parents — to reassess their priorities. The core of it should always be learning by students, encouraged by curiosity and a genuine interest. And of course, let’s celebrate inventions and creations, and not examinations.
