Let the production of freaks continue (L'Express 12.02.2010)

Education : Let the production of freaks continue

Chetan Ramchurn

PONDERING on my scholastic journey, I now look at how things could have been better. I won’t indulge in any profound critique of what the past few Ministers of Education have tried to accomplish. Most of the endeavours initiated by them being inspired from Scandinavian best practices and going in the right direction, I would rather offer insights as a product of the system and my suggestions on how to improve the current state of affairs.

Scrap the elitist system: Finland, which is the benchmark as far as educational excellence is concerned, has a structure that thrives on equality whereby it willingly chooses to put those that do well and those that do not do so well together up to the age of 16. This form of impartiality which allows children to remain with the same cohort of friends also leads to the creation of a more humane cadre.

Rightly dubbed by experts as a “ philosophy of inclusion”, this is in line with the nine- year schooling principle. However, to achieve this, there is the need to eliminate our sordid obsession with assessments and as importantly to stop the public disclosure of results. Our discriminatory system, which in its state, is purely based on getting egos as infl ated as possible has been crippling our society for all too long.

Value teachers: Another vital condition for a novel knowledge system would be to enhance the value attached to knowledge imparters. Better salaries would be the fi rst step. This would act as a supplementary source of motivation for existing teachers and it would help attract high calibre candidates to teaching jobs. Greater accountability would also be required to ensure that corrective action is taken to help teachers.

In my own eyes and based on my personal experience, few teachers stood out. Beside being exceptionally good and creative at teaching, these educators treated pupils as human beings and not as mere machines trained to memorise everything.

While others were ever so ready to sound the hallali against those children that were not meeting their expected standards, these good instructors genuinely cared about their pupils.

Time for a mentality change for parents: this is a request to the parents reading this article. I would urge each and every one of you to accept your wards as they are and encourage them in order to nurture in them the desire to continuously discover new things and not be zombielike fi gures with no emotions at all who live and die by that all too limited book knowledge.

Another appeal would be to refrain from using children as a means of achieving your ambition. If you do so, you are

helping create future members of an unthinking majority where academic education is considered as an end in itself.

Limit the number of hours in class: While the Enhancement Programme is an attempt to cure the tuition issue, having students confi ned till 1730 does not bode anything good in the long term. Shorter timed classes are a must if we want to create a more conducive atmosphere to learning. Children cannot be expected to stay focused for this long. Cramming up minds has never been the best of ways to create educated citizens. Foster creativity in the classroom: The use of games, role play, storytelling and at secondary level the renditions of thought leaders are to be promulgated as early as possible. The dearth of moral education could in this way be addressed and greater profoundness given to academia.

Education cannot be the battleground for vested interests: the debate on the education of tomorrow cannot be perverted to cater for the vested interests of some people or ethnic organisations. This area is about our shared future. Kindly do not mess it up.

I’ll end my piece by quoting Socrates, “ I know that I am intelligent because I know that I know nothing”. Till this be understood, let the production of ‘ freaks’ continue.