Education system has been a problem in our country since long and the lack of it has been blamed for all sorts of failures for years.
We live in a country in which people see education as the means of climbing the socio-economic ladder. The failure of education system in India is not due to lack of demand for quality education but because of the inability of implementing changes as required.
The students today, are indeed unlike the students of yesteryear. They retain much more than the latter at their age. Our education system is geared towards teaching and testing knowledge at every level as opposed to teaching skills. Why are we rewarded for cramming information? I believe, this is a major flaw in our system. There is no system in place to motivate teachers to improve academic achievement and very little training is available to strengthen teaching practices.
For way too long teaching has been considered the sanctuary of the incompetent. Teaching jobs are until today widely regarded as safe, well-paying, risk-free and low-pressure jobs. However, the mindset of people remains the same. There is more of teacher talk time than learner talk time. While quite a number of teachers are knowledgeable out there, many of them take teaching only as a means of income and not as a profession. This encourages teacher talk time as they don’t allow students to interact or clear up their doubts.
I remember teachers from my school days who had been very adamant about their teaching. Yes, they were right, but no one was wrong either. It was just another way to see things or make things work.
We are entering an age where superstar teachers will be preferred. Teaching will truly become an art as technology makes it possible for one teacher to teach thousands of students at the same time. And also learn from them at the same time, as you get to learn something from every other person you meet or get to talk.
Having experienced it myself, I strongly believe that the interaction between faculty and students doesn’t only motivate the students but also encourages them to upspeak. The general attitude that stands as a pillar is that the students are only supposed to learn and the teachers are only supposed to teach. But can students not make you know something new? Ofcourse they can.
