Can being well educated be synchronous to being well trained in our education system?
Even before we keep our first step in school, what are we taught to do? Learn and learn ferociously. I used the term ‘ferociously’ because that is how you are expected to excel in exams and academically. Attaining primary education in India, we always got to write essays on the ‘Importance of education’ in one’s life.
As a student, I never really liked studying, and I’m sure that is the case with most of you out there. I remember my parents telling me about the importance of studies every time I failed in a subject or scored less. Out of all those conversation, one thing they said is quite common in our households- You study well, so that you get a good job and hence lead a good life. Is that all we need to do in life? Yes, that is an important part, but what about the application of our knowledge? What about being trained in whatever we’ve learnt as a part of our syllabus?
The education system or rather the ‘examination system’ in India, has failed to acknowledge the interests of students immensely. We grew up learning things more on a confined basis and not on an innovative basis. Students are pushed to rank the topmost in class and those who are not able to fare well are treated as dolts or categorized as not-so-intelligent bunch. Curiosity has become a thing for a specific group of people as the rest just believe in mugging things up and throwing up on the paper.
Consider this scenario: A student joins Diploma right after his intermediate and after the completion of his course joins engineering in the second year of the course (college offer lateral entry for Diploma holders in engineering). Meanwhile, another student takes the intermediate exam, the under graduate entrance test, studies the first year of engineering and reaches second year. When working on a machine in the mechanical workshop, though the diploma holder has not gone through as many chapters as the engineering student has, still he succeeds in making a model all by himself and much better than the others. While his contemporaries seek the workshop assistants’ help here, the one who was well trained reaches out to let others know the fundamentals.
Is that what education is meant for in our lives?
And is that what we are supposed to know, when we call yourselves the ‘educated class’?
Clearly the knowing how and knowing why are both equally important for us and forms the fundamental part of the education procedure. Absence of either of the two would make the money spent for a student’s education unworthy of it. Don’t you agree?
