I feel that education should help students and the educated to make correct choices in life. It should help them to improve their lives (at least) through language literacy, numerical literacy, informed decision making, ethics, morals, skills that help them being employed, a higher emotional quotient not just higher IQ, financial literacy, a sense of patriotism, a sense of world citizenship, empathy towards nature, etc.
The reason why I doubt is that I am not sure whether these objectives are actually being achieved especially in secondary and higher secondary sections. By the time a child reaches secondary section, one expects the student to know well at least the basics of Math, Science, Languages and Grammar. Well in my observation, I have seen more uninformed, less knowledgeable students than expected. However, that is okay as the passing marks are only 35% so some candidates may not know so much.
Owing to the lengthier and complex course curriculum in secondary and higher secondary section, it becomes difficult to achieve those real objectives of education. With the timeline given, education becomes limited to completing the course, learning or memorising and testing. So much is lost here.
Moreover, in today's world of information free flow, students learn from myriad sources. Parents, schools and tuitions are not the only sources of education. Social networking sites, OTT platforms, films, search engines, electronic media, print media (probably in that order), expose one and all to a lot of information and perceived knowledge. The resultant effect is that people have become financially more ambitious (not literate), competitive with one another (unreasonably), materialistic - more than ever, opportunistic - which can be perceived as contrary to EQ and to a large extent immoral and unethical. All this is in stark contrast to the objectives of education, isn't it?
Education at school, as a whole, must be considered, treated as foundational on which a character would be built. In any case, employment in organised sector relies mainly upon higher education, skills and experience. At school level, the focus should be more on language skills, math functions, speaking skills, better reading exposure, psychology and empathy through history rather than just memorising facts and concepts that generally become useless over time.
Another major issue that I feel is rampant in our educated youth is that either they are extremely liberal (oxymoron, isn't it?) or extremely strong headed. Shouldn't education help in distinguishing between the right and wrong? Nowadays, there are people who seem to be confused in the grey area. Not everything can be passed as grey; not everything SHOULD be passed as grey that is extremely liberal. Education should teach that anything in extreme quantity is harmful and creates problems. Education should help form informed opinions, promote healthy discussions and respect disagreements.
As a language teacher, I try to touch upon EQ through the beautiful stories I get to teach in class. My attempt is also to promote opinion forming, expressing opinions, discussions, agreements and disagreements, perspective building, some critical thinking, creative writing, etc though the complex and lengthy course does limit a teacher to explore more.
I feel that there is a need to teach less chapters but in more detail. Let our education be deeper rather than wider. Whatsay?
