Sandeep Chaudhary
I am a police officer. I go to schools on regular basis to interact with students. I feel that education has the greatest role in preparing sensible and sensitive human beings. I have observed that schools are not working poorly. They are doing good. But they work well at doing the wrong thing. We need to figure out where exactly have we gone wrong in grooming our children. People park their vehicles on zebra crossings. They find it hard to wait for 5 seconds at the traffic signals. A large number of accidents occur almost on daily basis. Is it only the duty of police to convince every citizen to follow the basic traffic rules? What is taught to our children in primary schools?
Our model of school education uses uniform syllabus with similar books to prepare children for the same kinds of tests every year. Children are too busy with their syllabus that they miss out on actual learning. We as a society need to develop a new model of education that is capable of taking care of the lessons that our children are missing out on. Education in our school system is being treated as a manufacturing factory. Children go on a lesson to lesson assembly line towards finishing the syllabus for the year. At the end of the year, a test, a mechanical quality check awaits them. We have forgotten that schools are meant to groom children for life. There should be a difference between grooming human beings and manufacturing refrigerators.
There is another way of producing things that is much closer to us, the agriculture. Agriculture is the basic organic way of producing things to meet our needs. Agriculture is a very organic activity where different needs of crops are kept in mind while growing them. Wheat and rice are neither sown in the same season nor fed equal amount of water. Both grow in different conditions but a good crop fills our stomachs. Why do not we apply the organic model of production to our schooling system? A great amount of emphasis should be paid on promoting overall intellectual, physical and social health of our children. Importance of environment should be understood and appreciated. All of our children do not come from similar backgrounds. The feelings for civic sense and care for one’s nation, city and its assets must be cultivated.
Schools must strive to provide a learning environment in which children’s passions are groomed despite their differences. The standardized test at end of the year is means towards a good education. It should not be treated as an end in itself. Individual talents of every child must be respected and standardization should not be allowed to suppress their creative spirit. Our standardized schooling system doesn’t allow our children to explore their abilities and interests to the fullest extent.
Modern school education system was designed to prepare workforce for industries and bureaucracy of early industrialisation era. So many things have changed since then. Nations have gained independence, constitutions have been framed, iphones have been manufactured and our sense of morality has undergone tremendous change. The education system modelled on early industrialisation needs does not develop the natural abilities of our children. It does not prepare them to make their way in the world. Instead it prepares students who pass through remembering lessons. Individual talents and abilities of so many children are stifled and their motivation to learn lessons is killed.
Article 51A (h) of the Indian Constitution reads as follows, (citizens have a duty) to develop the scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of inquiry and reform. We have failed in this constitutional duty of ours. Modern India is unfortunately home to innumerable young men who spend the most productive part of their day on Whatsapp. An app which was developed to ease the communication between men has become a source of rumour mongering on large-scale. People indulge in violence just because somebody said something on Whatsapp. Should an app be allowed to decide the fate of humans and civilisations? The young man who indulges in violence and mob-lynching on road was a student once. Something must have gone wrong in his schooling that he cannot understand the pain of a fellow human being. School education system has failed in their job to develop scientific temper among our children. One traffic police constable cannot convince an entire society to follow basic traffic rules. But a good school can prepare hundreds of responsible citizens who understand basic traffic rules. The most important job in any society is that of a teacher. All of us who are in professions other than can do our bit but the primary job of preparing human beings lies with schools and teachers.
(The author is Superintendent of Police, South Jammu)
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