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New Ideas for Quality Education in India

New Ideas for Quality Education in India

“If your plan is for one year plant rice. If your plan is for ten years plant trees. If your plan is for one hundred years educate children.” – Confucius

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Imagine a building that is not standing on good soil; well that’s how many people describe our current education system which trains or attempts to train students towards a better social and moral life.

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Education, without any doubt, is one of the most important parts of any human being’s life and when such an integral part of life is not in good shape, it is senseless to expect prosperity and development of people in a society or a country as a whole.

Education is not preparation for life, education is life itself and in order to live such a life in the best way possible, our country needs to take steps towards changing or improvising on minor issues that could prove to cause a major improvement in the quality of education that we provide to our young minds.

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In India, education is considered as a way of climbing up the economic ladder, so just imagine a situation when that ladder is leading us to the wrong destination. It is rather unfortunate to even think of the fact that our education system stresses rote learning – a term that describes how quantity is given more importance over quality. To describe our nation best, we have, rather, unfortunately, become a nation of book worms or to be more precise a nation which has more number of theoretical students than practical ones.

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A good education system is certainly a must to create such analytical and practical minds out of aspiring and young students and a huge country like India certainly needs it for its rapid progress and development.

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To put things in a more precise and straightforward manner, our education system lags behind in one very important aspect and that is the fact that every single individual in this world is unique and there needs to be a unique way of training every individual in his or her respective field.

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It would be hilarious if we start asking people who are interested in playing cricket to forget about it and start playing football because that is what a major part of the world is playing. In a similar scenario, it is unfortunate that our society encourages more and more students to follow a crowd of doctors and engineers just because people call them professionals.

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Every single person in this country will agree that anyone who does his or her job in a more professional manner can be called a professional even if he or she doesn’t hold a professional degree. It would be unfair if we restrict ourselves to blaming the society alone for this current situation that our country is facing of having many engineers who lack the basic requirements that companies seek in order to recruit them.

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It is quite evident from many surveys conducted in the country that our education system fails to give students not only a mind that can process logical ideas but also the basic lessons every human has to get when it comes to leading a systematic life.

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One very important aspect of learning or the education system as a whole is the fact that students should not be forced into such a situation where they fear loss and thereby try ways and means to cheat in order to succeed. As Abraham Lincoln in his letter to his son’s teacher said – “Teach him to learn to lose and also to enjoy winning; It is far more honorable to fail than to cheat”, it is high time we ask our students to work hard with full commitment and not to fear failure as the saying goes – “Failure is only a stepping stone to success”. An extract from Lincoln’s letter to his son’s teacher will help us understand how Lincoln, who did not have a good education, has known how important a few other aspects of life are when compared to what students learn from the education they get. He said – “Have faith in your own ideas even if everyone tells you they are wrong and have the strength not to follow the crowd when everyone is getting on the bandwagon.” We often stress the fact that students are the future of every nation but we often fail to realize that they lack the basic needs that are required to build a strong future.

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Every Indian living in this country will agree that our country needs good leaders with fresh, courageous, and enthusiastic minds to lead it from the front. Our system needs to encourage students to take efforts to come forward and give it their try because each of us born in this world are certainly born to make a change.

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A very important aspect of the development of a nation as a whole is developing it from different perspectives. A country having a lot of engineers sitting in front of computers and working for foreign companies will have absolutely no chance of becoming a developed nation. Our education system needs to stress upon the quality of work that each student is working on rather than on the quantity. Our education system must have ways and means of filtering students into different fields and helping them to nurture their talents in their respective fields.

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It is rather unfortunate that our system has found the easier route by creating many engineering colleges for students to develop their skills in the same field that every other student in every other part of the world is developing on.

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For example, if there are ten different jobs and if a few individuals are assigned the task of completing it, keeping in mind that those individuals will be interested in a very few of those ten jobs, then it is senseless to expect quality of work every single time they are approached to do those ten jobs. Instead if ten individuals who are skilled in their respective fields can work towards completing those ten different jobs then it is obvious that the quality of work will be enhanced every time they are asked to do that job. By adhering to this very important point, we not only improve the quality of work but also increase the rate of employment by sharing jobs with the thousands who are unemployed in this country.

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It is a fact that our education system trains our students really well in their respective streams but it is often observed that they lack the key ingredients like communication skills that every graduate needs to have when he/she wishes to work in top niche companies.

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Our education system stresses upon giving a basic knowledge of important subjects like Mathematics and Science to all students which is really good but only as a starter. But what are we doing to make such students know that they have many options in front of them before they choose one and succeed in completing the task?

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Our country needs to help students to improve on their qualitative skills like public speaking, debating, group discussions, and entrepreneurship, giving innovative ideas for the development of every aspect of life and also on skills which will help students to overcome tough situations with good solutions to complex problems.

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Today, only are a few well-trained students getting these esteemed opportunities to shine in their field so such qualitative skills must become mandatory and an exam to test such skills wouldn’t be a bad idea.

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It is also very unfortunate that only a few esteemed institutions in our country stresses upon this very important of developing qualitative skills. Institutions like IITs and AIIMS are regarded as the best institutions in the country but what difference does it make when very few students are given this privilege of studying in such institutions?

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In foreign countries, esteemed institutions are present all over the nation in individual districts thereby enabling students to get a good opportunity to explore themselves in a world of advanced technologies and innovations.

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Our country, without any doubt, will become a great nation only when people start thinking of simple and practical solutions to complex problems and unless our education system helps us in thinking more logically than theoretically, we will be starved of people who can make a change.

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In our country, reservations are based on the caste of individuals but what good is it going to make when we find that the people who still belong to the lower caste are getting the privilege of studying in esteemed institutions despite having a better parental bank balance and also a good external financial support provided by the government.

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It is indeed a fact that many others who belong to the same lower caste are suffering due to the lack of funds and a poor knowledge about the current scenario, so what can we do to settle this dispute? A very good solution is that reservations can be made based on the annual income of every student’s parents and not based on their caste. This will certainly ensure that students, despite coming from a higher caste but having poor financial aid, will benefit from the government’s support.

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A very important aspect of education is the building of good characters of individuals. As Gandhiji, the father of our nation said –“Knowledge without character is a deadly sin”; it is character that defines our destiny and having the whole world in one’s hands and forgetting to improve his/ her character is like allowing the world to be controlled by evil spirits.

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Our education system must emphasize on character education which is essential not only to create a developed nation having good individuals residing in it but also to ensure that only the good in character take up posts of high responsibility to ensure that a large section of the population is benefited.

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As Nelson Mandela once said - “Education is a powerful tool which you can use to change the world”; it is very important that our students are taught as to how we can use this very powerful tool to touch minds and inspire billions to take the path that leads us to a world free of corruption, injustice, poverty, wickedness, jealousy, and hatred.

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The children of today’s world ought to be taught about the things they have to know before they enter into a world that has many vile human beings residing in it. These things may include helping students to know more about aspects of finance like learning to open up Public Provident Fund (PPF) in bank accounts in order to have savings, learning more about the political scenario, to take decisions on whom to elect and on what basis people stand for elections.

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A student who graduates from college and does not have basic knowledge as to how he/she must lead his/her life is similar to planting good saplings and chopping it off midway for no reason. Schools and colleges must ensure that students gain more knowledge about issues that seem more important in life than the subjects that are taught in school.

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A student with more knowledge about the world but less knowledge about the subjects that are taught in school is far better than another student who has it both, the other way around.

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To gain knowledge is one thing but learning as to how and when we must use this knowledge of ours is very important and students must be taught this essential lesson because the future lies in their hands.

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Having said all this, it is senseless for us all to keep talking on ways to improve the system without even trying to take a step towards it. Hence let us all join our hands together in this move to improve on one of the most fundamental aspects of life, Education.

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