Is it education? By Col RD Singh (Retd.)

Is it education? By Col RD Singh (Retd.)

SIRSA NEWS ( www.SirsaNews.com )

12, May 2013

Pictures and Videos: Amar Singh Jyani, GS Mann, Background Music: Murari Verma

The other day I went to one newly opened ‘university’  for a lecture on communication skills.  In the entire ‘university’ which was hosting the show, there were only few hundred  students. You name it, and that degree was available there. Just pay, and enter. After three – four –five years ( depending upon your paying capacity),  you will definitely  get a degree. But will that piece of paper make you a professional or useful to the society?  Will it take you anywhere in life? Is that what education is all about?  It is frightening to see how we treat education today.

 Recently, during a study, in a privately  run hi-fi  school, students were asked as to who was their best teacher. And they replied  “ Google” . This is sad commentary on today’s teaching system, and the quality of schools. The ‘guru – shishya’  tradition, where teacher taught with passion, and students learnt with respect, has vanished. It has been replaced by lap tops and I pads. Google may give us plethora of information but not knowledge and values. These are given by teachers who become mentors to their students. The aim of education should be to make a student realize his/her inner potential, and then help to flourish his natural passions and strengths. Education should build character in students, and equip them to become productive in their areas of interest. That can happen when we stop commercialization of education, and prevent politicians and business men to open schools/colleges/universities, along the highways, as shops to make money.

Watch Related Video: about Education and Training : JCDV 2 day National Seminar on Education- 'Today's Quality, Tomorrow's Success'-Day 2. In this Video: Prof RS Jaglan,Registrar GJUST&T, Dr Rainu Gupta, Dr Shamim Sharma,Dr Jai Parkash Hooda, Dr Rajender, JCDV, Seminar on Education,College of Education JCDV,B.Ed,M.Ed Students, the stage was anchored by Ms Sra.

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Today literacy rate may have gone up but not the quality of the literate. The youth may be roaming around with easily obtained degrees, but most lack general awareness, good expression, and self confidence. You ask a fresh graduate from any of these private institutions to speak for one minute about himself, he can’t. He neither reads nor writes, but is master in the use of his cell phone.

Coaching  centres are ruining our education system, running parallel to schools. There is hardly any science/commerce  stream student who does not go for coaching these days. In many cases, the teacher who teaches him/her  in the class, also takes his coaching classes. Isn’t it a form of black mail of the students, and why no action is taken against such teachers who are paid in the school for their job which they sham, but are very active during coaching in their houses. Go to a govt school and conditions are not upto the mark. That is why most children from villages, drop out after high school, and very few make a cut.

The answer lies in eradicating corruption in the education system and promoting  good teachers. Teaching has to be made a viable career, and a respectable profession. The rein has to be given in the hands of educationists and not money makers.

Let Google, national knowledge commission, and information technology ( IT) etc help us with latest information and teaching aids, but not be our masters. Master has to remain the ‘Guru’, and the child’s parents. It is they alone, who can be our role models and help us in being good human beings, which should be a hall mark of an educated person.