Tuesday, May 4, 2010

The brand new Paathshaala

You reach a time in your life when you begin to go beyond noticing personal and inter-personal changes and begin noticing social changes.
Last night while attending a dinner party one of the discussions veered towards the education of the host's kids. Sure the Indian education system has changed a lot specially in the metros. And well let me be clear that I am talking about those schools which have adopted the European and the American curriculum of teaching its students. And that I am mentioning about the 'Upmarket' ones for valid reasons. Let me point out three broad developments which has appealed to me the most.

Firstly, the way of imparting education has altered. It's not about bookish knowledge anymore.It's not about sticking to your textbooks and answering questions at the end of every chapter nowadays. It has gone beyond that. The psychological angle has crept in. It's more analytical now. With deeper thought behind the formation of each question and the ideation of the ability to make the student 'think' and answer, not just simply answering mechanically. Monthly exams have been replaced by weekly tests and daily quizzes. Grades have come in. The concept of awarding a topper with 'star' has been devised too. The sense of competition has increased with classes having lesser and lesser number of 'poor' students. Everyone notches up a minimum of 60 percent nowadays. CBSE is thinking of doing away with the tradition of failing a student till a particular standard. Boardroom education has replaced classroom teaching. Blackboards have given way to digital boards where you can log on to a website and teach the class. Gone are the days of the dusters. One swish of hand and the data is wiped out (with a possible memory to back it up) from the screen. Its 'cool' for the new breed of kids. and its western. we all are suckers for it. Just that its western and its better. Also, another newer technique has emerged whereby students are given IDs with which if they log on to their school's website they will have a detailed account of hat has been happening in the class that particular day and what were the minutes of it, how has been the child's performance etc.

Secondly, a huge differrence has come about through the employmeny of co-curricular activities in schools. Its not just books and books and exams anymore. Young people are getting exposed to public speaking and a host of other innovative indoor and outdoor exercises. My nephew has soemthing called 'cobblers day' coming up in his school which is reportedly about how to maintain the cleanliness of your shoes, which sounds exciting to him. A big reason for this kind of a holistic education in schools is because of the fact that with work pressure and the rat race in various industries in the work field, parents are getting little time to intract and 'train' their children. So the school takes care of them all. Of course in lieu of a hefty fee (which nowadays most of the parents can afford to, or comply to or well..compromise to. They clearly dont have a choice) So as I was saying, newer self defence techniques are coming in. The very popular Karate is getting replaced by kick boxing and taekwondo. Pottery, claying, arts and crafts, creative writing, gardening, fine dining, toilet training, hygiene and other extra curricular things have been incorporated in the syllabi.This is in addition to the outdoor events like annual sports or cricket, football, basketball being played.

Thirdly, the pressure has shifted from the students to the teachers. I hear that their compensation has been multiplied in private schools but the kind of work they do in training the kids has been exemplary and much more from what our teachers used to do. Not that they like it too much but the new system of eduaction has sure revealed who is to take all the worries. The teachers have to take charge of being with the kids, making assessments, reports, meeting with parents, bringing in innovation in class and so on. Even another path breaking achievement has been the removal, and I would say banishment, of corporal punishment from schools as such.

There are of course a host of other changes and addition like better transport facilities, air conditioned campuses, better uniforms, foreign exchange programmes, community service drives, added recognitions, improved tolerance to students etc which are present in the list of developments.

The sad and unfortunate part is that Government schools don't have the resources to carry out such functions and that education in rural areas have a long way to go. But the good part is that even the not so rich and famous private ones are trying to emulate their richer counterparts. I am sure the nest generation will be amazed to listen to our education tales.
Here's to a better India.

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