Jammu, November 23: Continuing our initiative to contribute our bit to reform the education sector today we focus on the actual meaning of education which unfortunately has been confused by the successive governments through their experimentation to the extent that a child does not know why he comes to school in the first place.
Education apart from its dictionary meaning is aimed at modifying the behavior of a child to groom him/her in a right way and make him a responsible and learned human being who can utilize the wealth of knowledge thus received through continuous training to make this world a better place to live.
However in our state the government works exactly opposite to this and instead of focusing on the modification of the child behavior modifies the nonexistent education policy whenever it suits the powers that be.
The experimenting lab that this sector has been converted into particularly the government schools is telling upon the health of the sector with government schools instead of producing gems producing confused students who hardly know which way to go as they are not allowed to remain under the guidance of a teacher for long who can groom the child in a particular way so that it actually affects the pupil in a right way.
On the other hand the government has made the transfers of teachers a big industry where teachers get transferred and the students have to adapt to the teaching style of a new teacher fusing them into many styles of learning.
The teachers as well as administrators of the education department feel that it is Math, Science, literature etc that has to be parroted and crammed to make a student out of a raw child but forget that these are only skills which need some sharpening at the later stage while the students need proper guidance about the way a life has to be lived.
The moral education that used to be the guiding force in Indian schools from ancient times has suddenly been dropped from the curriculum and instead what we find is a mixture of everything as if we were programming a computer by installing several softwares’ together and not modifying the behavior of a child to become a human being.
What we stress these days is extracurricular activities but again forget to give them proper timing for that to practice even as a class having 30 children cannot devote more than a minute to a child for a 30 minute period.
In this situation how can a student become a master in a subject or activity when he gets just a minute of the teachers guidance that too if at all the teacher devotes full time towards the children.
In private schools also the continuous focus of teacher is not possible as teachers keep on shifting due to low wages but in some quality controlled schools teachers are highly paid and ensured to groom children into human beings rather than programmed machines.
A city school here spends crores on teachers’ salary alone and the step has brought huge success and top results for both the school as well as the students.
As they say practice makes a man perfect but in our times it is cramming that is supposedly to make the student perfect for scoring marks in the exams rather than making him practice to be the master of the subject he is taught.
It is imperative that the focus is shifted from teachers’ transfers and experimentation to real education and modification of the behavior through moral education and proper practice to yield the desired results from the education.