The Indian Education System

Nanya, an 11 year old, sitting in his classroom, yawning as he looks indifferently towards the blackboard. Although disinterestedly, still tries to focus on the words babbling out of the teacher’s mouth. Class 7^th kid trying to resolve the atmospheric pressure mystery; yet too far from the finish line. Finally, the teacher puts an end to the students misery by putting up a public opinion if they have understood or not and a nod from the class assures him about his accomplishment in this topic. Nanya feels relieved as he finally got over with this class and his yawns.

 The word ‘understanding’ is deeply misunderstood in the context of Indian Education. Some co-relate it with ‘mugging up facts’, some merely with ‘solving some problems’, some assuming the facts ‘as if they are meant for it’ and the rest go with a nod. So where do these signs lead us to? Let’s peek inside.

Adding up spice to the whole, we have our schooling system. In Indian cities we have our very own “English Medium Schools” which strictly focus on the fact that the mode of communication in school premises is English. This brings me to a surprising thought if the schools in Russia or France or US have schooling in a language other than their mother tongue? It’s not that I am advocating the Hindi/Regional schooling methods and against the English Medium schools. Just take the kid Nanya’s mind-set for example. He is not extracting knowledge from the subject at all. What he is doing is continuously translating the words out from the teacher. So the focus is completely on translating rather than understanding. Whatever he understood in this meantime remains temporary. This creates a vast gap from knowledge.

Shifting from translation, we should cater towards understanding. It is a matter of fact that bilingual system has become a part of life. So, rather than sticking to strict English to teach, find a better way to encourage thinking and understanding from the basic level. If they just keep on translating, how can we expect them to come up with doubts, queries and most importantly, ideas. All we need to do is be more interactive and for a change try to focus on the fact that understanding should not be bound to “English”. Imagine a Russian kid being taught in Hindi. Weird enough, isn’t it? They are taught in Russian and not imposed a language which isn’t part of their day-to-day life. So for a change try explaining the facts regardless of language barriers; the one in which they don’t have to add up ‘translation’ as an added load. Then the term ‘understanding’ will have its aim fulfilled.

As far as an International language is concerned, have as much interactive sessions as possible which would groom their vocational skills but not on the expense of ‘concepts’ and ‘understanding’.