If you could change one thing in Indian Education, what would it be?

Title. I'd like to know what you guys think. I personally believe Indian education at the moment still falls way behind compared to other countries. It's not only in syllabus and stuff but extra-curriculars, counselling, etc.
 
Dr. Richard Feynman speaks about how to explain the phenomenon called triboluminescence to a kid while criticizing the school curriculums in his book “Surely you’re joking Mr.Feynman”
its a fascinating book and thoroughly enjoyed as an audio book.
Sadly it’s true after 50 years. more so in india. hope it changes sometime.
 
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The current education system (especially if you ask the students) is all about cramming the syllabus on the last days before the exam and vomiting it off for good marks. When they get good marks, they are happy, but they soon forget the concepts they learned in their previous classes. So I think the education system needs to bring a change in the system. If the students study only for the exams, may be the idea of class tests every second week would be good enough. Due to this, the students would actually study for the entire year.
Also, the education which the students get should be made a bit more fun to get. Good quizzes with rewards, PowerPoint presentations, competition and fair rewards to the ones succeeding in these could really help the kids. In this way, they would at least pick up books. Also, when the world is going digital, I think making the syllabus easy to grasp using digital devices is really necessary. Long gone are the days when kids wanted to carry that heavy bag with all their textbooks. They want as less burden as they could and going digital is a great alternative.
 
I'd update the really outdated syllabus which has nothing to do with today's world and have more emphasis on rote learning.

I would not be surprised if they still teach 'What is a keyboard? what is a mouse?' in computer classes in high school.
 
Years late reply but this is general and my messages don't count so hopefully this gets thru??

The whole system, from start to finish. I know multiple people in my class who are good at studying but have shit all understanding of the real world, because "education" in the current form teaches only subject basics like physics and maths but nothing about real world events, how to be social, what introverts/extroverts are, current issues in India like overpopulation and underemployment. This really pisses me off because these people who memorize a book for 4 hours and get some numbers on a paper are praised while people like me who focus more on real world issues like climate change and economics are shunned. I know more about real world events and problems and taxes then any of them yet I'll fail my "boards" because I didn't memorize the 417th idiom in Hindi or study some formula in math that has no applications in the real world - not even for entrance exams.

What I would change is reduce the content of subjects like english/hindi and AI by modernizing and cutting everything that doesn't have a strong value/anchor to exist (poof, english books vanish), and emphasize greater focus on real world issues, HPE (especially in 2023, sports is shadowed subject), how to be a normal person, PCMB subjects, and especially make the school days shorter because why not. Over half of the day goes away to school, add tuitions and oh shit, there goes your life from G1 to G12.

Unfortunately I'll never get to change any of this :(
 
Attitude of the teachers and staff towards the teaching schedule and sincerity towards teaching.
Many teachers across schools are actually earning free salary!

And parents these days even send their pupils to tuitions in nursery and 1st standard which itself is a sheer sorry state of the society when students past 5th grade used to feel the urge of a proper coaching back then and today this!
Thus, teacher from every grade knows that students anyways are attending coaching classes outside so why take any efforts to teach them. They just run through the syllabus just for the sake of completion.

And in rural schools where the honest and the needy poor students actually are in need of a serious teacher, the teachers there are absent for months just enjoying free salaries from the comfort of their homes while only be present during some top persons visit. Govt. knows this but then these teachers are also a part of the same govt., so everyone backs each other.

People these days only work for free salaries rather than passion, development and betterment of the society, projects or team!
 
Dr. Richard Feynman speaks about how to explain the phenomenon called triboluminescence to a kid while criticizing the school curriculums in his book “Surely you’re joking Mr.Feynman”
its a fascinating book and thoroughly enjoyed as an audio book.
Sadly it’s true after 50 years. more so in india. hope it changes sometime.
Read that circa 1993 because a friend recommended it. At the time he was famous for figuring out what caused the challenger space shuttle disaster back in '86

Faulty o-rings

As for the topic, India's strength was ideational. We had the ideas and the world's best teachers. That is how Buddhism spread. It seems about a thousand years ago we start to lose this strength. Nobody knows why this progress stops post 800AD. This thread epitomises that predicament. We should be the last people in the world asking this question and yet here we are.

It will be some time more before we recover it and become vishwa guru to the world.

A lot to be said about the guru sheesha way of teaching though. Like masterclasses these days or individual tutoring undergrads get at Oxford.

I learnt nuclear warfare that way. Some basic ideas mentioned, word of mouth as opposed to reading books. A few scenarios examined. It did take many years though of constant to and fro with the teacher.

Contrast that with the assembly line industrial revolution era style education we currently have that mass produces graduates. Yes, we have more graduates these days but how many got an education?
 
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A color ebook reader like big screen boox device (also include note taking, if possible) instead of carrying around textbooks.
Will be a huge help to avoid burden.

More hands on / practical education from age 15+, like giving first aid, real world skills / trades, for eg., plumbing, manufacturing related like lathe, fittings, farming, handling personal finance, etc.

May be very unpopular, but enforcing Hindi is a big burden to children and parents in south Indian states, children have to put so much stress, time and effort in 2023 for a language majority of them are not going to use. That time and effort could be used to learn something really meaning in their future life. It should be a selective option, for those who prefer to learn. Also adds more problems to national integration than helping. This should not be seen as a divisive issue, rather as a humanitarian view by those in north.
 
A color ebook reader like big screen boox device (also include note taking, if possible) instead of carrying around textbooks.
Will be a huge help to avoid burden.
And hampering kids vision before they even hit puberty.
May be very unpopular, but enforcing Hindi is a big burden to children and parents in south Indian states, children have to put so much stress, time and effort in 2023 for a language majority of them are not going to use. That time and effort could be used to learn something really meaning in their future life. It should be a selective option, for those who prefer to learn. Also adds more problems to national integration than helping. This should not be seen as a divisive issue, rather as a humanitarian view by those in north.
Enforcment should be on English and local lingo but Hindi is spoken as an official language so Hindi is a must even at basic levels.
 
And hampering kids vision before they even hit puberty.

Enforcment should be on English and local lingo but Hindi is spoken as an official language so Hindi is a must even at basic levels.
I'm pretty sure vision is not heavily effected by phones or tablets but by lack of exposure to natural light causing something or the other to happen to the eyeball shape. I remember after attending online school for 2 years when I used to go outside I could barely look at the sky without closing my eyes, but after an year of real school my vision is better and I have no issues. This is also being reported in recent studies. Compared to textbooks e-readers or similar don't add an extra 15 KG of weight to lug up 4 flights of stairs because students aren't allowed to use elevators, e-readers don't cause stress about missing print or poor quality in books (especially these past 3 years) and as usual they don't waste trees because the book is tossed out after 2 to 3 years in most cases.
 
Provide amenities for huge fees charged.

Most of CBSE or above grade schools, do not have there own playgrounds,
Not even for conducting sports related activities, there are many of such schools in Mumbai suburban area.

All grade children's are made to play all games on pevar blocks, tiles or cemented ground.. (small grounds under school premises)

There are lots of extra curricular activities but there is no teaching giving to students for same, students are asked to pay fees and participate in those activities on behalf of school.
Hardly few students are interested.

No water purifier, no place where students can keep there books (every student carries around 10+ KG bags depending on the grade) I hope these basic amenities are provided.

Not sure how and why these schools receive best in xyz rewards every year.
 
@enginear
Don't think e-ink readers like kobo, kindle, cause vision issues as light from the device is not directly reaching eyes ? Compared to Andriod tab, iPads, etc. they are extremely comfortable if am not mistaken. Wondering what might be the result if 300dpi or higher resolution e-ink readers are used.

Also, Hindi is not a spoken language in south for huge majority of people, other than for north Indians working there. Most people there may not even use it once out of 10th standard. So it must be optional, not compulsory. It is a huge burden on students in south, students in north don't have to go through as it is their native language. It is not justice (it is actually bullshit, I know it is useless talking about, but hey, there it is) to pit a huge section of students in unnecessary struggle while other strata have it easier, Students in south have to unnecessary waste their time on this.
 
May be very unpopular, but enforcing Hindi is a big burden to children and parents in south Indian states, children have to put so much stress, time and effort in 2023 for a language majority of them are not going to use. That time and effort could be used to learn something really meaning in their future life. It should be a selective option, for those who prefer to learn. Also adds more problems to national integration than helping. This should not be seen as a divisive issue, rather as a humanitarian view by those in north.
Learning an extra language is never a waste of effort in my opinion. I don't get why Hindi gets so much resistance in South when they have no problem using English that we got from our benevolent colonisers. As a kid, I was technically 'forced' to learn four languages and I got the chance to reduce it to three only when I got into high school. Hindi is not my mother tongue but I love the fact that I am nearly as fluent as a native in it. I don't use Sanskrit anywhere now but I am happy that I learned it.
Hindi is not a spoken language in south for huge majority of people
Everybody I know can communicate in Hindi and it is not our mother tongue. Learning Hindi unlocks a wealth of content, educational or otherwise. I think that should be taken into consideration as well. Hindi is used primarily by some 590 million Indians which is huge. Plus, basic Hindi means you can communicate with almost all Indians, literate or not. Please correct me if I am wrong in my assumptions here.
 
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Learning an extra language is never a waste of effort in my opinion. I don't get why Hindi gets so much resistance in South when they have no problem using English that we got from our benevolent colonisers. As a kid, I was technically 'forced' to learn four languages and I got the chance to reduce it to three only when I got into high school. Hindi is not my mother tongue but I love the fact that I am nearly as fluent as a native in it. I don't use Sanskrit anywhere now but I am happy that I learned it.

Everybody I know can communicate in Hindi and it is not our mother tongue. Learning Hindi unlocks a wealth of content, educational or otherwise. I think that should be taken into consideration as well. Hindi is used primarily by some 590 million Indians which is huge. Plus, basic Hindi means you can communicate with almost all Indians, literate or not. Please correct me if I am wrong in my assumptions here.
Learning anything should be voluntary and not forced, be it a language or any other knowledge. There are still large number of people who are primarily educated only in their native language and face issues as they enter college or corporate. As for why English is adopted more compared to Hindi, the powers that be (Colleges, schools, corporates) place more value on English than local language due to the broader use case.
Learn any language if the situation requires it of you or if you think it will be useful to you. Most of the south indians aren't going to venture north unless its forced on them, so why would they bother to learn a language that they don't know if they are going to use? My cousin learnt German when he planned to study and work in Germany, I can't ask him why he didn't learn it during his school days can I? As needs must.
The converse should also hold true, if a north indian is migrating to a southern state then he or she should be learning the local language. When in rome and all that jazz.
 
Education should be more than just scoring marks. We need more application oriented learning. Early intervention programs to identify and help children with special needs. It should move beyond mentality of Engg/Dr/Mba or bust. As things stand students learn more from YouTube than classrooms. Syllabus needs to be updated across the board. I was learning about 8085 microprocessors in 2006, not sure if it's still being taught. Children should be taught necessities of life, stress the value of common sense and practical thinking. How to drive, how to follow lane discipline, how to clean up after yourself, to have patience and not to give bribes to jump queues. To ask questions and not blindly follow. Practical skills that will help them in life. Look at retaining talent so iim and iit don't become assembly line to take cream of the crop Polish them and export abroad. I'm still wondering why I spent years trying to learn Laplace and Fourier transform
 
Rat race for admissions.

Business mindset when running schools. How can we squeeze more money out of desperate parents' pockets?

Focus on ICSE and global education before teaching Indian traditions and principles. (Where are all the native-language schools gone?)

Subjects like basic equipment repair, financial planning, stress and anger management MUST be there.
 
Education should be more than just scoring marks. We need more application oriented learning. Early intervention programs to identify and help children with special needs. It should move beyond mentality of Engg/Dr/Mba or bust. As things stand students learn more from YouTube than classrooms. Syllabus needs to be updated across the board. I was learning about 8085 microprocessors in 2006, not sure if it's still being taught. Children should be taught necessities of life, stress the value of common sense and practical thinking. How to drive, how to follow lane discipline, how to clean up after yourself, to have patience and not to give bribes to jump queues. To ask questions and not blindly follow. Practical skills that will help them in life. Look at retaining talent so iim and iit don't become assembly line to take cream of the crop Polish them and export abroad. I'm still wondering why I spent years trying to learn Laplace and Fourier transform
Fun fact. It's 2024 almost and I'm learning about 8085 as well. Asking questions has led to people shouting at me, despite professors saying 'ask me anything, no question is dumb' and all that. They just ask me to Google or shout at me for not paying attention to class. I've only had to use Laplace and Fourier once or twice throughout almost 4 years.
 
@Pyception
For students in south, this is actually about education improvement, not at all about politics or divisive group issue.
A huge amount of time, effort and tremendous stress is spent on a language for which they have no use for.
Biggest problem is that they have to ignore their own native language to study Hindi and such issues are cropping up too.
And students in north gets a huge benefit since they are studying their daily speaking language and don't have to put similar effort on this.
It is not about studying new language, but about putting equal effort.
This is purely like putting a heavy chain on students in south and asking them to compete with students in north for a race. Ironically, they still manage to win many times, that is another side of all this.
Ask students / people in north to study a south Indian language and see how it works out. Leave alone south Indian language, but any other language that is not similar to their's.
Anyways, not worthwhile talking to a society that don't care, but just raised a serious concern.

@napstersquest
>Subjects like basic equipment repair, financial planning, stress and anger management MUST be there.

Agree very much to this, already mentioned in my first post. Also about supporting e-ink tablets /note taking devices instead of carrying around heavy bags and text books. And many children, especially young girls getting long term health issues from this.
 
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