What do you think are some of the fundamental problems with the way education happens in India?

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Digigear

Digigear

Forerunner
I run a non-profit based in Chennai. We are very keen on working towards reforming education and our non-profit is at the very early stages. Right now we are seeking to initiate discussions on what needs to change and what kinds of solutions people have in mind regarding those problems.

So what are some of the problems with our approach to education in India?

I've posted a video talking about my views on what the problems are and would love to have your inputs:-


You can either post your views/suggestions as comments here or on the YouTube video itself (this is preferred since we can involve others who watch the video as well).

Thank you!
 
I always hated studies. Most of it was just learn old stuff and memorize them without knowing if it would be useful in life. It was like GK for science, history, and other subjects. Stuff that we could look up at leisure in the later part of our lives in a library. Such useless stuff was marked heavily and pushed at us. Lot of unwanted stuff even in colleges. Just padding the course books to make 300+ pages and make life miserable for kids.

I wonder if the Netherlands model of teaching will work in India? The number of years is longer and probably more costlier. Courses are designed with job market in mind for all.
Official video:

Unofficial video since even I couldn't fully understand the official one.

Changing the way education works in India is like building a new ship in an ocean. No parent will want to jump ship because they fear for their children's future. If a new radical type of education is given equal footing / equal stature till University level - both by UGC/Govt and industry only then we can change something. Till then - Indian kids will be hamsters in wheels. Run fast in circles for ever without thinking till you burn out.

I feel we should have children fill in forms in 7th or 8th standard or grade asking them what they want to be in real life. Then give them complete guidance and push them in that field and even teach their parents some things related to the path that child chose. Both parents and kids are just mindlessly wandering here imo. If one goes into science, others follow or his friends follow. Or everyone wants to do engineering or medicine to get money in bank account. The govt and industry (who say graduates are not employable) are to be blamed here too. Why only give more importance to engineering graduates for low level work like programming which any graduate can do?

1-8th should be basics like in India and be the SSC course. Just one test per year instead of one every week or month that kids face now. 9th to 12th should be HSC. Here students should be taught relevant basic stuff for their chosen course. Like basics of accounting, or physics, math, etc. Courses should be designed such that teachers and students have enough breathing space to learn stuff properly. 13th -16th years should be advanced stuff. Ask students to learn and think on their own instead of professor coming and giving lecture and making students take notes. Right now, students just take notes and rote learn it to copy paste it from memory in exams. Such rote learning should be removed from our teaching completely. Teenagers loose decision making knowledge because of this and have to learn it during work.

I'm sure more people here can provide more better ideas and inputs.
 
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6pack said:
I'm sure more people here can provide more better ideas and inputs.
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A great post and you've probably already said 99% of what can be said. From my personal experience, I didn't feel let down by our education system until I entered 11th standard. Till then, I was a top student and suddenly I felt so overwhelmed because of choosing non-medical stream. So your suggestion of HSC being from 9th-12th and gradually teaching those subjects would be the best decision. Also, we need to really really revamp our higher education. The biggest let down I felt was during college days. Sure, I didn't make it to a very good college, but from what I've heard, even students at IIT feel that the system isn't geared for rather churning out job applicants than learning and research. Actually, in the year when I appeared for all the competitive exams, one of the top guys of both AIEEE and IIT-JEE, who was from my city, and somewhat an acquaintance, chose to go for the B.Sc course at IIT instead of B.Tech and then went on for M.Sc and PhD from US as he was always interested in research rather than become a job applicant.
 
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Yo man, fellow Chennaite here. Anyways, I just graduated school and I have to say, there are so many issues. Like the guy above me said, I used to be a good student up until 10th and the curve from 10th to 11th was insanely high! I was stunned and that form continued all the way to my 12th grade. The gap between 10th and 11th is something that needs to be fixed. Also, schools usually teach us how to be employers rather than being employees which isn't right imo. (atleast, that was the way in my school) The Indian Education system focuses on Rote and Traditional learning (like all the others have said here). Maybe it's time things go digital. Also, can I just say how heavy our bags are? I carry one book of each subject (PCM student here, no Bio, CS) and it's physically starting to affect us. Memorising and vomitting on the paper isn't gonna be taking us anywhere. There are machines that are gonna be doing it.

Also, the pressure to get into a good college in India is so huge. The pressure to score marks and nothing else matters is something that has to be seriously eliminated.My juniors right now (class 12, I graduated) have online classes from 9AM to 10PM whihc is awful for a student. You are put under immense pressure at 12th that it affects people.
That's my opinion.

Student's should be taught courses that they want to choose from 8th grade onwards and must focus on thingsother than marks and the very conventional (and rather orthodoxic) way ofstudying. Marks shouldn't matter anymor.e
 
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chiron said:
I think creative design concepts should be taught at 4th or 5th std.
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4th or 5th would be too early. I doubt any kid would be interested in those vocational courses. We should instead teach them the basics of 2 Indian languages along with English and some other foreign language. Like German or Japanese or some other language that can come in handy if they want to go overseas for higher education (PhD etc).

I forgot about sports completely. We should have dedicated schools with a dedicated stadium to get Olympic medals. The kids passing out should get degrees which are fully recognised by companies and should get full time jobs. Right now our sports department is lacking a lot compared to other countries. Unbelievable how the previous governments just didn't give enough thought or feel it was necessary for sports as a full time career.
 
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Our approach to education is text bookish that is not grounded in what we see and feel around us. We no longer have a connect with nature.

Every child should be taught 4 things broadly - 1. Agriculture / handicrafts (should learn to grow his own food to become self-sustaining) 2. Finance (Should be taught about handling finance since an early age) 3. Martial Arts ( should know how to defend himself/herself against wild animal and wild men/women) 4. Equal value to both arts & science subjects ( engineers & MBAs who cannot appreciate the need for poetry or prose because they are "not practical enough" is a curse for Indian society & the world. Blind devotion to statements like "STEM is the future of jobs " just because the founder of some tech company says so should stop) . Also the curriculum should be there where kids will be taught real-world skills like carpentry, masonry , fishing , horticulture etc.

Current education is producing good slaves for gigantic corporate machineries where there is no sense of time nor routine. There are very few people who think independently. Independent thinking has to be encouraged.
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pom99 said:
Our approach to education is text bookish that is not grounded in what we see and feel around us. We no longer have a connect with nature.

Every child should be taught 4 things broadly - 1. Agriculture / handicrafts (should learn to grow his own food to become self-sustaining and learn to create their own clothes) 2. Finance (Should be taught about handling finance since an early age) 3. Martial Arts ( should know how to defend himself/herself against wild animal and wild men/women) 4. Equal value to both arts & science subjects ( engineers & MBAs who cannot appreciate the need for poetry or prose because they are "not practical enough" is a curse for Indian society & the world. Blind devotion to statements like "STEM is the future of jobs " just because the founder of some tech company says so should stop) . Also the curriculum should be there where kids will be taught real-world skills like carpentry, masonry , fishing , horticulture etc.

Current education is producing good slaves for gigantic corporate machineries where there is no sense of time nor routine. There are very few people who think independently. Independent thinking has to be encouraged.
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All school and college classes should be recorded in 1080p via cameras and posted online FFS. So students can learn more after they go home and carefully see any parts that they missed
 
Mohan3 said:
All school and college classes should be recorded in 1080p via cameras and posted online FFS. So students can learn more after they go home and carefully see any parts that they missed
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I second this. Me and my friend had a crazy idea when we were back in school. We'd carry one of those 'spy' cameras that basically record things secretly and we upload those videos to GDrive so that we could share it with each other. Could it have worked? Maybe. We came up with this idea when we were close to graduating, iirc.
 
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