05-09-2008, 09:46 PM
(This post was last modified: 05-10-2008, 12:54 AM by Bharatvarsh.)
My opinion of education in India is that it has become a joke, actually more of a way to torture students. I studied in the same system until I was 14, and today I would be slaving away for some Engineering seat even if I hated Maths!!!
Because in India, the only 3 professions that parents seem to want to push their kids into is either Doctor, Engineer or IT.
The worst aspect of the system is rote learning, everything is memorization (including science!!), the only honourable exception was Maths. The teacher would give her answers for the questions at the end of each chapter, you were to memorize each answer and paste them on tests or exams. this was the worst in English or Social Science. There is no thinking involved, you are like some robot carrying out commands, in comparison my English classes in Canada NEVER required you to memorize a single answer for tests or exams, you are to come up with the answer on the spot, you didn't know the questions beforehand because they were made up by the teacher not from the back of the textbook. For example you maybe asked to read an article and say whether you agree with the authors main point or not and the reasons for it. So there was no studying involved for an English final exam, you could either think up the answer or not.
In contrast the education system in India just wants you to memorize everything and copy paste it, that doesn't need much thinking at all.
Also nowadays there is the added pressure of getting a seat (or you can buy your way into one if you are rich enuf), so the only thing kids there do is study, not much extracurricular activities like sports or anything (and then we wonder why perform so poorly in sports besides cricket).
Let me give you an example, there is some long distance relative of mine, she is 14 now, from the age of 12 or 13 she was put in some private school which charges high prices, anyway she leaves home at 8:30 or somthing and is let out at 7 in the evening, i don't think that is the way 13 yr olds are meant to spend their life, recently I found out she got eye sight, wonder if all that "studying" has something to do with it. I am not even exaggerating, the last year I studied in India, our school decided that from grade 7 onwards the kids were to be kept there until 7 in the evening if i remember correctly, anyway I skipped those sessions for a while and then stopped going to school altogether for the last 3 or so months before we came to Canada.
This idea that kids can be tortured (there is no other way to put keeping 13 yr olds in school frm 9 to 7) into "studying" and this will produce world class graduates is nonsense as the Finnish (and other examples like Germany) show:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->High-school students here rarely get more than a half-hour of homework a night. They have no school uniforms, no honor societies, no valedictorians, no tardy bells and no classes for the gifted. There is little standardized testing, few parents agonize over college and kids donât start school until age 7.
Yet by one international measure, Finnish teenagers are among the smartest in the world. They earned some of the top scores by 15-year-old students who were tested in 57 countries. American teens finished among the worldâs C students even as U.S. educators piled on more homework, standards and rules. Finnish youth, like their U.S. counterparts, also waste hours online. They dye their hair, love sarcasm and listen to rap and heavy metal. But by ninth grade theyâre way ahead in math, science and reading â on track to keeping Finns among the worldâs most productive workers.
http://www.deeshaa.org/2008/02/29/finnis...ish-first/<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Perhaps its time to take a good look at our British inspired beauracracy and education system (designed to produce good brown sahibs for the British) and make the necessary changes.
Because in India, the only 3 professions that parents seem to want to push their kids into is either Doctor, Engineer or IT.
The worst aspect of the system is rote learning, everything is memorization (including science!!), the only honourable exception was Maths. The teacher would give her answers for the questions at the end of each chapter, you were to memorize each answer and paste them on tests or exams. this was the worst in English or Social Science. There is no thinking involved, you are like some robot carrying out commands, in comparison my English classes in Canada NEVER required you to memorize a single answer for tests or exams, you are to come up with the answer on the spot, you didn't know the questions beforehand because they were made up by the teacher not from the back of the textbook. For example you maybe asked to read an article and say whether you agree with the authors main point or not and the reasons for it. So there was no studying involved for an English final exam, you could either think up the answer or not.
In contrast the education system in India just wants you to memorize everything and copy paste it, that doesn't need much thinking at all.
Also nowadays there is the added pressure of getting a seat (or you can buy your way into one if you are rich enuf), so the only thing kids there do is study, not much extracurricular activities like sports or anything (and then we wonder why perform so poorly in sports besides cricket).
Let me give you an example, there is some long distance relative of mine, she is 14 now, from the age of 12 or 13 she was put in some private school which charges high prices, anyway she leaves home at 8:30 or somthing and is let out at 7 in the evening, i don't think that is the way 13 yr olds are meant to spend their life, recently I found out she got eye sight, wonder if all that "studying" has something to do with it. I am not even exaggerating, the last year I studied in India, our school decided that from grade 7 onwards the kids were to be kept there until 7 in the evening if i remember correctly, anyway I skipped those sessions for a while and then stopped going to school altogether for the last 3 or so months before we came to Canada.
This idea that kids can be tortured (there is no other way to put keeping 13 yr olds in school frm 9 to 7) into "studying" and this will produce world class graduates is nonsense as the Finnish (and other examples like Germany) show:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->High-school students here rarely get more than a half-hour of homework a night. They have no school uniforms, no honor societies, no valedictorians, no tardy bells and no classes for the gifted. There is little standardized testing, few parents agonize over college and kids donât start school until age 7.
Yet by one international measure, Finnish teenagers are among the smartest in the world. They earned some of the top scores by 15-year-old students who were tested in 57 countries. American teens finished among the worldâs C students even as U.S. educators piled on more homework, standards and rules. Finnish youth, like their U.S. counterparts, also waste hours online. They dye their hair, love sarcasm and listen to rap and heavy metal. But by ninth grade theyâre way ahead in math, science and reading â on track to keeping Finns among the worldâs most productive workers.
http://www.deeshaa.org/2008/02/29/finnis...ish-first/<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Perhaps its time to take a good look at our British inspired beauracracy and education system (designed to produce good brown sahibs for the British) and make the necessary changes.