It’s Time Indian Education System Jumps on to the Digital Bandwagon

Nelson Mandela once quoted – “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” And rightly so! The most superior and advanced civilizations were built on the pretext of “quality education and learning.”

According to a recent The Hindu release we have always researched and found out the dearth but never really implemented any long time or effective solutions to correct the state of chaos the education system stands in. India, for long, has been a leader in the field of education with regard to high-quality learning techniques and world-class institutions. But, as the world is progressing towards advanced technology, the tables have turned; Schools and Colleges are looking at more advanced methods of teaching and learning and going the digital way. The Indian education system still lags behind in the optimum effort required to keep up with the global standards. The result, the education system in the country is far from a respectable position.

Of course, the government has been taking mandatory steps to fill-up the level of education by implementing various policies and reforms; primary education has been given utmost importance; opportunities are being provided to every child – boy or girl, rich or poor. Then what exactly stops our education from being truly world-class? Looks like the answer lies in the method of teaching which has a big role to play. Let’s talk about a few of them.

Even though the government has been taking the necessary steps to fill up the gap by implementing reforms, there are still several bottlenecks that are still lurking around.

Dibs on a single language

As a country, on the whole, our direction and priority of modes of learning have always been centered around a particular mode of aped learning. In the race of adapting the west, we have started to lose track of our own languages. The connectivity a student has with the local languages is far more superior than that of English only. It would really help if the focus is on quality of education and equal distribution and weightage is put up on other vernacular languages.

Rote Learning on the rots!

The Indian model of education has always been more or less about knowing your answers “word for word” other than learning how you derived at them. We have had a culture of rote learning. In fact, there have been several instances where the students get their marks deducted as and when they try to divert from the standard answers and venture into a logical hypothesis. Most of the primary and major part of the secondary and higher secondary education follows a similar pattern. The added woes of our marking scheme and legacy answers add fuel to the fire. It has been observed that the students over the years follow a particular guide/reference book which has been dated to at least two syllabus changes over a pattern of a decade. This makes the picture extremely clear. Our system does not value knowledge and learning and takes pride in a flawed cycle of rote learning.

Rat Race Or a single race with tomfoolery?

India as a country has a large density ratio hence we have an inherent pressure for good resources. There always has been a sense of fear in students that have been well placed into their minds right from the beginning. Even a toddler in our country knows which streams of graduate studies would fetch you a stable job and which fetches you a prosperous career and respect. It is an all-down. The students get a pre-assigned curriculum that decides their merit and promotes them grade after grade. The student never knows their strengths or weakness until they have to choose their career. And behind the wide spectrum of the word “career” lies only a handful of options. The likes of the very much heard words “Engineering”, “Medical”, “CA” and hardly anything more.

The meaning of their entire childhood and teachings rounds up to these three to four career paths. By the time an individual realizes that this is not something they want to do, it is always something they have to continue doing due to the dearth of resources, jobs, and experience in the market. We say, why not make our students understand this earlier? Why not give them a chance to try out certain aspects of a career and decide what they want to pursue? Be it arts, crafts, science, literature, history or anything for that matter. This along with educating parents about the career preferences of their children will be a big boost to reducing the immense pressure they go through in the false fight to meet acceptance from the society.

Agile for the GO

The methodology used for teaching in India is highly legacy and needs a major makeover. There is a lot of pride involved in our age-old Gurukul system which was honored all over the world. But now its high time we gear up on more practical and agile-based learning.

This can’t help the country produce quality talent to compete with the world and walk hand in hand with the technological advancements the world needs to move further. As of January 2019, India has over 40,000 colleges and 900 universities, but the quality of education is yet far from the mark.

The teaching methods need to improve not only for the students but also for the teachers. We have to blend in the age-old blackboard and chalk with the modern E-learning suites to enhance both mobility and practicality into our education. It will not only gauge the interest of the students but also helps them to interact with their syllabus in a better form. There is also a lot of scope for the teachers in this. This will keep them on their toes to a more enhanced and ever-accelerating curriculum other than teaching the same thing for years.

Going atom by atom

While there are certainly numerous roadblocks for the education system in India that will affect the future of the country, an upgrade to a digital system is absolutely necessary. Yes, we are moving away from the age-old methods of teaching, we are doing away with blackboards and chalks, we certainly need to have smart and intelligent interactive panels that work as a blackboard, a projector, an integrated platform to bring together audio-visual content to enhance the teaching-learning experience. We currently lack the ability to provide an innovative and immersive learning experience to the students.

The key – bring together various innovations right under one roof, provide a more in-depth, engaging, interactive, and illustrious learning experience for the students to apprehend the subjects at hand. Introduce a system wherein students can learn from not just the modern whiteboards, but also from live videos and demonstrations, lab tools, audio systems, and projectors available right in the classroom in a smart, integrated environment. Allowing communication in regional languages will go a long way in enhancing their learning experiences and retention of knowledge. Helping primary students understand the concept of atoms by live videos and illustrations is much better than telling them “An atom is the smallest constituent unit of ordinary matter that has the properties of a chemical element” and expecting that they will thereafter grasp the concept automatically!

Our dream of an intellectual populace can only be brought in if we embrace technological advancements in an integrated set-up. It’s time for the Indian education system to take the digital ferry for good.