"Most trends are positive, but my biggest disappointment when it comes to India is the education system. It should be far better. I don't want to be critical, but I do want to create higher expectations about it." - Bill Gates
When we look into the secondary school level education in our nation, we have three categories. Indian Certificate of Secondary Education (ICSE), Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and Secondary School Certificate (SSC). The two but the latter are centralised. These two are based on learning. To get good grades in these examinations, we need to read the textbook and learn it. Questions can be asked on the theory part of its application.
The latter is where most students complete their secondary school. These boards belong to the state and are not centralised. The importance is given to getting marks than learning. Question banks and many other study materials are available on the market. The questions that come in the exam are the ones that are exactly at the end of the chapter. Most students by heart the texts without understanding them. Then they put it on the paper and get a ten point GPA. Where there should be learning, there isn't. Where out nations youngest minds are not allowed to think and be creative.
The next two years of a student's life is literally hell. Intermediate and engineering entrance coaching. These colleges and institutions are merely into money and nothing good happens. The Intermediate boards belong to the states and they are worse. By heart it, reproduce it and get marks. In the head is nothing that is useful. Just lines of english that cannot be understand. Sanskrit sometimes.
Till this point, there are still some students who come from ICSE / ISC and CBSE. At this point, a vast majority of students, irrespective of our interests, are usually forced to engineering. The much critical part is they have to choose the branch of engineering where there most students have no knowledge about them but their names merely. Unfortunately, even the branch isn't of student's choice. Nearly half the students get their branches picked by someone else.
A look at the above pie chart gives you some numbers to support this fact. Now we know that nearly half the students in our classrooms aren't interested in the branch they are studying in. How can anyone expect us to study things that we aren't interested in. So the next time we see any news regarding how unfit are engineering students for employment, we know the true reason.
Taking notes in the class has turned into getting marks. Write 100 pages of notes for the semester and get 10 marks as your internals. The worst part is that the notes are dictated in the class and that is from the textbook. A notes is something that a student understands and takes down to remember the points that are required. It is not a summary of the textbook. The pie chart above tells how students want their notes to be prepared.
Here is a time to students number in tens of minutes that shows how long can a student pay attention to a class. An average class is about 50 minutes where only about 30 to 35 minutes are spend for the class and the rest of time is for other activities such as attendance, notices, etc. The problem is when it comes to lectures. Two hours of lecture and everyone is literally sleeping. Look at that chart again, after 30 minutes more than half the class isn't paying attention. Increase the time and the number of students paying attention falls further.
We as students are serious regarding our education and life. We do understand the importance and consequences. But we are really tired to writing all these exams and learning so many things that we apply no where in life. It is taught to us in such a way that even if we have to apply them, we do not how. And on top of all of this is the biggest culprit of attendance. I'm very sure that if attendance was personified, it would have been brutally killed by students.
There are many other problems that we can write on but we need to get to the point. When we see that things start at the colleges and universities and are applied in the industries we can say that our system of education is upto the mark. The problem comes when it happens the other way around. Earlier students and the faculty used to write papers that are read and used by the people working in the industries. Now, papers and research is done while the work is going on and is published for the students to read. This itself tells us that our system of education has become obsolete and it needs to be changed. If not, in very few years, we will reach a stage where B.Tech will not be a professional course, where you can find no profession with your skills after Bachelors degree. We need to act and change very quick before its too late else the objective of me writing this and you reading this is pointless.
The latter is where most students complete their secondary school. These boards belong to the state and are not centralised. The importance is given to getting marks than learning. Question banks and many other study materials are available on the market. The questions that come in the exam are the ones that are exactly at the end of the chapter. Most students by heart the texts without understanding them. Then they put it on the paper and get a ten point GPA. Where there should be learning, there isn't. Where out nations youngest minds are not allowed to think and be creative.
The next two years of a student's life is literally hell. Intermediate and engineering entrance coaching. These colleges and institutions are merely into money and nothing good happens. The Intermediate boards belong to the states and they are worse. By heart it, reproduce it and get marks. In the head is nothing that is useful. Just lines of english that cannot be understand. Sanskrit sometimes.
Till this point, there are still some students who come from ICSE / ISC and CBSE. At this point, a vast majority of students, irrespective of our interests, are usually forced to engineering. The much critical part is they have to choose the branch of engineering where there most students have no knowledge about them but their names merely. Unfortunately, even the branch isn't of student's choice. Nearly half the students get their branches picked by someone else.
Taking notes in the class has turned into getting marks. Write 100 pages of notes for the semester and get 10 marks as your internals. The worst part is that the notes are dictated in the class and that is from the textbook. A notes is something that a student understands and takes down to remember the points that are required. It is not a summary of the textbook. The pie chart above tells how students want their notes to be prepared.
Here is a time to students number in tens of minutes that shows how long can a student pay attention to a class. An average class is about 50 minutes where only about 30 to 35 minutes are spend for the class and the rest of time is for other activities such as attendance, notices, etc. The problem is when it comes to lectures. Two hours of lecture and everyone is literally sleeping. Look at that chart again, after 30 minutes more than half the class isn't paying attention. Increase the time and the number of students paying attention falls further.
We as students are serious regarding our education and life. We do understand the importance and consequences. But we are really tired to writing all these exams and learning so many things that we apply no where in life. It is taught to us in such a way that even if we have to apply them, we do not how. And on top of all of this is the biggest culprit of attendance. I'm very sure that if attendance was personified, it would have been brutally killed by students.
There are many other problems that we can write on but we need to get to the point. When we see that things start at the colleges and universities and are applied in the industries we can say that our system of education is upto the mark. The problem comes when it happens the other way around. Earlier students and the faculty used to write papers that are read and used by the people working in the industries. Now, papers and research is done while the work is going on and is published for the students to read. This itself tells us that our system of education has become obsolete and it needs to be changed. If not, in very few years, we will reach a stage where B.Tech will not be a professional course, where you can find no profession with your skills after Bachelors degree. We need to act and change very quick before its too late else the objective of me writing this and you reading this is pointless.
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