Education - A royal sector converted into a factory | Vidit Baya

The world has been shut for the past 3 months. The Covid-19 pandemic has tested the world's most powerful. The virus spread just doesn’t seem to end and I believe that we have to move on and live with it.

Humanity has survived and continued because it can adapt and co-exist with other living organisms even in the harshest conditions. The pandemic hasn’t only brought the industries and the markets to shut but also collapse. We, though, can’t let that happen to one of the most important sectors, i.e. education. 

Since the outbreak, online classes on digital platforms like Zoom, Google Duo, etc have increased at a significant pace to ensure that education is constantly being provided. Is it working? 

In a survey I did where I had a conversation with 100 students from different classes, I found one thing common, lack of interest in the subject among the students. I know it’s not something new but we aren’t doing enough even to tackle the problem. The same monotonous way of teaching the lesson, giving homework, ensuring that the students have it memorized, and can vomit it in the exam sheets as soon as they reach the class, hasn’t changed. The pattern hasn’t changed at all, only the way it is delivered has changed. 

As I wait for my 12th Grade results i.e., my fate as described in various sections of the society, I see my juniors struggling with the same problems that I struggled with about 5-7 years ago. Our schools don’t impart education but code us. They put parts in us, give us the final shine and give us tags as toppers, mediocre, or let’s not say it.

The final products HUMAN MACHINES, fit for work, or useless. This is the reality and we just don’t accept it. Since Kindergarten, I have known nothing but to memorize and scribble that into the exam sheet, which at the end decides our fate. It’s not the anger boiling in me that I averaged out at school (as per the legacy standards) but the fact that this has been the process since my grandfather’s time.

The syllabus we are taught is not bad but very good and deep. The problem is the way in which it is taught. We produce the best students in the world by ensuring that they are highly competitive, ready to tear apart their peers and ride on the road to success at a pace even Einstein didn’t take. We, unfortunately, we have a high suicide rate too. If you have seen the show called “Kota Factory” then you know what I am talking about. The world has moved on but we haven’t. We still lack the education touch, the touch every student needs. 

With the advancements in AI and machine learning, various applications and digital platforms have been able to provide the same education with visualizations, online lab performances, and pace suited for every student.

We have this opportunity to change the way we are taught and how our kids would be taught, I request you to please do it for the better. If we focus more on the application instead of memorizing, enhanced, and deep analyzing and research skills as compared to rote learning, we’ll have a generation that would be future-ready, street smart, realistic, and powerful.

You might not get the glorious “95%” but do you know how much Sundar Pichai, Narendra Modi, Bill Gates, Scott Morrison, or even your parents got? They might not have those glorious grades but they have made the spot. Those numbers don’t determine your life but, how you enhance and develop your skills.