A futuristic Prism

A teacher who is trying to teach without creating a desire to learn is hammering on cold iron. Creating a desire to learn must be the fundamental ideology of any modern-day educational institution. Satisfactory school learning is unlikely to take place in the absence of sufficient motivation to learn. While the child’s curiosity is often motivation enough, the degree of interest he derives from a learning experience is equally significant.

Education seldom if ever implies classroom dispensation of textbook information. Children at all levels must be provided opportunities to observe, analyse, discover and therefore learn. In order to survive and thrive in a complex world teaching knowledge will not suffice, every youngster passing through school must be equipped with basic thinking skills.

The problem with much of today’s school learning is that it appears to lack relevance. It takes place in an environment distinct from the outside world and much of what it teaches is jejune at the best of times. The proclivity of the present educational setup towards an over emphasis on subject matter has resulted in the near marginalisation of creativity and in the promotion of a flaccid personality amongst our students. It's time modern day educators shift from promoting a system that advocates acquiring fact-based knowledge and make a paradigm shift to a learning-oriented system. Schools should provide a repertoire of opportunities to students to develop a sense of identity through curative work, a sense of logic and reason and a sense of curiosity.

Perhaps one of the biggest challenges to the development of a meaningful curriculum relevant to the new century is the tyranny of examinations. Education in its present form is a self-fulfilling system. It has Set up its own exams to test how well it is preparing pupils for those very exams. Edward de Bono called it the” archway effect” which states that if a stream of brilliant people go towards an archway, then from that archway will emerge a stream of brilliant people, even if that archway has done no more than straddle their passage.

The present structure of examinations, relate primarily to subject curriculum, confining assessment techniques to a strictly regulated syllabus and make only a cursory mention of the co-curricular and extracurricular achievements of students. To determine if curricular objectives have been achieved at the end of a specified period of educational exposure it is necessary to strip examinations of its present sudorific effect and structure it in a more empirical and analytical manner.

The putative superiority of knowledge-based education has done little to stem the rapidly declining standards of morals, ethics and values worldwide. An ideal education would therefore provide for an academic excellence juxtaposed with the development of a strong character, moral superiority and a well perceived sense of duty. Educational institutions should evolve as nurseries of self-discipline that foster clarity in thought, virtue in will and balance in emotions. It also underlines the deepest truth of education, namely that education is preparation for life and life is the greatest teacher of life, and therefore all education must be life -oriented and all life should be education-oriented.

The increasing awareness that academic studies do not by themselves ensure what’s expected in life situations, in employment markets and in terms of ultimate fulfilment of humans seeking and endeavour. With the new century acquiring a distinct technological hue the extent of scholastic activity in an educational institution widens dramatically. Concomitant to this is our conviction that material progress per se could never supplement or substitute the quality of human values as a parameter for gauging the superiority of one’s times.

While education plans and strategies should have a relevance to contemporary demands they cannot and should not deter from the ultimate purpose of education and that is to foster tolerance, international understanding and universal brotherhood. The strength of the school reflects in its ability to effectively balance the two.

We must ensure a fine dressing of the human personality by adequate nourishment of his mind and psyche through an integrated approach to ethics and values harmonising and humanising the individual at the same time, providing adequate scope for creativity and pursuit of excellence. We must not only advocate child centred education but even child-centred life of the society and the world. The total environment should be designed in a way that education becomes the life breath not only of children but of all, adult too, so that they retain the freshness of child curiosity and child’s spontaneous drive to learn and to learn faster and faster.

The role of educational leadership is no more that of authority and controller. They must be inspired by the intense concern for the children’s future and guided by highest vision of advancing knowledge and its practical applications, that will shape the New World Order. They have to plan the future with the boldness of an adventurer and meticulous skill of a goldsmith and above all they have to maintain the health of the educational institutions raise the required resources, manage the programmes of development, expansion and yet keep the optimum efficiency of all the factors of education

Dr. Farooq Wasil, a published author, an educationist and Founding Director of Thinksite Services Private Limited. He has over four decades of experience in the field of Education Management—setting up, operating and managing Schools.