Are we educated or learned?
On several occassions in the past; especially when I am taking interviews to fill in positions in my company, I come across candidates who trigger my way of looking at what society has done to mould them and prepare them for the future. The single most astounding thing that I notice is the immense damage our education system has done to their potential of vision, clarity, perception and anticipation.
Education system in India has been the hot topic of debate within the families who have their children going to schools, but unfortunately, they are not the ones who can have a say or who are heard by the czars who guide the education system in the country.
It is very lately that we see fresh winds blowing with the announcements of our education minister – Mr. Kapil Sibal – that education system has some hopes for a change – a change for the better.
The education system in India has many flaws and I can boldly say with conviction that most of my reasons below find resonance with many:
- wrong model of funding and approvals for Institutions.
- flawed approach in politics of forcing it as a ‘central subject’ and a ’state subject’.
- framing of the sylabii by people who are pure ‘educationists’ and not ‘realists’ – people who can distinguish between academic and practical use.
- A lack of framework in allowing parents to have a 180 degree appraisal of Institutions and the teachers.
- A shocking push by GOI to fill teacher positions on caste basis rather than talent, which is driving education to abysimally low levels.
- No policy on ‘finishing’ our graduates to meet ‘international’ standards in terms of language, expressions and business rules.
- No policy of incentivising NRIs to open education institutes in the country.
I have made it a point to write in great detail on this to our education ministry and hope that I would be proven wrong on almost all counts – if not immediately, then within a decent time frame.
Many known personalities have made some thought provoking statements in the past on ‘education’. I have listed a few below, which I urge our ministers to take note of.
Quotes:
John Dewey: Any genuine teaching will result, if successful, in someone’s knowing how to bring about a better condition of things than existed earlier.
Tao Hsing: Tell me and I forget. Show me and I remember. Involve me and I understand.
A. Bronson Alcott: The true teacher defends his pupils against his own personal influence.
MW: Memorization is what we resort to when what we are learning makes no sense.
Albert Einstein: Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.
G.M. Trevelyan: Education has produced a vast population able to read but unable to distinguish what is worth reading.
Mark VanDorn: Our best chance for happiness is education.
Malcom S. Forbes: Education’s purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.
Will Durant: Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.
John Dewey: Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.
John Lennon: Life is what happens when you are making other plans.
Aristotle: It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
Martin H. Fischer: A good teacher must know the rules; a good pupil, the exceptions.
Every time I sit to interview the aspiring candidates, I try to draw out the hidden influence that education has really had on their minds. I venture to touch upon the perceptions of the candidate on the social systems and trends; his or her preferences; wishlists and extreme positions.
This gives me a lot of insight into their frame of mind – not in terms of the education they have been pushed through – but in terms of their application of this education to chart a clear direction for themselves and importantly – for others. Whether they were merely educated or actually learned!
It helps me decide, how the individual I select would look back after several years of work – as an individual who has experience of several years or as an individual who has had an year of experience several times!
Yet, the other day, I came across a candidate who preferred to ink his experience in ‘days’ and not in ‘years’. The thought flashed in my mind – Tom Peters (my inspiration – see my other post) had once said that we live in the nano-second nineties. This candidate had obviously taken his clue from that. Quoting your experience in years is possibly a passe.
Long Live the nano-second nineties!
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Tags: educated, education system, education system in india, learned
