Storage facilities overflowing, tankers,
big and small unable to unload, oil has no takers and trades in the negative. As
people shut themselves in, nations count and miscount their dead, diplomacy
thick with accusations and counter accusations, economies bleed, businesses flounder
and livelihoods vanish, mankind stares at endless uncertainty. We have even learnt to meet and greet from
behind the masks.Mankind is now engaged in a strange
battle for survival.
Speculations
aside, nobody knows for certain what lies ahead.
But everyone agrees that in the wake of the pandemic comes unprecedented fiscal
chaos, large scale lay-offs and unemployment. World
wars and cold wars, put together, couldn’t shake mankind the way corona did. Not
many of us could have ever imagined our lives like this. Life with corona will
be the ‘new normal’.
Ides of March and The New Normal
The ‘new normal’, everyone speaks about and presupposes
with certainty, is “cause and effect’ determined. No soothsayer[1] to caution, the
‘Ides of March’ changed everything for the world. We came face to face with Covid and covidian terror has permeated all walks of life. Besides affliction and death, the most hard hitting covidian
manifestation is unemployment. Road to economic recovery will be slow.
Though
establishments may not repopulate employee rolls to pre-covid levels,
widespread outsourcing of micro-projects to individuals could happen. Entrepreneurial environment could bloom.The capable will grab and
corner opportunities.
Schooled to meet assembly line
conformity and unable to adapt to the sudden shift, many will find themselves unemployed
and unemployable. An education system that bulk-produced the ‘overqualified unemployable’
will soon saddle society with the jobless.
Nonlinear
Minds
World over, the
system of education , caters to demands of mass production. Traditional
schooling conditions impressionable minds to think linearly.
Over time, literacy has come to be known as knowledge and rating on parroted answers to oft repeated examination
questions, abilities. Standard operating procedures assure expected
outcomes. Experimentation and innovations unwelcome. Imaginative application could
easily be reckoned as violation of entrenched methods and process. Deviations became
risk laden and if unsuccessful, invited unbearable consequences.
Luckily
for mankind, there were always unfettered nonlinear minds, that refused to be stifled
by prescription syllabus and persevered to break the shackles of straight
jacketed education. Information technology is the gift of such nonlinear minds.
Nonlinear minds validate Moore’s law.
Nonlinear minds set course for Future.
The
Catalyst
What
Covid did to Indian education nobody ever could.
Covid forced authorities to
reconsider teaching methods. Children, irrespective of grades and classes, are
now engaged with their teachers online. While online classes helped maintain
teacher-taught contact, it inadvertently added an avoidable dimension to home-environment. Virtual schooling also denied children, ‘real’ opportunities to
develop social skills, a double
whammy further eroding throughput of an inefficient system.
Though
the current shift is incidental, cosmetic and temporary, Covid proved that the
Indian education system can easily adapt to far-reaching changes if adequately
stimulated. Bigger and better
things are
possible with the system. It took us Covid for the revelation.
Why
Education?
Though
evolving continuously, education has always been society-centric. The archaic education system is long overdue for reforms. Though, subject of research
and intense debates, biases adding to ferocity, there can be no doubt on the
fact that education must benefit the society at large. Irrespective of the time
one lives in, society must pursue education as an activity to facilitate its
survival and growth. Education
therefore must focus on two basic aspects; ‘Value systems’ and ‘Capability
building’.
Value Systems
Education must result in promoting
peace, harmony, tolerance and ensure life with dignity. Value based education needs
to be uniformly imparted and ingrained so as to build a just and humane
society. Dignity of labour becomes ingrained.
Over time, what was once
integral to the curriculum as ‘moral science’ vanished. When concern for fellow
beings are not ingrained in children as an essential virtue, it eventually
creates an indifferent intolerant society. Society stands to lose, short-term
or long term.
Capability Building
The component meant to
enable individuals and build capabilities should be imparted based on abilities
and aptitude. This is where the current assembly line system, staring with
kindergarten and unending even with post-graduation and doctorates grossly
falls short, mostly with substandard products.
Millions of over-qualified,
unemployed and unemployable graduates bear testimony to the inadequacy of the
current education system, one rendered meaningless by capitation and reservation-based
admission.
Overqualified or
Underemployed
Possession of a minimum
educational qualification is mandatory for securing a job. So, everybody strives
to obtain whatever ‘degrees’ possible by whichever means possible. Since there
is no upper limit of education stipulated for disqualification, it is not
uncommon to find a postgraduate concierge or a clerk with doctorate. While no one
can object to any one studying, as much as one wants, it should not be at the
cost of the society. It is pertinent to understand that, for
the society, creating an unemployable population or employing overqualified
people is a negative investment. While basic education must be the fundamental
right of every citizen, every citizen should not be forced to pursue higher
education just for the sake of a job.
Competency Based Education
Since determining aptitude
could easily become subjective and therefore prone to manipulation while being
administered, primary and secondary level education must be made compulsory so
that all members of the society can read, write and comprehend. Even today maximum number of jobs are such that it can easily
and efficiently be done by those with secondary level education. Is there a
need for an engineering graduate to man a machine or sell a policy?
Denying
eligibility to anyone with higher than required qualification to jobs will
reduce pressure on avenues for higher education. Higher education must be
competency-based because the society needs to invest in this category chart its
way forward. Curriculum at higher levels
must also provide the flexibility of choice and timing to the one who pursues
it, unlike the set piece combinations now in vogue.
Socio-political
Compulsions
Political requirements
would dictate differential treatment to those from underprivileged
socio-economic backgrounds. To fulfill such socio-political requirements,
individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds could be educated at state expenses provided, they meet all parameters of competence. As such making education free
and compulsory up to secondary levels would take care of lot of issues.
The future
Covid has forced us to
review our education system. It and revealed to us that we can bring about
changes if required. If a virus can impact us so much, sky is the limit for
collective human will.
[1]
Soothsayer who warned Julius Caesar about the impending tragedy that would
strike him on the ‘Ides of March’
