The education system needs a quality revolution. Toyota is bringing quality revolution in machines, but first we need quality revolution in human beings. This can come through education.

Curriculum and Pedagogy suffer heavily from the colonial hangover (and academic imperialism) clubbed with bhoot of secularism; finally resulting in mundane, irresponsible, and creativity killing approach to education

  • Hardly any innovative ideas are incorporated. In the name of up-gradation minor tweaking is done, while the systems needs major overhauling. Ken Robinson’s ted talk on do schools kill creativity is still valid!
  • In the name of “science” dogmatic science is promoted by negating scriptural and ancestral  wisdom (read more)
  • Little room for customization: The high level of standardization of processes leaves little room for any personalized attention. In the zeal to scale up, the compromise is made.

Examination System is obsolete and continues to torture the creative minds. 

  • No utility: The employers do not give any weight-age to the report card of schools and universities and they conduct their own tests, group discussions and interviews. No one, except “curators of museums” (read: people who live in past) talk about grades.
  • Resource wastage:  This redundant activity leads to wastage of crucial resources. Time – on an average 3 months per year. Money- in form of exam fee, printing, wages, infrastructure utilization etc
  • No learning: The candidates are generally stressed and when they study under pressure, its only temporal storage of data in heads for reproducing in exams. After that, everything vanishes. Students behave like मज़दूर -the construction workers who in their तगारी – container (the temporary memory) collect cement and other materials (theory) from pile (books) and pour all the construction site (exam answer sheets).
  • Quality out of question: Hardly the exam is focused on quality of answer, its the quantity that matters. A candidate who answers two questions partially correct would score better than a candidate who answers two, but to the perfection.

While reading you might have agreed to some points and disagreed with some. A question would have also arisen in your mind – what is the solution?

All the above issues along with more such, would have made me quit formal academics. But through support of elders, got great guides during FPM at MDI-Gurgaon – Prof. Tapasvi, Prof. Rajen Gupta, Prof. Arora, Prof. Bhawuk, Prof. G P Shukla and many more; further, could learn from Gurukuls of Acharya Raghvendra Bhat, Accharya Govind Prasad Sharma, Dr. Pushpa Dikshit, and Dr. KrishnaKant Shukla; and also learnt through peers, friends. Based on these experiences, developed a little bit of understanding about Gurukul system.

Later, met Prof. Harsh Purohit at Banasthali University, wherein he conceptualized the idea of  PRIME (Promotion of Research in Indian Management and Ethos). At FMS-WISDOM had interaction with MBA 2015-17 batch and found students to be Saatvik, very humble in nature and really deserving one. Same goes for all students of Banasthali. Therefore, to workout solutions to the above problems based on Gurukul system and our scriptures, I did NOT quit formal academics. 🙂

So, here are few things that can be explored:

Exams

  • Originally the purpose of examination was for the teacher to gauge the level of learning attained by the student, so that requisite changes can be made and the areas in which student is weak, can be worked upon. Therefore, more focus should be on mid semesters, class tests, and assignments as compared to final exams.
  • Doing away with examination secrecy cells. The exams are one of the pedagogical tools for facilitating learning. Are these processes to be monitored like scrutiny by CBIs and FBIs? Let there be environment of trust and freedom (like open book exams) to carve creativity and not the information out of child’s brain. There is strong need to integrate simplification (concept by Dr. Sharda Nandram) in education.
  • AoL (Assurance of Learning)- a pre-test and post test can be conducted for students (i.e. before joining the course and after completion). The positive change in levels of learning can then be reported in the score sheet which could assure that child has learnt.

Curriculum and Pedagogy

  • Interdisciplinary courses offered in different approaches – stories, activities, core theory, and applied. An initiative towards interdisciplinary learning by Evergreen State College is worth adopting. At the same time context-culturally sensitive illustrations should be included to ensure the connect with reality. 
  • Infusing scriptural wisdom and spiritual ecology (concept of Dr. Shukla) in syllabus, case studies, stories, analogies and metaphors. Our Puraan, Ramayan etc have numerous stories and analogies for almost all the disciplines. But, for this shraddha, swawlamban and disciplined routine is essential, this needs to be practiced by teachers first and then inculcated in students.
  • Mass customization through technology to begin with and later through optimum teacher-student ratio of 1:20
  • Shastrath mode of knowledge gaining and dissemination. Read about FMS-WISDOM’s initiative towards this innovative approach (click here)

Note: Fortunate to have joined Banasthali Vidyapith, which has foundations of a Gurukul system. So many ideas like swawlamban, disciplined routine, infusion of Bharatiya wisdom, interdisciplinary learning etc are already being implemented here.