A Transformational India Needs to Overhaul its Education System

India faces a challenge of refashioning education to avoid the dire consequence of being left out of the mainstream.

We need to usher in an educational revolution and not just an evolution of teaching techniques. (Photo: Reuters)

Research has substantively established an inter-linkage between countries that embrace innovation and thus, economic prosperity. People in such countries are more adventurous, less risk averse and open to experimenting. Emerging economies, on the other hand, tend to suffer from an acute disavowal of all that challenges existing paradigms. Consequently, our schools and colleges are unable to respond to the rapidly changing educational needs.

Our schools and colleges are unable to respond to the rapidly changing educational needs. (Photo: iStockphoto)

This has serious consequences, as it’ll adversely impact economic growth because the quality of education is crucial for growth. And second, bad education does not lead to employability in a competitive environment. This is a profound and not imagined disaster that India credibly faces.

So, What is the Role of Education?

Education, similarly, must have an end-objective. For students, it is productive and sustained employability. For governments, this translates into contributing to the GDP.

We need to usher in an educational revolution and not just an evolution of teaching techniques. Yesterday’s curriculum and pedagogy has to give way to future needs and requirements. The very DNA of education needs to be changed.

For India, this is the need of the day which is at the cusp of transformational change. All the positive developments are directly related to whether India would deliver on promise. Is India, in other words, a safe bet? The attractiveness of the Indian workforce would be the key for corporate investors which means that education would need to produce a world class workforce.

Students appear for class 12th Board exams in a school, at Agartala. (Photo: PTI)

This requires a fundamental overhaul in the way we perceive what education needs to deliver. Students need to be taught to embrace uncertainty and not be intimidated by it. Indeed, the job they would end up doing has not yet been created.

Education must craft persons who are open to new ideas, who are constantly learning new skills but more importantly, learning from experience and failure.

Its equally crucial to learn the importance of team work and focus. And finally, education administrators need to recognize that the teacher is simply a facilitator. Unless education is refashioned, we would embrace the 21st century with a 19th century mindset that will result in failure.

Restructuring the approach towards contemporary education, accordingly, needs to incorporate the following:

1. Learning about learning: The teaching community and education administrators need to recognise the need to shift from teaching to learning. Substantive evidence exists of teachers abandoning the chalk and talk methodology with dramatic results.

The teaching community and education administrators need to recognize the need to shift from teaching to learning. (Photo: iStockphoto)

2. Shifting the mind-set of education providers: The fundamental paradox is that teaching is provided by an older generation to a younger one. Education is about connecting and thus, interpersonal relations. Students need to be able to relate to their teachers.

3. Embrace the internet: The Internet has made learning possible 24x7 without the teacher. Unfortunately, educational institutions are unable to take full advantage of the internet.

4. Redesigning space: Studies have demonstrated how design impacts thinking. Open style functioning and a fluid utilisation of space with funky designs are quite attractive. Schools and classrooms have started changing with the term ‘classroom’ being replaced with ‘learning centres’. Another requirement is for the learning centres to become interactive and functional. They play a dramatic role in shifting pedagogy to a modern mindset.

5. Globalisation is multiculturalism: A rapidly integrating world has substantially diluted geographical boundaries. The role of the educational institutions needs to recognize this dramatic new requirement and help open minds, so that we are sensitive and welcoming of other cultures.

The future is hurtling towards us at an extraordinary pace. Unless education is refashioned by a visionary leadership, we face the dire consequence of being left out of the mainstream. This is one of the great challenges Prime Minister Narendra Modi faces.

(Amit Dasgupta, a former diplomat, heads the Mumbai campus of the SP Jain School of Global Management. The views expressed are personal. He may be reached at [e-mail].)