Reforms in education

Ram Rattan Sharma
The greatest contribution of education is to imbibe a sense of patience. It is the amount of patience that differentiates a human being from an animal and this sense of patience is a product of bearing of family and impact of schooling. Both these institutions, initially, shape  the character of a personality and at a higher end, the same character shapes the society and any imbalances could create massive disruption of civil & social life. Illiteracy can be more dangerous than poison. Ignorance is death knell of democracy. Democracy thrives, survives and persists on efficacious functioning of its education. Education imparts the ability and then the basis to find answers. In democracy, education is the pattern. The  guiding force. An individual   in a democratic system, only knows to balance between rights and responsibilities through his experiences and  learning imparted by the education. Today, one can see the growing desperation amongst the people and the level has been reflected in their driving, talking, thinking, writing, voting, discussions and overall their relations with each  other. The entire edifice of social relationship is in jeopardy. The behavioral predictability has gone down and a sense of in security has been generated and the entire life has become very uncertain in the absence  of proper curriculum and predominance of mechanical studies, the whole philosophy of life has been confused. The education removes confusion and imbibes  confidence, but if the educational system is partial , confused & moribund then nobody on earth can remove the confusion and denigrations of behavioral pattern. The present educational system in India requires a lot of change at every level of its conception. The Yash Pal committee has touched only few of them. The commercialization of education is indispensable in a developing country and politicization of education is natural in a democratic country and if a country is both developing and democratic then the future of education becomes absolutely uncertain. Educational system has to face great  challenge from those, who wants to make the country oblivious of their rights and obligations. In such cases  they rule and flourish. The commercialization of education has made the education more dominated  by mere literacy than awareness and rationalization.
The commercialization  is due to lack of adequate funds to provide education to masses, absence of  political  will to implement the various schemes, the attitude of teaching staff in the Govt. schools & colleges, lack of awareness of guardians, they prefer private institutions for coaching and teaching , less emphasis  is on vocational studies , more on formal education and the cost of education makes schools unattractive. The commercialization of education reinforces existing inequalities as well as creates new disparities. Politicization  of education affects the public opinion, which is the basis of  political  mandate, it creates an impression in the  minds of the students to justify the parochial and sectarian policies of the Political Parties, confuse  the people about the right and wrong, destroy the composite culture, the result is fatal, commercialization breeds literacy without education and Politicization  creates people who either manipulate or get  manipulated. The commercialization creates modern  public schools and politicization creates confused and biased content. The politicization would produce only incomplete personalities. The most alarming is the back ground of the teachers. Today, teaching is not a profession of choice, mostly  frustrated lots are professing teaching this reflects in the teaching capacities and commitments. A dissatisfied bent is going to generate discontented  and  impatient generation. The background of students is equally a subject of concern today. With the  on slanght of  Globalization, parents have witnessed the growth of a consumerist culture and a lack of employment opportunities, they are impatient and want  immediate success and this pressurizes the child. The untimely  expectations and pressure  of syllabus virtually eat up his natural growth and reduces his ability to create and devise.  Unfortunately in India, the education system has inculcated and imbibed the spirit of illusion and it compels a student to learn without knowing things. The modern public schools are totally based on profit motives and only impart crude material. In such schools, the students learn not  to question. They  learn to hide their feelings, to stimulate them to pretend, to evade, to repress, the stronger their is fear, the more aggressive is their  behavior.
The person becomes unpredictable, his rational faculty gets crippled. He fails to think, he can not face or deal with reality. The very objective of the Indian modern education is to stunt, stifle and destroy  the students capacity to distinguish between good or bad. His personality, reflects more  of the trend of memorizing than understanding. In modern public schools literacy  is imparted , but not education and these schools create confusion in the minds of students. They do not know where to begin and where to end. The education system has to be made more rational, more convenient and more palpable to mind, more conducive, friendlier, today the education has become a mean to eliminate self. It has been wiped out by making mandatory provisions of subjects and uniform system of education.
India has given in adequate attention to improving its University education system, and this could limit its potential  to achieve high growth and inclusive development on a sustainable basis. The higher education system is facing huge  bottle  necking with a lowly  24 percent enrolment. The abysmal quality of infrastructure and faculty and out dated curricula, poses huge challenge in future. Higher education should not be subsidized  but financed so that  only interested students can take up the education. The non serious students cannot make it a favourite  pass time. There is need for urgent higher education reforms, so that India could have at least a third of its young population to avail good  quality higher education by 2030. It should aim to have  good number of Universities to earn a ranking among  the 100 top universities in the world.  It should  also aim to attract foreign students in large no to come and study in Indian universities. There should be  all India teachers service to provide better incentive and status so that quality people can be attracted. Higher education should be linked with the vocations so that there is minimal educated  unemployment. In order to capitalize its demographic dividend, India needs a skilled and educated work force. Education must be geared to meet the challenges and on slaughts of globalization. Digital divide is one of the greatest threats to a balanced society. In order to bridge the gap one must take measures like. The procurement and installation of computers in every Panchayt and Taluka and it should be connected with nationwide network. The development of software in local languages to provide local information and well designated CDROMS is required  to provide basic education to all.
(The author is former Dy. Librarian University of Jammu)
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