Indian Educational System, 100 day Reform

May that be the growing stress on the kids or it is the dropout percentages after class X, that made the central educational ministry move one of the most appreciated reforms in Indian education system. It was late Guruji Rabindranath Tagore’s Shantinikethan that brought the first ideal education system to the country producing the best icons of the nation, Amarthya Sen and Mrs. Indira Gandhi. And it’s now the turn of Mr. Kapil Sibal who sought the crusade against the growing numbers of dropouts from school and the growing stress levels on school children at a tender age.

The new educational system scraps the board examination to class X students letting it be an option for students opting to vocational courses and to the students who prefer to pursue Pre College in different institute. The new system facilitates all the High Schools run by government to be upgraded with plus two facilitating the rural students in their respective places. This can greatly aid the government to bring down the drop out percentage in schools. The other expected outcome, reducing the stress levels on the students still remains a distant dream. The stress levels on the children are in direct proportion with the higher aspirations of the parents from the kids from a very early age. Though every parent has a right to dream and weave the future of their kids, there needs to be certain limits for this and parents should learn to show some restraint from forcing their kids into a career of their choice rather than the interest of the child.

Measures are required to prevent educational institutes from commercializing the aspirations of the parents leading to a mad race for the entry into certain professional courses. The mass brainwash carried out on the future generations of the nation and horrifying them with the consequences of not being admitted to certain courses. The cases of students committing suicide not being able to stand up the expectations the parents and the educational institutes have been reported over the past few years. The things that horrify me the most are most of the schools have now started giving up a sports hour from the weekly curriculum of the students. The stress that was laid in inculcating good manners and good ethics among students now misses in most schools. The parents seem to be happy with the numbers their kids score in the examinations conducted rather than the knowledge gained.

The heaps of work given to students to be done at home consumes their complete play time leaving them no time even at home for the extracurricular activities that help in molding the younger generations of the day to responsible citizens of tomorrow. Apart from the rubbish that’s being fed to the mind in school, most parents opt for tuitions to their kids pushing them further deep into the ocean of stress.

This first step taken by the government to reform the education system needs applause. Still there are many more steps to go in reforming Indian education system and bring it to the best shape. I feel that the whole system of examination be replaced with an open book mode. What help is of learning things by heart when they are all available in 101 forms to the people with an access as easy as a click of a mouse. Unless the attitude of the society and parents change and unless they realize that a student needs to have an all-round development the second objective of the government can never be achieved.