Getting education out of government's clutches
Venkatesha Babu -
Friday, June 06, 2008 8:14 AM
Admission season just finished across the country for schools and some colleges, though professional courses entrances are still on. Heard horror tales of the difficulty in getting admission right from nursery to post-graduation level. Have a small vested interest in the subject of education and no I don't secretly have a stake in some school and college, which would make me a education baron. My worry is more prosaic, which is my three month old daughter and even there it is not related to two year's down the line getting admission into a 'good' pre-nursery school.
My problem is more fundamental. Having experienced the horrors of the Indian education system first hand, I dread my daughter being put through the same wringer. The struggle I had with mastering Hindi, Sanskrit and Social Studies has left a permanent scar which time has failed to erase. The three language policy (where kids are forced to learn regional language, which in my case was Kannada plus national language of Hindi and 'optional' choice of Sanskrit or Urdu.) While I am all for all round development of a child, studying three languages plus other subjects like Maths and Science might prove burdensome, leaving very little time to enjoy games or drawing. Why should some government bureaucrat or even worse a dodgy minister like Arjun Singh decide what my child should study. Can't we have flexibility in what our kids want to learn.
If you thought this imposition was limited to school days, think again. Obscure rules like not being allowed to use calculators (only log tables) in college, or being banned from using a ball pen (only ink pen please) as it 'will ruin handwriting' in school (this in an era of ubiquitous computers and keyboards) are only some of the burdens.
My question is simple. Wouldn't you want your child to have the independence to determine what s/he wants to study say after 7th standard ? Even in professional courses, government's heavy hand is seen. During my engineering days, I used to dread 'foundry', mechanical drawing and carpentry practicals. Never adept at anything handy, heating pieces of metal and beating them with hammers on anvils, was not my cup of tea and I don't know how it made me a better mechanical engineer. Not that I have today any remote connection with mechanical engineering field. Similarly with drawing. Instead of using computer software, (CAD/CAM), I am told even now students have to use a drafter to draw things. Even the text book (If memory serves me right for everybody in Bangalore University, it was written by BMS Engg College Professor K R Gopal Krishna's book) is apparently the same, 14 years after I passed out of a engg college. All this is enough to kill a student's enthusiasm for any further learning.
I hope and pray that the government's heavy hand in deciding what my child would study be lifted.With the government obsessed over reservations and quotas and affiliations / recognition (this is a big racket and a money spinner for politicians, but will keep it for another day) in the education system, it seems unlikely. I weep for my daughter.