Academic standards
Academic standards
Academic standards
- September 15, 2016
- Posted by: MAYURI
- Category: Articles
Academic standards
Here is a problem that ails this country. We are told that only 10 percent of our professional college graduates are employable. One can imagine what will be plight of other graduates!
There are colleges and colleges, every year new ones crop up, all are getting filled by young people in search of that miracle degree that will ensure a great future. But, most are not employable!
What ails our education system?
- We have a generic syllabus in all courses, which does not suit employers’ needs. We are still struggling to really come to terms that career oriented education is very different from conventional information based education.
- We have too many colleges and too few teachers, the pathetic scene is that many colleges appoint fresh graduates at paltry wages and no training at all. Lack of basic grip on subjects is killing good teaching.
- Students come with some hope of gaining knowledge, skills etc but soon realise these are not needed, only marks matter. Very few students and fewer teachers are looking for giving and getting a serious grounding in subject, to be able to build on it using creativity
- Attendance at classes too is not made compulsory, though there are rules for this, no one, neither the students nor teachers bother. Listening to a good lecture is 70 % the battle won against acquiring the knowledge. Not listening to lectures is the rule of the day not like my younger days when we relished the idea of a good class room lecture.
- Evaluation of students takes a turn for the worse, since teachers don’t teach, students don’t listen nor learn, there is a tacit understanding between them that certain marks be awarded, to safeguard the interests of both parties! Good arrangement, but very bad for the future of the youngsters and the nation.
- Worst hit is practical work. While lectures can be skipped, guides and text books are there to study, what happens to hands on experience? This is the prime reason our graduates are unfit for employment.
- Teachers who are supposed to be boon are becoming the bane of our higher education system. They don’t see the need to prepare for the class, spruce up their communication skills, language and expression. This is making them the laughing stock among students. Forget about respect, students barely tolerate the teachers.
- While qualifying examinations are of very high standard, only 2-3 percent aspiring teachers qualify and are placed in colleges, writing an examination successfully does not make anyone a good teacher. It needs a different set of skills. Some are born with it, others must practice hard, this is missing.
- Finally, ATTITUDE is all wrong. There is hardly any student who enjoys knowledge and skill gain, they like coming to colleges for all the wrong reasons. The pleasure of learning is mostly missing.
- The same holds good for teachers too, the new pay scales are very attractive and most of them come for a job and not to build a profession which requires a deep rooted commitment.
These are some of the observations I have made in my long career in teaching. This holds good in the case of most people, but not all. There are even now exceptional teachers and students, keeping alive the hope of improving the education situation in the country.
The technology in the world has brought so many attractions to my India,but failed most of its young hearts. youth should be enjoyed but not wasted for the addictions that savour in the moment deals and push away the main life aspects.Donno,if this has always been there or more and more are embracing now (from what I have seen and experienced)-jumping to conclusions of any situation ,attitude and person even before the crux of it has taken any form.In most of the educational institutions-‘underestimate the students and undermine every other potential that can’t be scored academically’ still,surprisingly, holds tyrannical rule.
Education system that now exists was formed long ago on the basis to fill the demands of industrial revolution, but the situations now have changed so needs the system to be to.however, the policy makers and many other people rub the old worn out ,a complete misfit system on children only to push them towards stringent and maladroit system of grading and lose out on what all that’s worthy in children and for the development of the nation. Hey, but I am not complaining this system has produced so many remarkable people of all times -the people who just wove their abilities and passion into the system to enjoy the essence of the academics and the capabilities that inhabit them.
Both of my paragraphs might seem self contradictory ,but!! There’s this one link that connects it both that schools,academics at school or colleges to be more precise, bore the students and they find their haven in the things that read ‘prolonged usage detrimental signs’.
Education must be something that leads them(students) to explore things,digs in curiosity and inculcates the zest in them not kill their imagination and succumb their honorable potential to dust. Policy makers should not let their inner impulses affect the process and let the system chose for itself the graduates the country needs
very true mam.Though its heart wrenching,they are the facts in the present education system