My views on

Importance of education and how to build a vibrant education system

Education is indeed the prime mover of civilization. It is the most prominent contributor in building up the character of a society. It’s through education that we impart various cumulative skills to the upcoming generation. Education is not just for learning the academic curricula. It is a complete package, which trains young human beings into the formal established ways of knowledge.

Education ought to be comprehensive and inclusive. Its purpose is to make the people understand different aspects of knowledge in totality. While education enlightens students to existing knowledge, it also triggers in them a thought process which can make them independent thinkers and free enquirers. 

Education is meant to discourage dogmas and blind thinking. It stands for challenging norms which do not qualify the test of time and rationality. 

Just like this huge world, education too falls into different categories. There are wide areas ranging from natural sciences to humanities and from social science to the more recent applied studies.  Whatever is the area and field, education necessarily imparts knowledge and skills to the students. Further, it makes them think creatively and freely.

Effective education will create cultured citizens and a vibrant society. It is the harbinger of modernity and civility. It brings about the ability to use the power of reasoning most effectively. 

Education is not merely bookish learning. It is effective implementation of knowledge and wisdom learned through books into real life. Education promotes broadmindedness and dispels ignorance. It also makes a student accommodative to his/her limitations and fosters congeniality and adjustability.   

Need for an upgraded education system 

Educational institutes are centres of learning and acquiring skills. These are really the fields where churning of knowledge takes place. They are instrumental in carrying forward the onward march of human civilization. 

However, educational institutes should not remain merely places where theory is taught with little or no relevance to the practical aspects. Strong linkages between theory and practice will ensure grand success of any educational institute.

For effective linkage between theoretical and practical aspects, it’s important that teachers should give more focus to real world situations. The lessons being taught in the classroom should be related to conditions prevailing in the respective industry.

Another important thing is proper integration between different disciplines. As said earlier, education is a complete package. Different subjects can’t be treated totally in isolation. There are several areas where they need to stay separate, but in other situations, teachers should try to integrate them. 

Encouragement to cross-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary approaches is required to bring about the necessary integration between different subjects. This is important for complete development of students. They may have their favourate subjects but other subjects should not be completely ignoresd. Besides, integrative, cross-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary approaches also ensure that academic and intellectual development of students is even and not lop sided.

Finally, education should try to transform the individual. It should make him/her a free thinker. It should not make him/her merely an expert of his/her field but he/she should also possess working knowledge of other subjects. Education should aim for complete human beings. When this happens, success in both professional and personal life becomes more inevitable.

Education is one of the most important fuels for social vibrancy. It needs to be taken very seriously.