The Indian education system

leelal · Aug 3, 2008

Hi Ladies,

These days students are under lot of pressure from schools interms of homework and syllabus and frequent exams. I happened to watch Sunday Vijay TV Show at 10.00 p.m by St.John's International school Principal.
It was quiet encouraging on issues that need to be addressed to increase the quality of our education system.

There are lots of initiatives on train the teachers (How to teach effectively/smartly?) by corporates like Wipro, Infosys etc, and also by institues like NIIT who provides Maths,science computer modules for better understanding of the fundamental concepts to students.

Am keen to know as Parents/Teachers, have these programs helped your children to improve their creative thinking skills or are they still doing simple mug up procedures to face exams?

Thanks inadvance for your valuable input.

Shanvy · Aug 3, 2008

Leelal,

I am a parent of a 8th standard and a 5th standard children. both have been students in chennai schools, delhi schools, bahrain and then oman.

What I feel after a continous 4 years of schooling outside of chennai and back to pavilion, there is not much change in the attitude of the teachers or students. the same mugging is still there inspite of leadership, educational programmes by corporates.

there is a no chewing the cud, or assimilating the knowledge and concepts,
there is still a attitude of gobble and spew it out on the paper as and when required.

I know of teachers who ask the children to rote and write it. I am very much against it (to the extent i hate the system that does not allow the child to express his views in his /her style) no, I don't blame all the schools.
In fact if parents did not put pressure on the children for 100% which in turn puts pressure on the students, teachers and the school, there could be a better change.

Even the schools that take an easy attitude till the 5th standard saying learning playful methods and what not become so serious about the 10th/12th results that they become so monotonous in what they teach and want the child to learn.

So if you want to encourage the analytical thinking, you need to put extra effort as a parent.

I simply regret that our education system that does not allow much scope for very good IQ students. there is so much fight to get recognition that many parents just leave it.

AS a parent, I don't encourage roting. I encourage my kids to learn, understand and tell that they should enjoy their subjects, topics and not learn just to move on from one class to the other.

A nice topic dear....There are schools that allow analytical and creative thinking, but they are very few....

let me also wait for others inputs.....

leelal · Aug 4, 2008

Hi Shanthi,

Thank You on your valuable inputs. This is very very true.

Parents and Teachers should understand that the child has to spent only 1/8th of the mug up time if the subject is well taught thrugh the creative and anlytical methodolgy.
Children can understand the topic very well and als helps them to relate and assimilate from then on.

Now in India, there are many many engineering colleges and finishing schools. The common complaints by the western clients are that Indians can do the job well if told what to do. Indian youth do not have the ability to think on their own and come up with creative/alternative solutions or products. Now the Indian employers have also joined the group in core engineering like civil, mechanical , chemical and electrical.

If the current system of education continues, we will have huge quantity of youth with low quality. Its easy to polish the diamonds in early stage and they get moulded to that.

If parents and teachers help the children upto 5th grade to think and act creatively, then onwards they will practise the tips by themselves.

NOW QUALITY OUTPUT is expected in every field whether entertainment, education or buildings. People pay the price for Quality.

Hope our schools, teachers, parents and education department work towards this objective. Planning to write to Tamilnadu Education dept on this.

Shanvy · Aug 6, 2008

Leelal,

Cheers to you for writing to the TN Govt. But of what use dear, when the government feels it has to reduce the syllabus to counter the number of students failing in subjects. (I think i have mentioned this in a thread under tamilnadu).

Addressing a problem properly to the benefit of everybody is a art our government is not good at. it knows very well to just polish and paint it off, or skirt around.

shweta_mhatre · Aug 19, 2008

Hi....Friends,,,

good topic.....
I am a mother of two kids and would tell you that....indian schools doesnt go to the creative and analytical advancement of the students...they are still after mugging and getting things by heart....but it should change....

latamurali · Aug 19, 2008

Hi Leelal and friends

Ofcourse i too asecond all of you , but there are exceptions, and the TREND is changing now,. even iam mother of 4th standard child, and he is studying in ICSE syllabus and this school is based on JK's principles ( famous writer/philospher) and they dont beleive in Home work or exams ( till 5th) and in giving RANKS ( becuase they want each and every child to learn everything based on creativity, and they feel if the RANK is fixed , they will wautomactically start MUGGING UP) and also dont give any REWARD or PUNISHMENTS , everything based on Practical training and play way method , and they dont want kids to mug up and write and also give lot of project work based on creativity , frequent filed trips and practical sessions and in the school functions also each and every student will be given chance to expose their skills , so their main focus is on CREATIVE and PRACTICAL LEARNING

Sad point is , many of us in our society, hesitate to accept this trend and they pass lot of Negative comments about this type of education and they have a very strong feeling that this TREND wont be successful in country like India , since we mainly give importance to RANK HOLDERS / MARKS , so used to argue with me, that, only REGULAR EDUCATION stream is good

So, first, people / parents should change their mentality , their attitude and stop expecting JUST HIG SCORES from their kids, instead MUST TRY TO CO-OPERATE WITH THEM TO IMPORVE THIER CREATIVITY ,ut we cant expect everybody to think in the same way, ther are still sme people who likes regular stream is the best , so as per their requirements , let them admit their child

I feel no point in blaming Govt or schools , if we want any change in our society, we should change first, we are society , if we are UNITED we can achieve anything , so for any proplem / issues we should form as a group ( REDNU KAI THATINA DHAN OSAI ) and do the needful

So for everything, we should be prepared to WELCOME the changes, in the future

My My 2centsMy 2cents

padmavathi m · Aug 19, 2008

friends,

i too join with you all............i dont like to encourage rote learning........ where the child looses the creativity...............the govt has to amend all these systems, its of no use we debating on these issues..............now i am happy that people are also aware of creative and analytical thinking, but a very long way to go.............atleast parents like us can be a root cause for such an education system if it is implemented in India

pmn · Aug 22, 2008

Hi All,

Very well said, latamurali.

I have a 2yr old son. So have no practical experience of any school as such. But my elder sister's son goes to a quite good school in Chennai which works in the same way you mentioned. No exams, grading till 5th standard.But in majority of schools in India as of today, rote-learning is the way forward.

Also, there is so much competition. Each parent is out to strive hard at making their child come out the very best. Well, the intentions are no doubt very good. But, I feel there is no thought given to what the child actually wants. I have personally seen examples where parents force their kids to various classes in an effort to make them smarter and all-round students!

With such parents driving the scene, the schools too have to follow the rote-learning pattern. Because, each parent wants something tangible as a measure of their success. We cant possibly have creative and analytical thinking and get tangible results!

That system is yet to be developed in India!

leelal · Aug 22, 2008

Thank You friends for sharing your children's experiences.

In my opinion, Govt should change policies and formats.
eg:, In Tamilnadu, earlier Engineering and Medical seat allocation was based on Entrance Test + Marks. The Entrance test is one level closer to applying the learnings in solving the problems. Not an exact replica of school exam questions. This has been acting as one quality filter.

Now since there are more seats, Govt knocked off the entrance and only based on plus 2 marks. Here t secure mre marks, more mug up practises and tension amng parents to send their children to the best tuition school. Children also undergo lot of stress in taking varius classes and multiple, frequent tests.

Let us Imagine, the govt brings in a new paradigm of selection method.

Professinal selection is mainly based on an entrance test (That may/can be taken online).
Its purely objective type with application of cre subject learnings and also more analytical cum logical pattern like an MBA entrance test.

Now the parents and children won't go behind learning to secure more school marks. They will focus on learning throughly what ever is the syllabus. They will also practise on solving same problems differently as a question can be asked in various dimensions instead of the straight approach.
The drawback of this system is that not many could clear such exams in the initial years and most of the reserved seats will be vacant as it will be tough to clear.

Once the selection system changes, Schools, teachers, parents and students focus will go behind the new system.
In this system, ICSE, CBSE students won't switch over to Stateboard syllabus after 10th, just to focus on getting best marks.

In this system, for non-professinal courses also, such a filter can be made in arts and science colleges.

Let us see who is going to listen to our discussions.

Shanvy · Nov 11, 2008

Krithika (tikka), had asked a question in the schools in chennai thread, where in i had mentioned we will continue the discussion here, but i remembered this thread of leelal that was in the same line of krithikka's question so we will continue the discussion here.

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<table width="100%" border="0" cellpadding="6" cellspacing="0"> <tbody><tr> <td class="alt2" style="border: 1px inset ;"> Originally Posted by Shanvy
The fees of Vaels billabong is highest of the listed. something around 70k and above.
All the other schools the fees starts anywhere between 20k to 40 k depending, without the transport.
All the schools have been discussed. do search from the search link using the key words.
</td> </tr> </tbody></table>
Shanti, You are joking, right? Tell me you are, pretty please. But for what? Don't get me wrong, I have an almost two year old and we have not registered him/shortlisted/bought an admission form in any school. The more I look into this forum, the more I want to not school him in Chennai or home school him.
In our neighbourhood, a 7 year old from a very backward community goes to an english-medium school of some repute in the neighbourhood. He is in class I and he is going to tuitions till 8 pm. My heart bleeds for the little guy. At least in his case, I understand, the parents cannot help him at home, having had a Tamil-medium education (not that it is any less, but they don't follow English at all.)
I had a very strange conversation with a 12 year old relative of a friend. Her English text looks like something I read in Class 1V. If I remember right, we were taught complex/compound sentences and clauses in class VII, the girl is basic subject, object, predicate. Cant blame her, looks like the curriculum is getting dumbed down (Gosh, I am beginning to sound like an old uncle who kept repeating the PUCs of his days were like postgraduates of my times.)
I did not mean to start a debate here (I hope I have not offended moms who have sought admission in the elite schools,) but I cant for the life of me understand for what are these astronomical fees.
My husband is an academic and often has to deal with students who are about to graduate from professional courses or are post-graduates. He was schooled in another city and he says almost every one of them sent to him for projects - top students from top
- do not have their basics right. Is it something endemic, or has he been unfortunate to meet such kids.
Sorry for the very lengthy post - every single day, I am feeling impelled to home school Kiran...given the downsides of homeschooling and this kind of seemingly inane commercialisation of education, I feel like I am caught between a rock and a hard place. over."