Challenges in education in our society

Imagining a person without education in today's society seems quite impossible. In today's world everyone is educated. Some people are less educated while some are more educated, but all are educated. You may or may not believe but it's true that India has the world's perfectly lined higher education. Now you maybe thinking that if we are getting the perfect education,then why do we need any more changes? Well for that let me first throw a light on what education really is. According to Dictionary, education means the process of facilitating learning, or the acquisition of knowledge, skills, values, beliefs, and habits. Education doesn't only mean reading academics. Anyone can just mug up the things and can vomit them out in exams. I can guarantee that almost 90% of the so called 'top 10' of every class forget everything after giving a exam.
We face a lot of challenges in the present education system in our society . Let's begin with the academic education. India, apart from having the perfectly lined education in the world, also has the hardest higher education in the world. So it is needless to say that most students commit suicide due to their inability to bear the pressure. 90% of the suicide case are from Kota in Rajasthan. For those unaware of that place, that place is called the 'IIT capital of India'. This city is home to almost all the IIT coaching centres in India. Approximately 70% of the IITans go from these places. And some students, who don't get qualified in JEE and are continuously pressurized for getting into IIT by the parents, quit, being unable to take the burden. Actually, some parents are obsessed with making their children either engineers or doctors, irrespective of the child's interest. The child wanted to do any other course, but being forced by the parents, finally does engineering. 40% of the students preparing for IIT and also 40% of the students going to IIT don't know what they are going to do in future. So what kind of engineers will they be in future? So there needs to be a proper counselling system which will guide the students to follow their own passions.

If you read newspapers regularly, then you'd be fully aware of what is going on in the society today. Rapes and murders are very common. Then comes political wars. We have to accept the fact, how ugly it may seem, that we are narrow minded and we take everything negatively. Sometimes we spread rumours without knowing the real story and things get pretty ugly when the rumours get spread. We all come/ have came across these type of situations at least once in life. Some people/children are very harsh and don't behave properly with anyone. And in case, by chance someone sees you talking to a girl, although she would be your sister, rumours will spread everywhere and you will feel ashamed about what the people would have concluded. We, Indians particularly, 21st century but we still believe in superstitions. We still discriminate between us by our caste. There are still people who will not touch people from 'lower caste'. The youth of today are influenced by all these things. They too are narrow minded and some of them even discriminate between castes. The youth of today is confused about what to do and which principles to follow. Let's take the example of the most favorite subject of the nation: politics. The youth of today even don't know how to choose the right candidate in an election. They give vote to the political party which gives them enough money and food to eat instead of giving vote to the party which actually deserves it. Ok, not all youths do so but many do like this. And yes, finally the reservations. Maybe, India is the only country in the world which has a reservation in caste. Ok there was a need for this once, when some castes were really backward, but what's the need for the caste reservation now? Due to this reservation many deserving people/students don't get a seat/job where they should surely get a seat/job and many undeserving people/students get the seat/job. Let us all come forward and change the system of reservation. These challenges in the education should be overcome.

Many amendments are needed to be made in the field of education. First of all, reservations should be removed at least from the field of education. Then students should be taught how to behave properly with others. Well, if may seem weird, but how can one expect the students to be broad-minded when some teachers themselves are very narrow minded. We need to change our mentality and teach the students to be broad minded. Then we should also teach values to the students. If a student gets the first rank in the class and still doesn't know how to behave with others, then he cannot be called a well educated human. On the other hand, if a student doesn't score good marks in the class but still behaves gently with everyone, then he can be called a well educated human being. So value based education should be introduced at every level. Then students should be allowed to take their own subjects by means of test. There should be specific entrance tests for specific subjects and a student needs to give the test to choose the subject of his/her own choice. Students should also be taught to give vote to the deserved.

Even in the 21st century, we face a lot of challenges in the education system of India. We should overcome these challenges and make India great again. We need to change ourselves first in order to change the education system. Anupam Kher has rightly said in Toilet:Ek Prem Katha, "If you change nothing, nothing will change." So let's be more broad minded and let's come forward and overcome the challenges of the education system. It's only us who can change ourselves. Let's all be literally 'well educated'.

©AshutoshAcharya,2k17