Indian Education - a fresh approach

The present education system – an assessment

The present Indian education is designed to produce persons with

• Good mathematical skills.
• Good instruction-following capacities.
• Average analytical skills.
• Not so inspiring writing abilities.
• Poor reading habits.
• Hopeless self learning attitudes.
• Poor citizen habits.
• Missing national pride.
• Individualistic outlook.
• Missing concern for the society.
• Flawed attitude towards opposite sex.
• No idea of the law of land.
• No idea of financial discipline.

The system is apparently fighting to survive the pressure of dealing with unmanageable number of candidates right from the beginning. Our education system has become an instrument primarily to provide some mechanical way to shortlist candidates. To select candidates for any avenue, students are therefore judged more on their reproducing abilities and less on their understanding capabilities. Interest in a discipline and passion towards a skill are often sacrificed and the candidates are expected to discover and even generate these qualities within themselves after they get selected.

This has forced our education system to get built up apparently on a flawed premise that an academician or a researcher is suited best for any kind of profession. With this basic premise our education attempts to produce only academicians. And only during this process students keep on shifting to other avenues at some stage or the other out of frustration from the mainstream education to learn skills that are required to earn a living.

Examination side-effects

The education system has got evolved in such a manner that understanding a problem, innovative thinking and failed attempts go hopelessly unevaluated and hence get discouraged in the present system. On the other hand, mere having Information about solutions or an attitude for mindlessly following a beaten path and only successful attempts most often get rewarded in the present system.

That one will be able to get a profession of one's own interest depends completely on the reproducing ability of a person. And the system thus encourages students to fool others through rote-learning. Only rote learners are sure of getting 'success' in this system. In our society, 'Success' is a name given to the event of getting into your choice of profession. Ironically in our country it is another bitter truth that the 'choice' is always guided by the expected financial returns from the profession and not driven by any passion for that profession.

Our education system fails to realize that if someone has understood a topic/concept then that never means that the same person will also be able to reproduce the same. To be able to reproduce the same one needs to waste valuable time in revisiting the same again and again. Unfortunately even those who have not understood can reproduce the same through rote learning. Too much importance on examination-results forces even innovative thinkers and visionaries to waste their time in preparing them for useless reproduction.

Misplaced sense of achievement

Another serious fall out of the present system is that a degree is invariably mistaken as an ultimate achievement and a final license to get (not earn) money. To get into a system that would fetch them a 'financially relevant and socially respectable' job, students often get exhausted while handling the cut-throat competitions and consider their job as already over once they get placed in a desired environment. They then expect the government to start paying him/her for this 'false' sense of achievement.

Our society has an enviable (unreasonably skewed) liking for only a few types of professions. These professions come with a deadly combination of high returns with astonishingly lesser challenges. Beginning from the colonial era these jobs have continued to evolve as offering more and more of these attractive features. People find those select jobs so glamorous and paying that the entire society runs after only those selected few professions. We acquire degrees and percentages only to get hold of one of these jobs. However the anti-climax is that we consider acquiring degrees as the end of the purpose to get education and a government officer's job ('corruption' renders the returns entirely de-linked from any pressure to perform) epitomizes the sense of getting rewarded in return of education.

The main problem of our education system is therefore that our society considers only a handful of the 'jobs' as 'financially relevant and socially respectable' options. This is exactly the reason that our society looks up to getting a job only as a doctor, engineer, manager, officer, administrator, academicians. There is an urgent need to expand this base. Jobs associated with several other kinds of skills should also be made financially relevant and hence socially respectable. In our society the difference between the social status of a pathological technicians, a nurse and a doctor is unreasonably enormous; difference between a construction worker, a labor contractor, a junior engineer and an engineer is unreasonably huge; difference between a car mechanic, a technician and an automobile engineer is too large to be justified; difference between an electrician and an electrical engineer is completely unjustified; difference between a University professor and a school teacher is not understandable; difference between the status of a plumber and a civil engineer is outrageously huge; difference between a hotel waiter and a hotel manager is inexplicably large. This brazen attitude stems from our age-old disrespect towards dignity of work. It is true that this change is not easy to affect but the absence of effort in this direction has already magnified the problem to an extent that an avoidable 'reservation race' has found its relevance in the system.

The way ahead

Let us try to move inch by inch towards a state wherein financial considerations will take a back seat in favor of an inherent interest in a profession. When a student can take up a profession out of his own personal interest in the same and not because the skill can provide an unreasonably better financial status and a respectable lifestyle – then only we will be somewhere near to our destination.

As long as these differences would stay in our society the mad rush to get into those few professions would continue. And as long as the rush would continue the method of examination to shortlist the unmanageably long list of candidates in a blind and mechanical manner will find no alternative. And as long as this examination system will exist no innovation can be nurtured or encouraged in this process.

Education should aim at producing persons with

• Good reading, writing, analyzing and debating abilities.
• Necessary sensibilities.
• Some job fetching skills/attitudes.
• Attitude of a self-learner.
• Concern towards society.
• Knowledge of law of the land.
• Temperament of observing rules.
• Courage to point out deficiency and injustice.
• Having national pride.
• Vision of an innovator.

Conclusion

Education means development and it must be provided to all without exception.

Primary education should aim primarily on building values and personality development,

Secondary education should be utilized to help students identify their interest/inclination and

Higher education should be aimed at building those skills.

To achieve this we need to dump two avoidable misconceptions that obstruct our march towards achieving this:

• We must be realistic and never think of de-linking Higher education from jobs/profession.
• And secondly, we also must stop daydreaming that the government will be able to provide Higher education to all without the help of private investment.

The government should focus on framing policies to encourage private players to help in enlarging the set of 'financially relevant and socially respected' professions by modernizing more and more job-providing avenues/skills.

Scope and Hope

The numbers are so large that there is no other way but to depend heavily on internet-based education. Uploading of skill-training demonstrations by real professionals should be encouraged and must be given utmost priority. Computers and automation by machines should be encouraged in those skills that are hitherto not financially paying to make them financially attractive. Use of automatic machines in furniture industries, washing and cleaning industries, repairing industries, construction industries and waste-management industries can do wonders in making them of some financial worth. Use of computerized approach in hair-designing, jewellery designing and fashion designing can make them attractive too. Besides these, imparting the attitude required on the issues of Sexual Harassment, Gender sensitization, Driving rules, Anti-drug laws, developing a balanced understanding on the other sex, issues of national pride, national concerns on population, poverty and environment should also find desired attention in the nursery and primary education curricula.

The misguided Kissers of Love

Please enlighten me on what exactly they want to achieve. What is the aim of those who are supporting the movement of “Kiss of Love”? Supporters of “moral policing” are at least not hypocritical in their approach. One class of the “moral police” in their own way admit that open expression of love often spark urge for sex in them and therefore seek others' help in avoiding such occasions. The other class of supporters of “moral policing” unilaterally assumes the responsibility of their parents and feel equally concerned. But what are the supporters of “kiss of love” looking for?

If the demand is that their open expression should not create any urge for sex in the onlookers then it would imply that they want to “control” the events that should become irrelevant for sparking desire for sex? If that is so, then how is this different from their own definition of “moral policing”. Are they trying to teach morality while projecting that they are actually against it? Isn't that an attempt only to expand the list of 'morally acceptable acts'?

Or do they want only to hurt those who admit that they get sexually aroused when they witness an open act of expression of love? Then this act for me falls under the category that includes 'rape' - where sex is misused to hurt someone – physically, mentally and psychologically.

And lastly if it is to make that class of “moral police” behave 'sensibly' who unilaterally assumes parental concerns upon themselves, wouldn't it be more effective to hit the root of the problem. Would it be misplaced to ask them to “show their expression” before their own parents to make their point. That way they would slap those elements of the “moral police” by making them understand that they must stop having unnecessary concerns for them as their own parents do not feel insecure even after having witnessed the act?

Before you start loading your answers with questions and start hurling towards me let me submit my own understanding on the issue. In my view, both the attitudes are misplaced. While one is a spontaneous reflex action out of rural innocence while the other is planned with motives much beyond what is apparently visible. Disappointedly though, both talks only on an issues that is less relevant in our society and point towards the events that can potentially spark an urge for sex in individuals. It is only stupid to assume that in a country as vast as ours, it could be identical in each one of us as it depends mainly on our individual experiences and the environment around us. But, both the sides want to have a control on that. “Moral police” wants to avoid the fire by asking us to place the matchboxes at designated places whereas the “immoral police” wants to control the fire itself.

Just as a crime even if done in isolation can not be excused by terming it as 'personal' or 'traditional', an act involving two individuals does not remain 'personal' if it is done in full view of public. And then it must be subject of public scrutiny. 'Decency' and 'morality' is neither absolute nor fixed but any claim that it does not exist for someone only confirms that he/she is being blatantly hypocritical.

  

Ironically what India requires is not a control on the urge for sex. Instead what we need to learn is to understand, accept and respect a 'NO' from an unwilling partner. We need to learn that as soon as the partner hints at an objection it is criminal to still think of 'enjoying' your act.

A TRUE ACCOUNT OF OUR KASHMIR VISIT

On July 16, 2014, a day before we were to return from our visit to Srinagar, we went to see Gulmarg on a hired taxi. We were four – I, my wife Maneesha, Dhananjay Gadre and his wife Sangeeta. We enjoyed our rope-way ride to Gandola and then returned to our waiting taxi to get back to Srinagar. We noticed that our driver was visibly upset. On enquiry he shared with us a disturbing news. He told us that on the same Srinagar-Baramulla road that we were to take for Srinagar and only ten kilometers before the Lal Chawk, an army truck had crushed a civilian car near Noora Hospital that very day (certainly after we must have crossed the place while coming to Gulmarg) making the area very volatile and tense. About six of the commuters were suspected to have died in the incident. He further informed us that locals in the nearby area got agitated, staged a massive anti-army protest, attacked the jawans in the truck and later even clashed with police. He feared that as the area could still be tense, we will have to be careful while our way back.

(http://www.dailyexcelsior.com/clashes-srinagar-north-kashmir-accident/)

We obviously got worried. To confirm the news I searched the internet and facebook and I found the news to be true and his apprehensions valid. However, for all this while, I noticed that our driver repeatedly tried to emphasize that the army crane had 'intentionally' crushed the vehicle to kill the passengers in the car. I read several news related to the incident on the internet but did not find any reference having any scope of such misinterpretation. Nowhere, this kind of conduct by driver of the army vehicle was even hinted. I shared this opinion with our driver and tried to correct him that the incident was reported as an accident everywhere. But he refused to believe us. He was convinced and offered several other incidences wherein he claimed to have witnessed the mindless aggression of Indian army showing no humanitarian considerations towards Kashmiris. He said that he has already received calls from many reliable sources confirming his conclusion. Even after our repeated insistence to see reasons he said that the Indian Army is like that and believed in his conviction that Indian army always felt happy in killing Kashmiris. He said, we only pelt stones but they shoot us dead in return.
I probed further to know that do they fear Indian Army more than the Pakistani Army. “Kashmiris fear none” he replied “we are only in favour of freedom”. I modified my question slightly to know that who do they feel closer, India or Pakistan to which he replied admittedly on the religious lines.

While on our way back, the area looked to have calmed down after the protests. We could see pelted stones everywhere on the road, people cautiously peeping out of their houses, but there was enough police presence and thankfully nothing looked out of control. Inside the car too, the air was heavy. Sangeeta asked the driver finally, “You think that the speeding army crane crashed with the car head-on with a clear intent to kill all those who were sitting inside. You are convinced also because according to you the Indian army enjoys killing Kashmiris. But tell me one thing that isn't this also true that these days there are so many tourists visiting Kashmir and even pilgrims are moving in cars. How could they have ensured that in the crash they would be killing only locals in this accident." She went ahead with "Don't you think that it is improper to attach such motives at least in this accident?” He could not reply to this convincingly. His helplessness and inability to offer arguments in support to his conviction was visible. It looked like that the question worked in initiating the desired thinking process in his mind. And if the doubts were still left, they must have now got eased out after witnessing the way army is carrying out the gigantic and massive relief work unstopped for the past several hours on a scale never heard before in India.

Exposure, Sex, Rape and Sex-education - in Indian Context

Let us stop behaving hypocritically

Sorry, I refuse to be a hypocrite. I can not project myself as normal human and yet claim that I am not interested in the opposite sex. I can not ask others not to conclude the obvious even if I am in a live-in relationship. I would never ask anyone to believe in the honesty of my relationship if I prefer spending my nights with another. I can not be hypocritical in claiming that we are 'just' friends only to convey that we are not into any physical relationship but meaning thereby that so what as friends can also have a physical relationship.

I also refuse to stop advising women not to bother about their safety. I would prefer to be called as someone possessing a 'rapist's mentality' for expressing concerns for them and by asking them to take precautions if it can help saving even a single one of them. Those who are in a habit of provoking innocent women to participate in 'slut-walks' and other similar reactionary activities must be satisfying their sex-laced intents to see them walking like sluts but sorry, I will never approve this for the reason that these activities achieve little towards the real cause but serves enough to make many enjoy the show and thereby defeating the very purpose of organizing these 'shows'. I am also a male and so don't even dare to fool me by claiming that 'real men' do not feel sexually aroused at the glimpse of 'appropriately' exposed women. Even if the 'popular' Menaka-Vishwamitra episode is rejected by terming it as 'myth', the world-wide booming prostitution industry, success of 'peep shows' and 'relaxing massages' in attracting tourists to boost tourism in many countries, ever-increasing madness to attend 'rave parties' and an increasing popularity of porn sites on the internet are enough examples to expose these hypocritical claims hollow. It is patently dishonest and hypocritical to claim that an 'appropriate' exposure do not initiate 'a desire to have sex'.

Does 'exposure' invites rape?

But hey, hold on, both who think that 'exposure' invites rape and those who think that rape has nothing to do with how one carries herself need to wait and pause for a while. As 'a desire for sex' initiated by an exposure never gets automatically transformed into an 'intention to rape'. The fact is that 'a desire to have sex' is also an innocent human-reflex. However, one's background and upbringing then helps in preventing this 'desire to have sex' to get morphed onto 'forcing sex in an extreme way on other'. The reason for this transformation to occur are many including their acquired ideological understanding of a good/bad, moral/immoral and forbidden/acceptable sexual behaviors and past experiences. In many cases, statistically speaking, this transformation is also affected when the person is in a drunken state when their acquired sense of acceptable behavior, if any, through their background or the manner in which they were brought up failed to stop their natural beastly (read manly) reflexes. And come on, whom do we fool by participating in a candle march against a rape incident demanding police action to stop 'all' rapes? When in most of the cases the accused are known to the victims is it not hypocritical to still claim that it is possible for the 'police and government' to take care of them instead of them themselves.

Enough is enough

Enough is enough. Let us now at least, stop fooling women. we have fooled them enough – first by setting up a patriarchal system and now by creating a mirage-like claim that this system can be destroyed without actually showcasing a better alternative. First by forcibly trying to pull 'sari' off 'Draupadis' and now by making them shed clothes on their own in the name of 'slut walks' and 'liberation'. First by exploiting them at home only and now at all other places including home. Isn't it time now that 'women' must understand that males are males and will always remain beasts? Women are better species and they need to protect themselves and stop 'downgrading' themselves attempting to ape males. It is a crude fact that males with their beastly reflexes can find even an innocent openness in women's attitude as conducive of finding innovative ways to exploit them.

Need of sex-education with Indian perspective

Our society badly needs sex education. There is an urgent need to sensitize ourselves through an 'Indian-ized' sex education as our problems are completely different from other countries. Much before we start educating the youth on how to indulge in sex and yet avoid pregnancy we should first start with how to behave with the other sex. Sex-education weaved with spiritual/moral education is what should be prescribed for us. To start with, given our prevalent conservative attitude towards sex we can even think of providing online education on this aspect. In our country, parents would make the best teachers on sex-education if they can somehow be 'educated' to come out of their initial inhibitions in response to the need of the hour.

Conclusion

Believe me, it is 'males' who need to be reigned in while women just need to take their normal individual care. As a matter of fact, while women are family oriented by instinct males should be forced to become family-oriented. Our society further needs to be thrashed, reformed, shaken and turned upside down to make it accept rape victims only as 'victims' so that they do not face any rehabilitation problem that becomes absolutely impossible for them. On the other hand, the society must also be pushed to think of some extreme measures of tackling the accused too so that we do not have to witness another horrifying experience where the beast in males dares to attempt at 'enjoying' rapes with hapless victims. 
Instead of women asking to be treated as men, I see an immediate need to force men behave socially like women.