Time to repackage education system : Is A only for Apple ?
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: October 11, 2012 -

A is for Apple. But are the kindergarten kids encouraged to think that A can also stand for other things ?

Does 80 pc mean dumber than 95 pc ?

Salt water is a good conductor of electricity.

Is this knowledge only about a subject known as Physics ?

Are research papers and doctoral theses the gateway to only the prefix Dr and a job thence ?

Basic questions to address basic things regarding education, especially the type that passes off as education here in Manipur. Employability is central to education and livelihood.

There are no two ways about it, but the question of larger significance is how education can and should mould the character, the efficiency and personality of the people.

This is important and there should be no two ways about this too. Educationists we are not. We are not policy framers, either.

But we do notice certain things, as part of this society.

To come up with acceptable answers to the posers that have been raised, educationists, policy framers and all those having anything to do with education, such setting its syllabi, how students are taught etc need to go back to their class rooms.

Significant too is the question of how well grounded are the books and the prescribed syllabi with the history, culture, ethos, traditions and the environment of the land.

For those who were in their high schools in the 80s in Manipur, History of Great Britain made up the History subject at the Matric level.

Learning about the history of other people and land is fine and acceptable, but the fact that this came at the cost of the history of this land and people is a price that is still being paid today.

Does it really make much sense to know the map of Australia like one's back hand while not being able to locate Siroy peak or Loktak Lake on the map of Manipur ?

No doubt knowledge should not be chained within an outlook or compart-mentalised into 'ours' and 'theirs' but the 'ours' part should not be forgotten for the sake of 'theirs' part.

Students should be taught as much as about the Suishas, the Rani Gaidinlius, the Jadonangs, the Hijam Irabots as about Shivaji or Babur or Napoleon.

This is where the role of researchers come in. Research and come out with objective analysis of the historical figures and their contributions to the growth or otherwise of the land and people so that students can study them as they ought to be studied.

We believe Manipur University has been producing some creditable research papers and studies but it would be so much nicer if these scholarly works can impact directly on how and what school kids are being taught inside the classrooms as well as outside.

Children being directed to identify Kabuli Chana and make a collage out of exotic plant species as part of their project works is fine, but it becomes unacceptable when in the process they cannot identify Chak Hao or some of the plant or grain species which may be indigenous to the place.

So it stands that salt water is a good conductor of electricity but how do we take this out from the classrooms and make it applicable to the real world is the question.

M may stand for Mango, but are we ready to teach our children that M can also stand for Manipur ?

Is a student scoring 70 pc that much dumber than the one scoring 90 pc ?

Not a million dollar question. Just a question of applying our minds to the need of the hour and setting our priorities right.