The burden of formal education

I was shocked to see a five year old girl in school uniform standing inside the crowded metro compartment at 7 pm. It was peak hours and the compartment was packed with office crowd. The young mother was struggling to find some space .She was carrying the child’s loaded school bag in one hand and held the child’s hand with her other hand. While making the little girl sit next to me I asked her mother why was her child so late from school. In my ignorance I had assumed she was coming directly from school .Her mother briefed me that this was her usual time since she leaves school at 4 pm and goes for tuitions directly from school. I was astounded. The girl was only five years old ! My heart cried out for this little child .What kind of society are we living in where tired little children have to compete with adults to find a foothold in crowded spaces?  Why can’t we give children a less burdened existence?

The other day when Prof Sugata Mitra had proclaimed so confidently that our education system had collapsed I was a bit cynical. But looking at this little girl I realized the brilliant professor had reasons for saying so. Though many parents who had attended Prof Mitra’s lecture that day were highly skeptical about his views, most of them agreed that the situation was gradually going out of control with some universities asking for a 100% cut off mark for admission at UG level.  

Nowadays tuitions start as early as UKG level and continue up to PG level. Recently while shortlisting candidates for a post I was looking at a particular CV where the candidate had completed BCom degree with Honours in Accountancy. I later came to know that the person knew nothing about the subject since he was engaged in odd jobs during college hours. He had got this degree without attending any classes and had hardly studied the subject. Obviously the candidate had figured out that he did not need in-depth subject knowledge to do entry level office job. Hence he had used his time the way he wanted. In a way students like him were rejecting the conventional system of formal classroom education.

If students need the support of secondary props to acquire their formal qualifications then the current system of pedagogy and instructional methodology definitely need a complete overhaul. Why should parents pay twice over at every stage? Why should students attend classes twice over?

Most of us who studied during 60s-80s did not get additional tuitions at every stage in our school or college life. Students who were weak in maths or other subjects got some guidance from tutors and that was it in most cases .Our parents did not have the means and most of us did not belong to double income, single child families. So we had to struggle and find our ways. But we had time to go to libraries and enjoyed doing so. Probably we are not that smart or that knowledgeable as today’s kids. But we had more freedom and less pressure.

The image of the little girl will haunt me for some time and add to my growing middle age  frustration with life.