Does Indian education system impart 'knowledge'?
Vaishali Gauba
"Knowledge is power," they say. What they don't say, however, is what knowledge is? Is knowledge being in the top five percentile of your class, or is it opting for science as opposed to humanities when we are 16 years old, an age when any other decisions we make are treated with a raised eyebrow but obviously, we are supposed to know what we want to do academically for the rest of our life? Is knowledge memorizing a bunch of concepts before an exam and spilling it all out on 32-pages of exam paper, or is it burning the midnight oil practicing integration and later wondering how will the integrals ever integrate in your life?
I have grown up in a society that tells you not to stress out when board exams are around the corner but later clicks their tongues if you were at 98% because, come on, that's only a percent shy of the national topper. The same society was intrigued to find out why, as a bright student, I opted for commerce instead of the science. And that same society today loves to believe that all of this is justifiable because knowledge is power, but here comes the bubble burst: all what I mentioned above is not knowledge, dear society.
The internet defines knowledge as information, understanding or skill that one gets from education or experience. To elaborate on that, the Indian education system does an excellent job at exemplifying this definition.
Information: Textbooks, reference books for textbooks, solution books for reference books, notes from the teacher, notes from the tutor, there is plentiful information, without an inch of doubt.
Understanding: If being able to answer a bunch of convoluted questions in an exam and wiping off every fragment of those facts and formulae we ritually memorized is understanding, then yes, the Indian education system promotes understanding.
Skill: I have definitely mastered a handful of skills in my experience as a student who followed the Indian education curriculum. I am skilled at converting one piece of information into 5 pages, so neatly presented and so adequately highlighted, that a person who has 7 minutes to check my paper will be boggled by just the way it looks that actually reading it will be pushing the edge of the envelope.
Lastly, for education or experience, I like to call myself an educated individual but if I jog down my memory, I cannot remember what experiences have I gained through this definition of knowledge that prevails in our education system. And that is where I would like to draw the line.
When was the last time you succeeded at something you wanted for yourself - not for your parents, not for Gupta aunty, not for your dad's boss or for any other member of the society- and you thought, "I would like to attribute that success to page 279 of my social sciences textbook."
When was the last time you had no clue what you were doing and you said to yourself, "Let me look up that term I learned in my economics class for help."When was the last time that you were standing on a stage, with people's eyes glued to you and you thought, "What kind of hormones could my endocrine system be producing right now?"
If you can answer these questions, then you are the ideal face of the definition of knowledge as per the Indian education system. If you cannot, then you have the potential to become the ideal icon of the real definition of knowledge that I can exemplify to a train and this train, certainly, makes a stop at what is called-Application.
And this application is not confined to the boundaries of biology, where if you cut open a rat, you think you are applying your knowledge. What if when studying about inflation, we are not shown hypothetical graphs, but the actual graph of where India stands in terms of inflation? What if when studying about business, we can actually visit a business firm and watch its functioning for a few days? What if the teacher actually lays open an electronic machine to show its working? What if when we learn about waste management, we actually build a composting pit? What if when we memorize names of freedom movements and historical events, we compare it to our present? What if we actually gained knowledge for once?
I know there are a lot of buts to ifs I asked. I also know knowledge is a two-way lane between what provides it and who acquires it. As students, it is easy to raise fingers at the education system; what is hard to raise, though, is our voice against it, voice to improve it, voice to question it and voice to change it.
I do realize it's hard to walk the talk. Sitting in a nation miles away from the one I am commenting about does not necessarily justify what I am saying. But no matter where you are, what you do, how you do it, the real world, as they say, is a real place in all nations. And when we step into this real world, what we will need is real knowledge. Knowledge that is not only read but seen;knowledge that is not testified by the scores we achieve but by the skills we chisel;knowledge that is not trapped in the pages of textbooks but is out in the open for anyone to grasp;
Knowledge that does not limit us but knowledge that empowers us, because as they say, "Knowledge is power."
Educate, Empower, Elevate
Prof. Bholanath Dutta
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