It is unwritten but everyone is certain,
everyone follows it but no one knows who created it
Over decades education in India has followed one Path
Everyone wants to follow that Path
The Path is to study well and get good grades
Good grades get you into a good college
When in a good college, study well and get good grades
Good grades then get you a good job
Then life is settled
This Path is probably one of the biggest lies that our system made us believe. Learning actually starts when our formal education is complete. No one gets settled by getting a college degree, it takes a lot of time, effort and hard work after college to establish a career.
Schools play a big role in ensuring that children follow the Path. The entire idea of school is designed around following rules, toeing the line and conforming. The big collateral damage that happens as a result of schooling is the reining in of the free spirits of children in the name of performance and grades. This is the beginning of the end of the free spirit.
Thanks to the base level of our politics, public focus and media – everyone is engrossed in issues like caste, religion, identity, scandals, scams, political mudslinging etc. In all this noise the real issues is lost. One of the biggest challenges that face India today is creating employability. As a nation we boast of the world’s largest young population. Every youngster has a dream of an established career. What we need is not job seekers, but job creators, we need entrepreneurs.
In our effort to educate children we have been creating generations of job seekers and killing the job creators in our schools.
Entrepreneurs are free spirits that defy the norms and challenge the status quo. They are the ones that find solutions to problems in their own way and choose their own path to achieve it. Entrepreneurs have a mind of their own and don’t follow rules. Sounds exactly like the nasty student that every teacher dreads and goes out of the way to normalize that child.
What India needs are entrepreneurs who create jobs and for that we need to nurture free spirits in schools. We should ensure that our schools encourage questions and dissent in an organised manner. That student who is going off the line is allowed to go off and yet have a focus.
This is the an interesting challenge that parents and educators need to overcome. How do you nurture the free thinker in the classroom who does not want to be bound by rules and yet educate these kids to be creators and entrepreneurs of the future.