Beyond Grades and Rankings: Rethinking Education for Essential Skills Development

By Manu Bharadwaj V

Education, an important and needful aspect in every student’s life. It is believed that education  has direct impact on shaping the bright future of the student. But we witness the other way as today’s education system is just about Rank, competition and getting marks. As a result of this,  students mug-up the syllabus overnight and then vomit the same in the answer script and  accomplish the rank. Once the exam is over, most of them tend to forget what they have learnt.  It’s because by mugging up, they only gain information and not the knowledge that is actually  required. This is the trend we can witness in today’s education system. 

Education system defines the stipulated hours of teaching required for a particular subject.  Similar guidelines regarding mentoring the skills of a student should be implemented. As a part  of curriculum, subjects related to the moral values, soft skills and technical skills has to be  taught in a holistic way. Students happily involve in activity-based learning rather than 

textbook based learning. Again, this reminds our ancient times where the students were sent to  Gurukul and the education mostly took place in environment. Value based education was the  focus of ancient education. But inculcating the values has become the crux of today’s education  system as Textbook has taken the first bench and Values and skills has taken a last bench. 

As far as this is concerned, NEP idea was to bring-in this holistic way of educating the young  minds. But again, how well it is successfully implemented is the question. The unfair part is  that it is been just four years from the time the NEP scheme was introduced, meanwhile some  states in the country have removed the NEP scheme and has implemented their own scheme.  First stability in the educational policies and the system has to be maintained. Policies, syllabus  and the grading system are being changed every now and then. 

Be it an educational institution or be it a parent, the only thing they expect from their child is  good marks, rank and the worst competition with fellow student. What one has to understand  is that mere academics will not result in an overall development of the child. If a parent expects  only their child to be good at academics, then they are burring the inherent talent in that child.  Schools and colleges aim at timely completion of syllabus, but completely neglects the  responsibility of ensuring the overall development of the child. Education system cannot only  focus on academics, the system becomes incomplete if it is unable to nurture the skills of the  students. it should support nurturing the inherent potential of every student to excel. In today’s  world, more than teaching, mentoring should happen. Because in teaching there is always  spoon feeding, teachers provide the readymade food for students and Mentoring makes the  students to cook their own food. Thus, more than teaching, mentoring provides more exposure  about the real dynamic world.

Some of the parents restricts their child from participating in the sports tournaments or the  cultural stage programs thinking that the child misses out the classes. Even the educational  institutions permit the child to participate in the extra-curricular activities only if the child is  good at academics, if not again there is a restriction on the child to participate. This is often  seen when the students come to grade 10 and 12, the student is expected and forced to have the  focus on only studies and studies. schools and colleges take extra classes and parents forcefully  make them sit with their books in the four walls by even cancelling evening sports of the child.  In simple words the child is caged like a bird. This causes the fear of examination in the child,  creates an unbearable stress and anxiety in them, and the sad part of the story is that many  students have lost their precious life just because they weren’t able face a particular exam. 

Mastering the syllabus will only help the child to earn the degrees but learning the trending skills will prepare them to face the dynamic corporate environment. Having the degree without  having relevant and proper skills is like a train without Engine. Today’s corporate world hires  the candidates, who can prove that they are unique and different from others. The book-worms  without any employability skills aims at a bigger job, but due to lack of skills they end up in  doing the jobs that pay them very less than the expectation.  

Educations system should not create Book Worms, it should produce the valuable assets of the  society. Because today’s children are tomorrow’s responsible citizens and the leaders. How  responsible they are again depending on what values the education system is giving them. Its  high time that the education system is re-designed in a way that fosters a cognitive approach  with essential skill development. 

By Manu Bharadwaj V