Einstein once said, “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge s fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it’s stupid.” Everyone is different, has different abilities,and different personalitIES. No two people are same, hence their dreams are as different as chalk and cheese. The Great Indian Education system fails to realise this simple fact. As a student, you are not allowed to fail; you are not allowed to perform badly in any subject; scoring 95 in maths will never make anyone overlook the fact that you got a 70 in social studies. As shallow as all of this may sound, it’s the harsh reality of a student’s life.
When Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE) was implemented in 2015, every child was expected to be as good at craft as they were at drawing human ventricles. It was basically implemented to emphasize the “all-round development of a child”. But it failed miserably. Instead of taking off the load off of students’ shoulders, it sank them deeper into the ground. The problem? Instead of polishing their abilities, it focused on pushing them to be perfect at everything. Even though it has been removed now, the idea of achieving ‘perfection’ remains.
Every person cannot be good at everything, and that’s quite natural. Remember, we are human beings! In this system, it’s more about quantity than quality. It all comes down to the question, “But how much did you score?” No one cares about the amount of effort you have put in, how you conceptualise your thoughts, how you worked to understand facts and figures. It’s all about the way you fill in answer sheets. And it simply doesn’t matter whether you are a school-going chap or a university student, the flaws run all through the veins of the system. Even teachers are more focused on getting the syllabus completed within a given frame of time than they are on imparting knowledge. This means the students focus on scoring and the means are enormous, from cramming to downright cheating at times, just to pass the so called ‘exams’.
Exams were meant to check how much you learnt in a classroom, but it is tightly bound to the words “pass” and “fail”. The biggest problem about this system is that it has made failing sound like a crime. No one likes failing, but that’s a part of life. Every great person has faced failure at some point of time in their life, but here, if you fail, it makes you feel like you have committed a crime. The result matters more than the efforts here, and that changes the game totally, and you become a totally different person.
The idealistic approach to this scenario? As students, you need to change. T you, education should mean learning and growing rather than passing or failing. This starts the day you realise that you have all the means to do it, you just try. Search for things that intrigue you; ask how you can achieve your dreams. There are people, websites, and apps like Edvizo, which are trying to revolutionise the whole concept of education. Even if you start from scratch, these can help you choose a field of your interest. Moreover, it can guide you, from recommending the best institutes available to connecting you with the right people. You just have to start and do your own bit.
Jumping into something just for the sake of it is no good. Plan first, then find ways to put your plans into action rather. Don’t give into peer pressure and imitate what everyone else is doing. Just because your choices are different doesn’t meant they are wrong. Find ways to implement what you want to do and never hesitate to ask; the right people will always guide you. After all, the right teacher can change your life, you just have to find one.
Don’t study just to pass exams, study to be a better version of yourself. Dream. Try and achieve things that you really feel passionate about. Believe me, it’s going to change your life in all the right ways.