Educational Challenges today

by admin

For decades, education has seen very few innovations as compared to other industry peers. This status quo changed when the pandemic hit. It is amazing what the industry was able to achieve as a whole. Covid-19 forced education to be digital and confined it in four walls, but could not compel the education out of those who strive to deliver it. We have survived the change and thrived in a lot of ways. With the undeterred educators’ spirit and everyone who works for the society’s betterment, an effort was made to create a world far more democratised and equal. However, certain challenges still remain.

DR PRATIBHA MISHRA
Principal
Panbai International School
Mumbai

 

 

 

Low public education standards

In the past four decades, the number of students enrolled in government schools has dipped. A possible reason for this drop is the lowered standards of education imparted in public schools. Various unresolved issues continue to haunt the system. There’s an evident lack of teachers, adaptation of new methods of content delivery, and the conditions at these establishments have largely led to the deterioration of public schools and institutions. As a result, majority of parents choose private schools to educate their children despite their economic viability issues.

Orthodox instruction design

Problems in Indian and various other education systems in the world stems from an outdated instructional delivery method. Schools often fail to deliver value because of inappropriate instructional delivery strategies. Most teachers default to old delivery methods and rote learning, which offers low interactivity with the students. As a result, many students do not develop the requisite skills to survive in the real world or contribute to the workforce.

Deviation from holistic development

The lack of focus on skill-building and activities beyond curricula are some of the drawbacks of the traditional education system. This leads to our students lacking basic competencies and critical thinking. They are forced to focus on academics, succeeding with predefined standards and expectations outlined by society. Often social expectations compel students to opt for streams that are not of their interest. Overall the curriculum, instruction design, and social influences drive students to use unproductive techniques to score better in exams.

Lowered psychosocial conditions

The psychological effect of these social pressures rarely ends well for the child. Students are often over-stressed and anxious. Anxiety arising from psychosocial factors affects the academic performance of the child and in turn, creates more pressure. There have been thousands of incidents like suicides and mental disorders which go unattended. The World Health Organization (WHO) too predicted that a sizable number of children below the age of five would have issues. Such insights communicate volumes about the psychological deterioration of students in the education ecosystem.

Examination-first approaches

The importance of new-age skills and global citizenship is growing, yet the education model is reliant on an exam based evaluation method. Given the limited assessment scope and increasing workload, students by default have to study for exams only and adhere to the old practices of scoring the marks at the year end. Moreover, students never try to go beyond school curricula. Owing to these deficiencies in education system, students often lag despite their inherent talents. There is a need to revamp how knowledge is consumed and delivered in India and around the world. The expectation from educators is that they innovate and make education more student-centric rather than instruction-centric.

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