Desperately Needed: An Education Overhaul

This is a question that keeps coming to my mind. Our current education system is designed to churn out more and more employees or professionals who will fit in to the larger aspect of how our economies function – mass production, specialization. So we have engineers, doctors, accountants, software professionals and many more, each designed to fit into a large wheel as a cog. Then we have MBA’s to be able to ‘manage’ these cogs – make sure they are in place and functioning at their optimum.

Given the way that civilization has progressed in the last 100 years or so, this was indeed, the need of the hour. But our demanding professions have become our definitions – our identities, and with the recent job cuts that have come along with the recession, we see more and more cases of depression when one loses that identity, it is as if they have lost themselves. When we meet someone new the first question that comes to our minds about the other person is “What does he/she do?”

While this system has created great technological advances, wonderful products, high standards of living, has it, in the process killed our individualism and reduced our identities to that of mere employees?

Recently we see more and more companies giving more importance to the ability of a person to perform or deliver rather than their degree. To give you a real life example, a graduate in Japanese honors is a manager in training at one of the world’s leading banks. And what does she train people on? No, not just communication skills or soft skills, but she trains CA’s and MBA’s in financial products! She designs training modules and training calendars for the year. The fact that this bank is doing better than the others in this time of recession says, they can’t be doing wrong.

This brings me back to the question: is our system of education limiting us from what we can truly achieve? If I have trained to be a doctor, or an accountant, can I ever be afforded the luxury of retraining to become an astronaut or a carpenter without falling into debt and losing my credit rating? What if our education system, only taught us to be great students instead of teaching us to become just a particular professional? What if it taught us to become great thinkers or innovators? What if subjects like, “Effects Of Religious Biases On Society” or “Advantages of Organic Farming” or “Important Alternative Green Fuel Sources” or “People Skills” or “How Global Poverty Affects Us” or “How To Manage Personal Finances and Its Advantages” or “Having An Open Mind” were introduced into our curriculum at an early stage?

While they might be slightly touched upon these days, are they getting the importance they truly deserve? If terrorists can ‘brainwash’ youths into their way of destructive thinking that drives them to live extreme lives, face extreme hardships, and even give up their lives, can we do the same for a better cause? If the whole world is educated along these lines and actually prospers, how long will it take for the terrorists to find out that this is a better , more human-friendly way of life? We know it is possible to create such mass awareness – for example awareness about aids, vaccinations against polio, awareness about family planning have been a huge hit for a population the size of our country.

At what age or level of exposure do we decide that “This is the subject or specialization, that I choose — and for the next 50 years I am going to do this and nothing else”? As a teenager! By then do we know enough about ourselves to make that decision? Studies reveal a majority of adults hate their jobs and were it not for the money, they’d prefer not to go to their jobs. So the majority of us are spending time doing something we do not want to do, but are forced to through lack of choice.

A choice we made as teenagers has closed their doors to everything else and the education system has taught us that we cannot switch over any more.

What if our education system were more flexible and able to empower people to explore the changing aspects of themselves? What if education gave them the courage to align themselves to something they truly enjoy — what would happen to our society? Can you imagine the revolution and positive consequences for humanity?

Maybe it really is time to upgrade our education system.