Imbibing critical thinking

India took a leap in 2020 by introducing the most needed New Education Policy when the entire world was recouping from the pandemic. Many stakeholders welcomed its intent, content and implementation strategies. It was heralded as a game-changer but the recent acquisition of an Edutech firm (a firm that utilises information technology to facilitate education), has brought back the debate on the efficacy of NEP on child wellbeing.

The NEP is a comprehensive document, covering various facets of a child’s growth and development. However, it couldn't foresee the perils of parallel education. One reason that can be attributed to the proliferation of sub-level systems is largely owing to deficiencies of formal schooling.

The Issue: While all of us agreed about the importance of getting a good education, none of us are sure what a good education is. Often and unmistakably, importance is snatched by myriad things as the analysts deem fit. The result has dashed hopes and dreams, violation of the natural rights to play and recreation, and crippled of social skills. At times, such changes can create undue pressure on students. As per the recent available NCRB data, on an average, about 1.18 students in India commit suicide almost every hour. Perhaps our placement of importance on the structural changes was wrong and we’ve inflicted a worse fate on younger souls. The NEP endeavours to touch upon issues that will ameliorate most of the aforementioned aspects. However, NEP does not squarely address some glaring issues that may turn out to be grey rhinos.

The Rise of Parallel Education: An education that seeks to repeat what was earlier taught or supposed to be taught by the mainstream schools constitutes parallel education. Let's call this parallel education a sub-level entity. The sub-level entity includes all the tutorials or tuition houses, individual tutors, coaching centres, etc. This raises an obvious question: if something is repetitive, either the first act is redundant or the second one. In this case, the first act is the formal schooling in the day and the second act is the parallel schooling which begins in the afternoon or evening, transgressing through night and weekends.

Things, however, are not as black and white as they seem. If schooling were redundant, there wouldn’t have been the mad rush with long queues forming outside the so-called prestigious schools, half a year before admissions! If parallel schooling were redundant, there wouldn’t be tutorials mushrooming even in unelectrified rural haats. Therefore, the need for parallel education has been validated by economics, at least.

With Covid spreading, education adopted an online form. Many Edu-tech platforms emerged and contributed their bit to help the students to continue their education. However, it has also pushed a new form of the parallel educational system. With the recent mega acquisition, the firm has undoubtedly acquired greater market penetration, resulting in bringing more children online. The purpose of this article is not to be an alarmist or make a Luddite proposition or to engage in the debate of redundancy, but it is to question our educational method’s trajectory as it’s simply causing more misery and making lives perpendicular.

Making of Perpendicular Lives: In the entire learning process, childhood, the most precious part of that life, necessitates even more skilful nurturing as it shapes life. The irony of the education system lies in equating grades to success. For better grades, the child is asked to take extra help from the sub-level entities. The spare time invested by the child leaves no room for developing indispensable life skills or understanding interpersonal dynamics. The tender life is unnecessarily made perpendicular, i.e. growing in one direction by all irrelevant add-ons.

Education is an aid to realise the true potential within; instead, its overconsumption is snuffing out the colours of life. A child may have a specific learning demand based on its interest and conditioning, but the system oversupplies and force-feeds redundant or irrelevant skills. This undue pressure causes physiological and psychological disorders in most children; it also means early access to the internet and in some cases, cyberbullying.

Next generation

It is true that everyone wants their next generation to be economically well off than what they were, but at what cost? Are we not playing into the hands of some firm’s profiteering while believing that we are helping our children’s development? What we are doing with our children today is nothing short of dwarfing their development by nurturing only the perpendicular aspects of life. The best example of this perpendicularity is seen when we prioritise Coding skills over Problem-solving skills or learning, entirely forgetting that problem-solving skills are prerequisites to coding.

Life is a multi-dimensional wonder; to understand it through bookish knowledge alone is not sufficient. Education has to weave the child into society like a tight-knit fabric to create a balanced individual or else the situation will mimic the proverbial scholar on a sinking boat, who knew all about swimming other than actually swimming.

NEP in the midst: Though the problem of parallel schooling is not recognised, the NEP has envisaged solving this unknown issue by emphasising more on teacher training and effective education. It also reports on the structural lacunae of our current education system, including the total strength of teachers and other specialists that are required. It is not an argument here to emphasise that all the systems built in parallel schooling methods be stopped but undoubtedly these lend efficiency and novelty to the education system. Instead of forcing this into the existing educational system, it would be appropriate to complement the educational system.

A comprehensive action plan, if implemented, should make our formal schooling system imbibe critical thinking instead of memorising, addressing the cause instead of punishing, interaction instead of seclusion and discussion instead of silencing. As George Bernard Shaw once said, “What we want is to see the child in pursuit of knowledge, and not knowledge in pursuit of the child".

(Subramanian is Faculty, Christ University, Bengaluru and Dharmanand is Faculty, PES University, Bengaluru)