Education driven by industry standards and entrepreneurship:
By Aditi Dekateyhttps://instagram.com/1364aditi?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=
It’s rightly said “Education is the passport for the future , for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today”.Education is indeed the way to the future and the ticket to progress for a society . Education definitely opens up new boundaries and brings up new innovations, ideas, thoughts, social changes and lots more. India has come a long way in its journey for education ,We owe it a lot of our economic prosperity and progress but we still have a long way to go in terms of quality, accessibility and even usability. Today, we discuss and raise questions on the current scenario of education and specifically about quality of education in achieving industry standards.
The need:
The government and our society is actively promoting education with new policies and incentives.The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009,gives every child a right to full time elementary education of satisfactory and equitable quality in a formal school .There is a lot of awareness ,support ,encouragement and efforts to send children to schools, regardless of culture, community, caste, gender, income levels etc. But have we questioned the purpose of this education thoroughly and delved deep into its quality?
What is the purpose of an education? Think about it. Education is multipurpose.Does Education bring up responsible citizens. Sure! Does it make a child socially aware? Yeah. Does it help us learn our morals, rights and duties? Definitely. And does it help with reading, writing ? A sure one!
Is education only about all these? Let’s think. Education is not only about some vague powers or social rights . From my opinion, The true and ultimate purpose of an education is to impart skills and knowledge that prepare a child for their future life of which career is a major part.Ask an underprivileged kid and they dream of changing their life through education and ultimately bring economic prosperity to their families breaking vicious cycles of poverty. And this is often a point ignored by many . We rarely ask what is being taught in schools and how is if beneficial? Does it help them prepare for the industry? Does it help them survive the job market?
The scenario of Indian Education:
According to Niti Aayog, About 45 per cent of management and 48 per cent of engineering students in the country are unemployed[2]. That’s serious. All these years we have been stressing on the importance of education but ignoring quality, usability and recognizing industry needs. These are graduated students from the top fields, we can only imagine the plight of students who graduate from other streams or those who didn’t get a chance to attend college. About schools,
Learning assessments show that many of those children who are in school are not learning the basics of literacy and numeracy. [3].Looking at the curricula, students often wonder whether they will be gaining any benefits in the real world. Will rote learning facts and utter memorization of subjects be life changing? And dozens of topics and chapters which are nothing more than, in my opinion, general knowledge . We often hear’Pass your twelfth and life is set ‘. But how ?
If colleges and schools will not prepare a child for the outside world, what will?
Education and Industry standards:
The world is ever changing and dynamic, people don’t have stable jobs . The industry pays you for doing work relevant to them. As the world progresses, the emergence of new industries, technologies, processes, products and services are inevitable.With it, comes the need for professionals or employees with knowledge and skillset required for this work. Basic skills are necessary, no doubt, but they can’t suffice for industry. Arbitrary general knowledge isn’t really that helpful.
There is an immense need to recognize and provide for an industry driven education. Industries require aptitude, great communication and analytical abilities, critical thinking etc, which can be generically developed but apart from all this too, they need employees who have domain knowledge, experience and industry skills. Recognizing current industry trends, patterns,requirements and encouraging students to pick up will really go a long way in reducing overall unemployment.
Let’s take an example. The software engineering industry or IT industry is one of the major industries in India. There are a number of job roles, technologies within including AI, Machine learning, blockchain, cloud, cyber security, web ,game and Android development etc. These are some of the hottest areas! The reality is your computer science degree might not teach you some or all of this!
This can be extended to all industries. Students often have to learn all this themselves while struggling with college that is teaching either outdated curriculum ,not focusing on practical experience or not providing enough specialization opportunities. If steps are taken in schools and colleges to cultivate a skills based mindset and teaching actual skills that will make them industry ready, it really will make the nation progress faster.
Another aspect to this is interdisciplinary education which is beneficial in industries. You might be a programmer but you may need to develop a finance app! You might be a marketer but you need to know legal aspects. A statistician might need to have certain basic know-how on finance, technology, science,marketing , healthcare, banking etc to come with accurate results.
Well established companies can still train freshers, but entrepreneurs and startup companies often require talent that can quickly adapt and has the skill to tackle the problem. The preference then heavily tilts towards the skilled people. There interdisciplinary skills become even more important as there are limited people and the more diverse and specialized the skill set, the better.
Youth complains about lack of employment and industry about the lack of talent. And we must bridge the gap. Stay tuned as I discuss about entrepreneurship in India and later a possible solution!
Entrepreneurship :
Entrepreneurship is about starting your own business ,your own dream and your own path to future. We Indians really do dream of a dream job. It’s the constant source of income that lures us to jobs.Nonetheless, job security, today is far different. We dream of joining companies, not starting them!Moreover, there need to be employers if people want jobs as well.
We need to encourage our youth to start on their own ! This independence is often feared, but we need to overcome it. And our education from schools and colleges should attempt to impart the necessary skills for the same.The business mind set and attitude must be developed from young age itself for all students. And this involves learning and exercising creativity, risk assessment, planning, management and lots more. The covering of financials, management and legal aspects at school level is beneficial for everyone:future bosses or employees.
The solution:
1.Changes in attitude and respect for all professions:
One can have a flourishing career without being a highly established field. You can open up your own company.The key here is to recognize passions and abilities of students and encourage them towards the same. You can be a make up artist, interior designer, chef or motivatinal speaker. All fields deserve dignity.
2.Changes in school and college syllabus:
School education should actively involve common industry needs, skills and concepts. Students shouldn’t be kept completely unaware of the world. Even life skills such as finance planning, time and event management, creative thinking, review and research, communication go a long way. All round development is a must.Project based learning, hands on and developing curiosity and developing more quality content for children is important.
There are issues about student load, but its quality that matters. The content in school textbooks nowadays is understand able but maybe difficult to rote learn, but most of it, in my opinion, is a bit not focused to be career ready or is repetitive fact based knowledge
3.Activities, Workshops, Seminars, Practical experience:
Practical experience through a variety of activities actively incorporated with schools can really help students. A workshop of advanced excel could land you a job. A branding, marketing or budget activity could teach you a lot more! An animation competition or an accounting case study can expose you to new opportunities, interests and learnings that can really shape your career
4.More electives, specialization and flexibility:
All this might seem a bit overwhelming, but everyone is different and everyone can’t learn everything, so we must specialize. Schools and colleges can offer options in relevant courses, and even some optional subjects for interested students.
These are just some of my suggestions to improve education to meet today’s requirements. I, and the entire Sambhaj team, truly appreciate efforts taken by all the educators and the government. We do not want to demean education in any way, but we offer our suggestions and spread awareness to improve quality of education
Thank you for reading!
Credits:
1.https://dsel.education.gov.in/rte
2.https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.newindianexpress.com/nation/2022/jan/21/higher-education-stagnated-in-india-48-engineers-unemployed-niti-aayog-v-c-2409403.amp
3.https://www.unicef.org/india/what-we-do/quality-education#:~:text=Poor%20quality%20education%20is%20leading,learning%2C%20corporal%20punishment%20and%20discrimination.