What changes are required to be made in the current education system, in order to make a global indian?

Answer 1

More acceptance for the English language, improving communication skills, lesser stress on religious identity and illogical epics, developing pride in contemporary successes rather than glorifying mythological and semi-historical characters, uniform education facilities and standardization of teaching skills are just a few of an unending list.

Answer 2

India being a vast country is full of diversity not only in its social and cultural structure but also in its educational system. There are 32 States and Union Territories in India. It is therefore not surprising that the structure of education in the country became extremely heterogeneous as it evolved in the States in response to aspirations and contextual needs of the regional population. Therefore, the most important task for the Central and the State governments, which work together in a federal set up, was to adopt a common structure of education.

Several Commissions on Education, at different times in the fifty years since independence, examined issues on education to meet the emerging needs of its people. That students throughout the country should attain comparable knowledge and competencies was accepted as an important challenge for the educational system. Because of recent efforts, the country has finally adopted a uniform structure of education. The structure has been split into three stages, comprising 10 + 2 +3 years of studies. Of these the first twelve years form the school education and the next three years leading to first degree form the higher education. The first ten years of school education are used for transacting an undifferentiated general education curriculum. The next two years form the higher secondary stage. It provides diversification into academic and vocational streams and is preparatory to professional and tertiary education.

The assessment of performance of students is carried out by each school for its students, except for two public examinations, conducted by as many as 34 Boards of School Education, at the end of the 10th and the 12th year of school studies. The varying standards of assessment of performance by the different Boards of School Education are a nightmare to students, who have to compete for admission to national institutions by writing common entrance tests, though they would have studied in schools with varying learning conditions and with different curricula.

Today, the world has changed. More and more jobs have become skilled. The youth will have to possess the skills required for initial employment and the ability to learn new skills to keep pace with the changing nature of work. Another dimension to consider is that employment opportunities will be preferentially available to those who possess the required skills irrespective of their nationality. Therefore, young persons will require an education that can provide them better appreciation of life and culture in societies other than that of the society in which they grow up. The other crucial factor is the influence of information technology in nearly all occupations. Each person will have to learn how to use the computer as a tool in the work that he/she may be doing and have the generic skills for using information technology effectively. Some of these skills are problem solving, critical thinking, decision making, accessing information, processing and dissemination of information after providing value addition to it.

In the context of these concerns, we at the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) have planned a programme for using computer as a resource in schools. Broadly, it comprises of development of competencies for using computer in stand-alone mode, in network and for learning by using both offline and online educational resources. The online learning by a student can be the use of e-mail in carrying out collaborative projects of mutual interest with some other student elsewhere in the world, accessing of information of interest form the world wide web with the help of search engines and using it in her project. Because of the high cost of hardware and software, and the limitation of accessibility to Intenet, it is proposed to try a pilot experiment first. I give next a brief outline of the project.



It may be pointed out that schools in India emphasise mastery of discrete units of fixed knowledge through teaching of traditional school subjects such as languages, mathematics, science and social sciences. What is required is that though learning may continue to be around traditional subjects, the learning experiences may be reoriented for developing learning to learn, decision making skills, communication skills and interpersonal skills. These can be achieved by exposing students to real life problems, involving for their solution a collaborative effort. Implementation of such an approach will require that schools, irrespective of their physical separation, arrange for their students to interact with one another to enable them to work on problems that can be best solved collectively.

NCERT's role:----

As the principal resource centre on school education in India, the NCERT would co-ordinate this project and collaborate with its counterparts in other participating countries.

Other responsibilities of the NCERT would be:

(a) Development of modules for students for acquiring the planned competencies

(b) Training of teachers

(c) Networking with professionals for providing expert support

(d) Obtaining feedback from students

(e) Making available on the Internet its resources

(f) Answering students queries by e-mail