What education is today

–Rupkatha 

Education, being an integral part of human life, plays a huge role in who and what a child grows up to be. The student section of a society has always risen up as the mass which actively questions. Amidst current world events, we have seen several youth uprisings take place, regardless of their outcome. However, if we look to the Internet or converse with common folk on the streets or anywhere else, we find a lot of ignorant people as well — people who just do not care, or who are just too tired of the world falling into constant decay and have given up.

Given the current state of world politics, a curious student might observe that history does indeed repeat itself. Subjects like history, sociology, political science, etc. expect their students to interpret and evaluate information drawing from knowledge of different historical events — war, the Holocaust, and so on. A lack of critical thinking skills can very often lead to blindly believing information and blindly propagating ideas. Thus, the importance of critical thinking has been a major focus for educators since the last century, and concern about the decline of this skill is increasing day by day.

As sociology teaches, literacy is correlated with employment. Without the opportunity of employment, the common folk would not be interested in gaining a systemic education. This is a complicated cycle and requires a detailed discussion about whether education exists for physical sustenance or for mental and intellectual satisfaction. But as long as the working class is exploited and must earn a considerable amount daily just to acquire the basic means of life, they do have to work day and night — and education, which requires both time and money, has no appeal for them.

On the other hand, those who have the opportunity to receive an education often take it for granted. Education slowly becomes something repulsive and often just a path to job-seeking, rather than a means of developing analytical thinking skills. The students cannot be blamed for this, because with the constant rat race and competition for jobs that society has imposed on them, they have no choice but to relentlessly study to get a piece of paper that MIGHT help in the job market someday, and even then it is all so full of uncertainty. There are endless complaints among students about the syllabus, the availability of books, and the grading process.

I asked some students their opinion on the current education system of the West Bengal Board, which includes the semester system where one semester is completely MCQ-based and another is completely SAQ (short answer question)-based. Most of them suggested that it is an interesting and well-intentioned initiative, but poorly executed. Hastily introducing this system led to major confusion, a lack of sample papers, and almost no availability of books in time, specifically for humanities subjects. One student specifically mentioned that “Students whose financial background is lower compared to others will face difficulty, as they have to buy books for each respective semester, making it rather costly.” Several such problems exist alongside the more subjectively grave topic some people mentioned — the improper assessment of student potential. According to one of my interviewees, “Though the semester system has been great for letting almost everyone get decent marks with medium effort, it has eroded the opportunity to prove one's outstanding brilliance in academics due to this grade inflation. Students who put a lot of sincere effort into their work in order to achieve the best scores possible are burdened by the greater number of books they now have to study, whereas even students studying comparatively less are getting marks which are not too far behind. This leads to a decline in interest among students who were willing to work hard to prove their excellence.” Many students spoke about how the semester system would help them practise for their upcoming competitive exams, as they are mostly MCQs too, but the sudden jump from entirely MCQs to entirely SAQs has been very much criticised.

Concern about the erosion of thinking skills was also noticed in their answers. According to them, surface-level studying is being practised more than actual in-depth education, and the whole system should be blamed for it. In this competitive job market, everyone is just running to get a degree. The mass usage of AI and copying others' work causes a gradual decline in one's self-confidence and power to analyse. Moreover, the burden of an excessive syllabus and a stressful academic routine forces many students to enclose their education within four walls, remaining unaware of what is going on around the world until the day it affects them.

As students, we must always remember to speak up, keep our creative writing and critical thinking skills sharp, and stay observant of each and every social aspect and historical event. Literacy is not just about learning to get through exams, but also about understanding and taking one's stand in this chaotic world.