news details |
|
|
| Quality Education for Sustainable Development | | | Dr.Banarsi Lal and
Dr.Vikas Tandon
Swami Vivekanada once said, "The mind is crammed with facts before it knows how to think. Control of mind should be taught first. If I had my education to get over again and had any voice in the matter, I would learn to master my mind first, and then gather facts if I wanted them. It takes people a long time to learn things because they can't concentrate their minds at will." Education is one of the most important means to improve personal endowments, build capabilities, overcome constraints and in the process, enlarge available set of opportunities and choices for sustained improvement in well-being. Quality education is the backbone of any nation in the world and it is believed that it is a key instrument for the development of any society. An intelligent society always invests in the quality education for its new generation. From the last one decade the system of education has been changed and private institutions have come up for quality education as compared to the government institutions. These private institutions are meant for the financially sound candidates and government institutions are left for the poor or middle class people. Huge amount of money is being spent in the government educational institutions to uplift their educational standard. There is dire need to provide the quality and equitable education for all with a common curriculum. Professionally qualified and trained teachers are needed to impart the quality education to the children. We just think for the enrolment and not for the children's learning. It is astonishing that there is 97 per cent enrolment in 5th class, 35 per cent in 12th class and less than 20 per cent in higher education and nearly half of our graduates are unemployable in any sector. In order to get the better dividents, the Indian government has prioritised skill development for the youths. In India only around 10 per cent of people can go for higher education, it is 15 per cent in China and more than 50 per cent in the industrialized countries. IITs, IIMSs, AIIMS and the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research enroll well under one per cent of the population. We should contemplate a lot for our quality in higher education so that we can compete with the world. Our neighboring country China is investing heavily in improving the quality of higher education in its universities with the objective of making a large number of them world class in the coming years. China is striving to make internationally competitive research- based universities. India too needs quality education universities which can produce the brilliant graduates and also promising research scholars, which are required to provide knowledge to knowledge poor society.
The education systems is globally changing and in this global interaction thousands of youngsters are going abroad for higher education and many of the youths are coming to the Indian universities from across the globe. The education system in India has become more global than thousands years ago when the Chinese monks came to Nalanda to learn more about Buddhism in India. In an interaction with school children, a child asked to Dr.Kalam that whether there would be enough jobs in India for all of them when they would be grown up. He answered in a very simple way that there would be no dearth of jobs if many of you grow up to become job- providers, instead of becoming job-seekers. Every year campus selections are made in the Engineering, MBA or other colleges across India. Top IT companies visit Arts and Science Colleges to select the graduates in Computer Science, Physics, Statistics, and Mathematics etc. for different IT based jobs. The recruiting team says that these graduates are trained for a short period and then the jobs are allotted to them. It is really a change. Now with the winds of change blowing across the different continents, the youths too have to embrace the whole world in one sweep, for knowledge boundaries and narrow confines. Now every Indian can be said as the world citizen and the whole world is now the job market for him. The Indian youth should hone his skill in such a way that he can not only become a job-seeker but a job-giver. The entrepreneurs like Sh.Mukesh Ambani,Sh. Anil Ambani, Sh. L.N.Mittal etc. are not made in a day. It requires quality education, perseverance and positive attitude. In present era they are said to be the stars in the business world. They have spread their empires far and wide across the globe. Isn't it a miracle that these men of a nation enslaved for over two centuries have come up on their own just after some decades after India's freedom? Mr.L.N.Mittal is a symbol of Hon'ble Indian Ex-President Dr.A.P.J.Abdul Kalam who has projected the Indian youths. Quality education develops sensitivity in us to the outside problems. Our well-educated officers must think that even the slightest dereliction of duty on their part would cause irreparable damage to the country and its people. Quality education creates conditions for the development of a wholesome personality of an individual so that he can contribute his best to the family, society and the nation. He can be capable of nurturing the right values within the setting of family and become a role model for the children. We should think that the children watch our activities. In case we fail to practice the values we teach, our children would taunt us about our lapse, much to our embarrassment.
Our main competitor country China and many other countries like Singapore, South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan are spending a lot of money on the higher education. They are having research- based world class universities. According to an issue of the London Times Higher Education Supplement which ranked the world's top 200 universities that included three in China, three in South Korea, three in Hong Kong, one in Taiwan and one in India. India is having the third largest higher education sector in the world after China and the United States of America but its cannot afford to sit on its oars. India edges over China in a way that it uses English as a primary language for higher education and research. Our country is having a long academic tradition. In India there are small numbers of high quality institutions, departments and centres that can form the basis of quality higher education.There has been mushrooming growth of engineering colleges in India. It has been observed that there are numerous engineering colleges in India with an annual enrolment of lakhs of students. Students do not feel risk while getting admission in the colleges that lack both faculty and facility. It is sorry to say that world class institutions like IIT,AIIMS and IIMSs have to co-exist with those whose performance has to yet come up to mark. The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) needs to monitor the quality education in most of these private colleges. The parents of the students who spend huge amount of money on their children education should think twice for admission in these colleges.
A high quality education is required in our country to achieve the global excellence. There should be focus on the employability and college readiness through vocational education, college preparation and career counseling. We should think that only quality education can provide right job to an individual. Quality education not only helps to get the right job but also creates opportunities of self-employment. We should face he truth boldly. If everybody will hunt for job then there are not enough job opportunities in our country. In government sector jobs are few and it cannot accommodate the vast army of job-seekers. A few among the daring individuals should take risk of becoming the job-givers. Many of today's youths want the comfortable government jobs. Now the time has changed and if they find a job in a good company or in multinational company would be more satisfying as compared to the government sector. If we look to the heroes of rags-to-riches stories, we find that most of them were having brain and brawn but they were lacking the money to launch their projects born out of their idea. They were having indomitable will power to achieve the seemingly impossible targets. In order to enhance the quality of education more finance, better awareness and revamping of implemented agencies are needed. Educators should be trained to integrate technology in their learning for effective class room delivery. Meritorious and brightest students should be attracted towards teaching profession. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
