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Education is often considered as a tool to enhance confidence, creativity, and capacity to take one's own decisions by providing wisdom. These qualities are expected to be received from an institution called school that believes in enhancing one's self-confidence by socializing them to people from various backgrounds and various status. Although the purpose of sending students to schools is to develop individual capabilities and skills, but in the present context and in the real scenario, the question arises: is it really worth what we perceive it to be? It is true enough that we have highly qualified people in the field of education whose main purpose is to impart knowledge to their subordinates. But then, still, a lot of problems are seen in the field of education that has resulted in failure to meet the real purpose i.e. to create capable people for the real world.
Rigidity in Curriculum, Assignments, and Exams
Rigidity in the curriculum has limited the scope of the purpose of education. This is mainly due to limited ideas to be explored at a certain time that is mostly focused on exams. It is interesting that the school prepares students first and then take an exam, while on the other hand, life takes an exam and then teaches you the lessons. These exams are expected to judge the knowledge disseminated in the year to the students within a written test to be completed in a couple of hours. These sorts of testing systems eventually reduce the inquisitiveness and creativity of the students as it focuses on unproductive exam-focused assignments which burdens them throughout the academic session. Further, in order to ensure better scores of students, they are forced to stay in school for hours longer than they are supposed to which deteriorates the mental health of students and kills their creativity, talent, and confidence to some extent, in simple terms, killing the identity of the students.
Punishments
School is torturous to students. In addition to exams that do not depend upon the critical and creative analysis of an issue and burden of assignments both difficult to manage, punishments for not being able to meet the expectations of elders or for any trivial reasons tops all the burdens. From not wearing a clean uniform to forgetting a notebook at home, punishments in school that may be in many forms: Emotional Violence, Negative reinforcements, and physical abuse. This has not only resulted in the feeling of hatred towards teachers but has also made the learning journey much less exciting as it is supposed to be. In worst scenarios, due to extreme humiliation and abuse by teachers, students lose their confidence, loss of hope and eventually can result in loss of confidence, worsened relationship, psychological consequences ultimately leading to depression and suicide.
Way Forward!
Education should not fear students from the process, instead, it should be exciting and create impacts in the society. In this 21st century, the era of innovation, it is essential to design education in such a way that addresses the needs of this era. The education, instead of being filled with unnecessary theoretical aspects and rigid curriculum, should contain skills that are applicable in real life that is as per the interest of students. Mugging up concepts is not essential rather applying them for real-life problem solving through creativity, building critical skills and design fundamentals is essential. Thus, to make schools worth their values, introduction to 21st-century skills and training to their effective implementation are the needs of the present scenario. This will not only make school applicable in real life but will also make the teaching-learning process more exciting.
Written by: Pransu Khakurel (Canopy Nepal)
Edited by: Sabanam Thapa (Canopy Nepal)
Canopy Nepal is a team of visionary youths working in the field of education, skill and leadership development, diversity and inclusion. We seek to improve the quality and efficiency of education by focusing on the learners and reshaping the way they learn.