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What is a good education system? MADHU WAL, VICE PRINCIPAL,DPS STS SCHOOL
Education is not mere literacy or acquiring the three R's, namely reading writing and arithmetic. The scope and dimensions of education are far wider and not easy to encapsulate in words. Academic excellence is of course, to be given top priority, but honing the skills, and tapping the talents of the child, inculcating socially desirable habits and values, developing the personality, and character building, so as to prepare the child to face the challenges of the future, and serve society as a worthy citizen of the nation, is equally the concern of the curriculum. In a nutshell, the aim of education is to develop the intellectual, physical, spiritual, moral and mental faculties of the child. An awareness of the rich cultural heritage of our country and its glorious traditional values which form the rock basis of our lives is also essential. It is our endeavour to design a curriculum which provides opportunities to all students to grow to their full potential, and besides excelling in academics, inculcate the above mentioned qualities. The education system of a nation has a very special responsibility, because on us is incumbent the task of grooming the student in all spheres, and making him a worthy citizen of the world community. A teacher is in loco parentis, and thus has to act as a friend, philosopher and guide to the children under his care. As such he has to be a person whose love for children and understanding of child psychology should be of such a depth so as to render him an ideal person for dealing with students, showing tremendous patience, impartiality and humanity. His sincerity and integrity should be unquestionable, his zeal unfathomable, his communication skills of the highest order, his outlook to life balanced and his joy in his work sublime. In a letter written by Abraham Lincoln to the Principal of the school where his son was studying, he mentions that the qualities that he expected his son to acquire at school were truthfulness, justice, optimism, love of fair play, awe for the sublime and beautiful in nature, self confidence, faith in one's own ideas or the courage of conviction and the paradoxical qualities of gentleness and firmness. In these days of hectic and mindless commercialization, whose tenacious clutches even the pedagogical world has not been able to evade, it is heartening to note that some of the good schools are scrupulously adhering to those healthy educational practices based on sound psychological and ethical principles which now otherwise seem to have only academic value. The concepts of a good educational system are clear: the schools are organized for the development of the students, not merely for examinations; their concern is the mental, intellectual, moral, spiritual and physical welfare of the children, not merely marks. Their sincere endeavour is to expose the foolishness of equating amassing of facts with knowledge and sending children to school merely for scoring high grades. Their objective is not only to widen the mental horizons of the child, but also to build his character and enhance his aesthetic faculties; to teach him tolerance and broadmindedness; to dispel superstition and to teach him the best that has been thought and said in the world. The aim of education is to cultivate a spirit of free enquiry and independent thinking. Our sole ambition is not that our products should attain 90% marks in their Boards, but that they should be cultured, educated, disciplined, self-reliant, confident and worthy citizens of a new and modern world, well- equipped to meet the challenges of the 21st Century. A well- balanced curriculum comprises not only the academic subjects which form the syllabi, and where the students should have an amazingly vast range to choose from, but it should also include manifold activities like debating, elocutions dramatics, hobbies camps treks, and of course games and sports whose educational value is undisputable. As such, to students, the gates of learning should be opened, not by the joyless rote learning of facts and cramming, but by an appeal to their sense organs, through the opportunity of seeing, touching, feeling, finding, and discovering. A school is not the place “in which the future warrior in life's battle is to be entirely occupied in manufacturing the armour with which he shall be armed, but in learning the use of the arms.” The teaching of subjects should be used to promote the child's power of observation, deduction, critical analysis, originality, his ability to pass independent value judgment, to express individual opinion and the implementation of the facts taught in the class-room to real life situations. A good school education is distinct from ordinary schools because our endeavour is to facilitate the all-round development of the personality which stands in sharp contrast to the lop-sided emphasis on cramming and reproducing which characterizes the general run of the mill schools. By far the most vital function of a school is to inculcate right value systems and positive, healthy attitudes. IF WE WORK UPON MARBLE, |
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