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`Not another brick'

Padma Bhaskar, a teacher, talks about the problems in our education system

The education system is at fault. The mushrooming of tuition classes is an indication of that. In schools, we have more students in a class than the teacher can handle. When the teachers are under tremendous pressure to finish their syllabus, how will they find time to give individual attention? The stress is on quantum rather than teaching in-depth. Ideally, we have to test children's knowledge, understanding, synthesis and analysis. The questions are, however, framed to test only knowledge and recall capacity. Not one question tests the children's originality in thinking. Children have to score high marks to gain a seat in a premier institute or land a plum job.

Under tremendous pressure, children try anything. They attend tuitions that teach the same lessons taught at school and in the same way. Their friends go, so they go. Attending tuitions gives them confidence, they say. They even tend to pay less attention at school, knowing they can catch up with the lessons in the tuition classes. What is the point of wasting time, duplicating the process? Earlier it was a stigma to attend tuition classes; today the stigma lies in not attending the well-known ones.

We have a system that is driven by marks. We teach our children to seek value in numbers. Valuing higher marks will translate into valuing higher salaries. Numbers will be their yardstick. Then, what of the inner values we mourn for?

And Pink Floyd warns, "All they want is just another brick in the wall."

As told to ASHA MENON

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