We have generations of students who graduate but do not have jobs; even if offered jobs, they are not qualified or equipped to do the job.
“There are a couple of opportunities: first, education as a system needs to change; and this provides an opportunity. The second relates to the valuation of knowledge. A MIT research paper shows there is a 70 per cent plus chance of false information getting circulated more than the right information and the people like you and I pay the price,” said Karthik Krishnan, CEO, Encyclopedia Britannica.
In a round table discussion organised by IE, Krishnan referred to machines getting smarter: “in January this year there was a competition between artificial intelligence and humans. Microsoft and Alibaba outperformed humans when it came to comprehension and this is the first time this had happened…. Machines are getting smarter and humans will have to compete against machines. Some projections say that in the next 12 years 65 per cent of the jobs are going to be done by machines. This may lead to civil unrest and even wars. There is thus the urgency to do something to meet this challenge,” said Krishnan.
Tackling fake information
Encyclopedia Britannica (EB) has been addressing the problem of fake information now widely getting circulated thanks to the vast spread of the internet. Krishnan referred to the work done by EB: “we will be celebrating the 250th anniversary of EB in December this year. Think the globe 250 years ago – no United States, no French Revolution, no electricity…Three guys sitting in Edinburgh deliberating on one thing: how to collect human knowledge dispersed across the world and present it in a mode that people can use easily. It was a kind of Google 250 years ago. Britannica started with the vision that utility ought to be the principal intention of every publication.”
Krishnan said that this utility is sought to be realised through money going into education and technology.
Renowned educationist,Dr M Anandakrishnan, said that there is increasing concern about the abuse and unreliability of information purveyed through the internet. Our students going through the whole process of education don’t learn to question any statement. Society believes that information is knowledge. The deficiency regarding what constitutes knowledge is still to be resolved.
Rapid obsolescence of knowledge
“Roughly 25-30 per cent of the knowledge I learned in the undergrad course became obsolete within 2-5 years. The society in 2030 will be nowhere near the community we know today: technology, economics, politics, journalism- everything is going to be very different. A child must be trained to cope with these momentous changes. Contrast this with the structural deficiency in society, particularly in India; you have people in all levels: of economic status, education status, environmental conditions… For them, the most natural thing is to define the child’s life over the next 20 years based on their own impression of what the society is. This will discourage the child’s learning.
“It is important to emphasise the fundamentals on how and why things rather than providing directly information in bulk. Children are capable of doing this provided they are encouraged to do this.
“Britannica provides authentic, reliable, well-researched information distilled by people who have rich background. Thus the authenticity of information is ensured. On the internet, it isn’t. This deficiency regarding what constitutes knowledge is still to be resolved,” said Dr Anandakrishnan.
TEACHING FOR TESTS…
Chitra Ravi, Head of Chrysalis, an organisation for educational reforms, pointed to popular schools in Chennai and other metros in the country creating good test-takers: the teacher community is primarily engaged in teaching for tests. In our own way, we set the goal of education as awakening the potential in every child instead of conditioning the present test-taking mode.
“There are also several statements wrongly fed into young minds. eg., a second standard child is taught that large families are not happy families and 4th standard text on health says that fat people get tired easily. This kind of conditioning statements is widely seen. We attempt to awaken minds through questioning. Today, the teachers’ role is transforming significantly into a co-learner’s, a facilitator’s trying to bring an environment that could develop not just the cognitive mind but also an emotional, social and metaphoric mind,” said Chitra.
Purpose of education – happiness
Professor from MOP Vaishnav College, mentioned that despite several constraints, many institutions are liberal in their thought process and are open to experimentation.
“Value education should be a part of the education system from the school stage. For me, the purpose of education is to make one happy. Is my education teaching me to be happy in life?,”she asked.
S Selvakumar, Head of the Anandam Youth Foundation, a voluntary service organisation, explained the liberal aid provided by his foundation to rural children to pursue higher education: “we select bright students from class XII on the recommendations of the respective school headmaster of six government schools from rural districts and offer them 100 per cent scholarships for higher education. This year 271 students are provided assistance including 17 for MBBS degree and 106 for engineering. Apart from paying the fees we also offer training at regular intervals on value education. We plan to increase such assistance to 1000 students.”
Earlier welcoming the experts, editor S Viswanathan suggested adopting the PPP model for energising the corporation-run schools of Chennai. “Over 80 per cent of schools are run by the government or municipalities. Their record is not uniformly good and student strength is falling. Several of these are being closed for want of students. There is a strong case for upgrading their quality. IE has been advocating a plan for public-private participation to improve the quality of primary education in the schools run by the Corporation of Chennai. In this, a private company or a NGO can be permitted to manage a corporation school. This activity can be part of the corporate social responsibilities of a company. The private company can be allowed to recruit teachers, take recourse to technology and management and impart quality education.” IE suggested introducing LKG and UKG classes in the corporation schools and teaching English and Hindi.
