Is education the root cause of our economic and social crises?

One of the perils of this pandemic is job loss, and the problem is getting worse. Even before the pandemic struck India, the unemployment rate was around 8 %. India, despite having a young workforce, remains unemployed. We talk about the lack of job creation as the real problem, but is job creation the only reason behind such unemployment rate? Apart from unemployment, there is a deep problem with wealth distribution. A large part of the workforce does not generate savings and has to put in a lot of effort to meet their financial commitments. This can be proven with the slow growth of our per capita income compared to other developing countries. Unemployment and income disparity does not only create economic issues but a cause social unhappiness. It has a direct impact on our community.

We hate seeing our young ones going through clinical depression and anxiety to perform and cope with today’s competition. The excessive stress and fear of social proof cause our youth to take extreme steps. No child or anyone for that matter, should face such extreme pressure in an era where our species has achieved so much compared to our ancestors. I wanted to dig deeper into the reasons for such unfortunates issues in our society in this progressive human age.

Education system. This is one of the root causes of unemployment, income disparity and social unhappiness. Education is the path that elevates each one of us from a state of less understanding to a state of better understanding of ourselves, our world, and the environment. This helps us to cope with the changes in the world and help become part of a thriving global work culture. Each nation has made state of the art schools, colleges, and universities that would equip our younger generation to make their own living and contribute to the development of our species.

 Our current education system has an inheritance flaw. It trains us but does not motivate. Addressing the flaw is crucial to address, along with a lack of quality in infrastructure and trained teachers. Education system promises better opportunities for jobs, which will help them elevate their quality of life or provide knowledge to equip them to run their own businesses.

 It’s not any easier today for the youth, qualified from these grand institutions, to get a job which they deserve after spending a fortune of wealth and at least 15 years of their life. And this is certainly not because of lack of jobs but is due to outdated syllabus, which can’t keep pace with the current industry transformations. This problem could have been partly solved if the motivation to our students was to learn and understand concepts better then focusing on final scores and certification, which persists to be the focal point for institutes and employers.

 Scores have made our education system a race rather than a path of knowledge. We have often heard how much someone scored in their exams, but how often have we heard what they have learned after putting all those long hours of studying.

Students with learning disabilities suffer due to lack of awareness about such disabilities and the lack of concern to deal with it within institutions. Over period such students lose their interest in learning as a whole, which is unfortunate. Our education system has provisions for students with dyslexia. Still, the training of teachers or the curriculum is not equipped to help such students learn despite such learning disabilities or even overcome these learning disabilities. 

Even for those students who have a great IQ and are good at academics face their own challenges where they are putting all their efforts in competing for scores to either get recognition or get into IV league universities. This could be a waste of their abilities as some systems promote memorizing concepts rather than understanding them. Due to this, they score well by memorizing, but their understanding does not increase. A subject like maths is about understanding numbers. Still, a lot of private tutors promote memorization of formulas as their end goal is to have students be rankers so that their tutoring services are favored. Imagine if learning and understanding was prompted more than we would have an extraordinary and innovative workforce.

 All this causes our students to not develop important skills like critical thinking or problem-solving. And so when the newly graduated students enter the workforce, they find it extremely difficult to cope with the dynamics of the industry. This makes our students questions all those years they have spent being learning. Along with mental pressure, it also a financial drain as students have taken huge educational loans for quality education only to learn that their knowledge is not in line with industry standards. Besides students, the industry has to spend time and money behind training the new graduates.

“Study without desire spoils the memory, and it retains nothing that it takes in.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

 So only if the motivation was to learn the concepts better, our youth entering the workforce, they could apply their learning. Our society would have been far more thriving and happy relatively. Understanding concepts would help this young workforce not only to perform better but also to innovate more.

Fortunately, just while this article was being written, the Government of India has released National Education Policy 2020. I must congratulate the government for the completely overhauling the education system. The new policy promises to elevate our current education system to global standards. But will the new system motivate learning and innovation, only in time will we know? Because even if the policy is formed well, the execution and approach that educational institutions take will matter the most.

I got together with Experts to understand better what was happening and what the best way forward might be.

Question: How can we instill a mindset of learning instead of scoring and also get employers to assess better without grades?

 Anish Baheti: I would rather say, help individual ‘unpack’ the ‘gift’ they carry within themselves. Once they truly find that learning and implementation of learning become a breeze. They become more passionate, which gets translated into the quality of their work.

 Vaibhavi Bafna: The mindset needs to come from parents, families, and society in general. People seem to think ‘better scores = intelligence’. We need to educate parents that there is more to life than getting good marks. Employers too these days don’t go by grades. They look at what practical knowledge you have, so more practical education is the need of the hour.

 Rabab Ghadiali: Being a councilor for engineering colleges, I have seen students succumb to the pressure while competing for jobs. The value systems of children should be in place at a very young age, even before they go to kindergarten. And for parents to be able to do that, they should be able to answer the question, “what is it that we value in life?” The schools they also go to need to do the same. Employers assess candidates with scores. I think we need to change the way we assess skills. An incubation period to assess a student in a working environment or help them develop other skills, either by a prospective employer for candidates or by education institutions, can be great for everyone.

 Vijaya Nene: Our current system of education assesses the capability on the basis of memory and recall instead of learning and application. We need to move towards application-based assessment vs knowledge-based assessment. This becomes the basis for employers to pick the candidates in the absence an alternative. Our education system has to measure the child on more parameters making it a comprehensive scoring mechanism – including factors of application. we need to promote an alternate education system through Coaching children for life skills and eventually seeing the merit that these systems add the employers would start moving towards a comprehensive view

 Varsha Bhambhani: In order to make scoring and competition redundant, all students need to be shown that success is not a pie with a limited number of pieces that only a handful can eat. Rather it is a river. Students weren’t born competitive. Their schools, educators, and parents look at the world in this limited manner. Addressing the students’ mindsets aren’t enough, and all the enablers also need to refresh their outlook. Another critical aspect of continuous learning is being in a growth mindset, i.e. the belief that one can gain expertise in any subject tomorrow irrespective of their IQ today, through perseverance and learning from failures.

 Amitabh Biswas: This will take time and effort from a grass root level of the education system. Focus on skill & application-based education assessment rather than score based will help. Not only the curriculum, but pedagogy, testing format, and evaluation criteria will need to be focussed on the ability to DO rather than ability to KNOW. It is possible to know but not be able to do, but you cannot do unless you know.

 Question: Can alternative learning become mainstream? How?

 Anish Baheti: I wouldn’t be surprised if that happens. Teachers become ‘facilitators’ of learning, and students are given an ‘opportunity’ to learn that’s when the real magic happens.

 Rabab Ghadiali: I wouldn’t say alternate learning should become mainstream. It should go hand in hand. Formal education and alternate learning both are important. Learnings such as personality development, self-awareness, etc. should all be integrated into a person’s education.

 Vaibhavi Bafna: I think this pandemic has given an opportunity for people to opt for alternative learning. I’m not sure if it would become mainstream, but I can already see many people opting for education outside the traditional pattern. In my opinion, it will still take some time for alternate learning to become mainstream.

Vijaya Nene: Societal acceptance and rewarding mechanism drive the practices. Alternative Learnings have to be so powerful and compelling that they start making it obvious to all the value these systems add to an individual – and only when people can co-relate success to these systems, it would become the mainstream.

 Varsha Bhambhani: For decades, education has been about studying at the top universities and getting a “badge” attached to your name that proves your skills. However, hiring managers have become cognisant of the flaw of this system of recruitment. Therefore, there’s a shift underway lead by global giants like Google that now explicitly mention“equivalent experience” against the college in their job descriptions.

This provides recognition to meaningful experiences provided at alternate schools. And can be considered as the rising of the wave of alternate learning. In any learning system, the two main stakeholders are the learners and recruiters. Solving the pain points of both these stakeholders is the key to making alternate learning mainstream. For Learners, their learning has to guarantee career success. Whereas for companies, the recruits’ skills need to match their monetary asks.

 Amitabh Biswa: Once an entire system from the ground up has been designed and adequately implemented, with incentives to institutions to adopt, then it will, over time, percolate and become pervasive. Eg. IB / IGCSE schools mushrooming across the country. Citizens are willing to explore provided the functional benefit is visible.

 Question: Have you hired students regardless of their qualifications?

 Anish Baheti: I look for passion more than qualification.

 Rabab Ghadiali: Yes, absolutely, I have. In fact, I hire students all the time for help with our social media accounts.

 Amitabh Biswa: Yes. I personally believe that if the attitude is right, the aptitude is usually easier to inculcate.

Vijaya Nene: We have two criteria in any hirings one, which is an education qualification like a graduation etc. which become non-negotiable, and second, despite having a lesser qualification once someone qualifies, we still chose that person considering the overall maturity, personality, experience that the person brings. At entry-level it is very difficult not to look at the qualification as we do not have other methods to assess the competency

 Question: Is the prevalent system a waste of abilities?

 Anish Baheti: It is not. I feel that the energy should be channelized in marrying the innate talent with the right opportunity.

 Rabab Ghadiali: The system may not be good or bad, I would say it is not enough. No single system is. Like I said before, multiple systems need to be able to work hand in hand, either with the same institution or different ones.

 Vaibhavi Bafna: t is not a waste, but the take on it is bad. The belief that schools should be limited to academics is a problem. If a child does well in other things except for academics, parents think the school isn’t doing a good job. We need to change our perspective on what it means to do well.

 Pooja Iyer: No, it is definitely not a waste of abilities. But definitely, there is scope for improvement because the same learning styles or teaching styles may not work for all students. Each student absorbs and processes information So enhancing the modes of teaching and assessment to go beyond the current emphasis on rote learning will benefit a larger number of students.

 Varsha Bhambhani: The prevalent system is definitely only catering to serving a select few people in the world. It is highly elitist and capitalist. I would say it is a waste of potential, as, without access to quality education, millions of people don’t even know what they’re truly capable of achieving.

 Amitabh Biswa: It is suited to preparing for excellence in limited avenues, and those not aligned will perennially be haunted by how or why (a+b)2 is / will ever be relevant to their lives.

Question: What Structural changes do you recommend for change to take place?

 Rabab Ghadiali: I’d like to see institutions invest in alternate learning, to provoke thought, to help in personal development, and value education should be compulsory in schools. Value education needs to be structured and engrained. A student may go through one session on sex education in school, and that is just not enough to cover the complexities of the subject. The college I teach has a life coaching program that I conduct with students through the year. For every academic year, we have eight modules on value education. I’d recommend other institutions to do the same at the least, so see real change.

 Vaibhavi Bafna: Change needs to start from society itself. Place value in learning new skills. I believe children should be home-schooled until the age of 5-6. Schools must give equal focus on extracurricular subjects. Colleges should put more focus on skill development, personality development, and pay attention to disabled students to provide the same opportunities as others. Universities should psycho-educate students and parents so they can raise awareness in family members who have their priorities skewed.

Anish Baheti: Surprisingly, I have found that if one discovers their Ikigai (calling or purpose), no matter what the odds are, they will uncover an opportunity as they create a ‘pull’ rather than a ‘push’ mindset. A simple way to achieve this is to - listen to your heart more and silence your brain often. Mentors do play a great role in shaping careers and lives. Opportunities are plenty, but you still need to choose the right path.

Varsha Bhambhani: The most important change that needs to come through is that the education system needs to revolve around the learner. Currently, it is revolving around the teacher or the school itself. Simply with that approach of design the system to make it easy for the learner will bring in a lot of changes - multidisciplinary Learning, self-paced Learning, eliminating competition to ensure the students’ mental wellbeing.

 Vijaya Nene: At Apex level – HRD ministry – engagement has to be there to make the education system more relevant to 21st Century – the one we are carrying on is meant for 20th century where predominantly work was physical (brain included) in nature – today the need is to harness mind power. At sector level – the education sector and bodies of schools and colleges have to introduce these concepts as additional topics to equip the children. At society level – there has to be awareness among parents and adults to shift focus to alternative skills. Research, Development, and Promotion: like-minded groups and bodies have to come together to do a lot of R&D, invest in exchange programs and promote and create awareness

 Amitabh Biswa: Estimate the requirements of the world in 2050 and start preparing the forces from now.

I thank all contributors for taking the time and providing their valuable views.

Article and questions by:

Rohan Shah, Founder & CEO at Life Quest.

Contributors:

 Anish Baheti, TEDx Speaker / Coach / Author

 Varsha Bhambhani, Learning Expert / Writer

 Vaibhavi Bafna, Psychologist at EAP-India

 Amitabh Biswas, Branding / Media/ Consulting

 Rabab J Ghadiali, Life Coach/ Educationist/ Counsellor

 Vijaya Nene, Life Coach

 Pooja Iyer, Career Advisor / Gallup Coach