Even my son is having SLD (Specific Learning Disorder). He is diagnosed as hyper-active kid with IQ level more than his age but he has the problems with phonetic (spelling mistakes) and vowels. Indian Government has schemes to identify such students and provide them training however seldom does all the school do this because there are not specialists! Here again, teaching is not a money-minting profession and none of us wants to pursue this career.
However, does the blame lie only with the parents? What is the contribution of the society to this problem? In all fairness, what drives the parents or even teachers to behave so?
Shall we say it is our education system? Whether we like it or not, one’s survival, more so in the middle-class people of India, is banking on the education credentials. During my school days, getting a bachelor degree is enough. However, with educational institutions mushrooming all around, we are getting graduates likes onions and potatoes in the market.
Result? One has to have a professional degree if you have to have an edge. Even that has become more common. We can find BEs, MBAs, CAs, ICWAs spread all over. As the supply-demand gap reduces, so is the price. An Art or a Science or a commerce graduate can only dream of a clerical career and nothing more than that.
Even these degrees do not reflect the Intelligence of the student. It is only the memory capacity of the student decides the numbers and these numbers decide the intelligence level. Are we measuring the right aptitude of the students? Many a times, students simply memorize the words without even understanding what they are reading. I used to interview candidates for my company and most of the times I found the knowledge levels have no relation to the marks one scores! Still, we go by the paper and not by the skills.
I have seen kids who do not know how to multiply numbers are manning automobile repair shops. Will the middle-class parents allow their kids to learn this technique? Unfortunately, in India, Vocational training has no meaning. Every one of us has a unique talent that is inherited. If we pursue that, we could have made our living irrespective of our educational credentials. However, in India, this is not encouraged stating caste reasons! It is another fact that now precisely this is happening around (like actors’ heir adapting this profession, so does politicians, doctors etc.,)
Let me not grope in to the issue of Reservation that throws one more spoke on the wheels of Indian education system. In the name of encouraging downtrodden people, meritocracy is thrown in the air. The system neither helped those who really deserved it nor those who has merit.
In nutshell, Indian education system is broad based but not core-competent based. Perhaps, the following story might explain you this better.
continued in 3rd part.....
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