Let’s analyze the situation
prevailing in the land given as a boon to the people of this land. Kerala is a
place where the highest suicidal rate is recorded in the world. Per head
alcohol consumption is highest in the world. Number of family break ups is
soaring high. Old age homes are mushrooming everywhere. Sexual harassment and
abuses are everyday incidents in printed and electronic media. Visual Kerala is
beautiful but the other side of midnight is very ugly. In nut shell we can say
that whatever social evils prevalent in the world, in greater degree they are
visible in Kerala. Why? No one can answer them in a simple way. In thirty-
forty years back the scenario was entirely different.
My firm conviction is that our
education is the root cause of everything. Our children do not get proper and
quality education from various quarters which help them to lead a successful
life. When we talk about the aims of education we may think about getting a
good job, crystallizing character with good traits, socialization and acquiring
knowledge. But the ultimate aim of education is to help us lead a good
life. The present day symptoms we see in
our society do not give the impression that our education is serving the
purpose.
In order to lead a successful
life the child must be trained to face the problems he or she encounters. In schools the children are taught to solve
problems. But in the present day situation, either the parents or some experts
solve the problems for them and they snatch away the benefit of them. When a
child takes up the problem, unconsciously the child undergoes various thinking
processes like analysis, synthesis, application of knowledge already acquired,
problem solving, creative thinking, critical thinking, evaluation etc. to
arrive at the solution.
The net result of thinking processes is the growth of
intelligence which is the tool required for future life. The memorization of
end product of somebody’s thinking only increases the memory power of the child
which diminishes with time. One who purposefully develops the intelligence
comes handy in the future when life problems arise. This thinking takes place
smoothly when teaching and learning takes place in one’s own mother tongue. In
almost all the countries where the educational visionaries insist their
children to do the schooling up to secondary level in their mother tongue because
they know that children are the assets of the nation.
Malady of Kerala is the attempt of the
government to bring in privatization in educational sector especially in
pre-primary, primary and secondary levels. The money mongers, in order to
squeeze more money from the stake holders, played with English medium. Thus we
have many ill famed bakeries with unskilled bakers (teachers) producing half
baked bread (children). These hapless children are denied of all pleasantries
of good education. They waste away their precious childhood and teenage period
without imbibing anything good for their life.
They cram and cram for good marks in class. Parents shove them to these
English shops to acquire English language.
But the end result is no English is acquired and good education is a
mirage for them. For acquiring English
there is no need to teach them in English medium, just send them to short term
spoken English classes they will master more English with less expense. Spoken
form of a language is the first thing that one should get which our English
medium schools are not giving our children.
We fall for this trap because
English has a prominent place in international circle. Recently someone has jokingly remarked that
Chinese and Japanese languages are going to take the place of English. Then we
Keralites will have schools with Japanese and Chinese Medium. When our children learn in other languages
their natural thinking processes will be hampered by language backwardness. In order to cope up with peer group challenges,
they resort to mugging up the learning materials without assimilating anything.
Let us free our children from this burden and allow them to enjoy learning in
their mother tongue. They will go for some extra reading assimilating values
and customs of the society and grow in our culture. When the mind is vacant of
any good thing all evils will resides in the virgin mind and bring froth demons
we abhor.
Socialization, its cradle is the
family itself. It starts from the family. But the present day children are
growing up in the protective shield of grown ups in the family. No parent
allows the children to take up stress and strain of day to day life and get
trained. Parents are doing everything for the children. In practice we can say that children are
living in artificial situation, a sort of incubator not in the real life
situation. They are not assigned any responsibility and the only task to
perform is to swallow food and mug up study materials. When it comes to peer group
activities, they are not permitted to go outside the premises of the house. The
feature of the villages in Kerala is that each house is separated from the
neighboring one by a compound wall. They are denied the opportunity to mix up
with children in the neighborhood.
Peer group activities foster many
good qualities in children. Any ill effect which may arise can be lifted off
easily with timely intervention of the grown ups. Squabbles which naturally
surface are solved with auto adjustments without outside interference. Many
decisions they make in their group all give many a vista of learning basic
principles of democracy. Instead parents try to take the role of peer group in
their day to day life. Father and mother play with them argue with them and
yield to any demand logical or illogical because of excessive pampering they
mete out to the children. Children fail
to cope up with a situation where their demands are not fulfilled. They do not
know how to give due regards to their parents and finally children are ignorant
of giving due consideration to elders and others who deserve better treatment.
We are an utter failure in giving social education to our dear children.
Is there any character formation
that we intently give to our children? I seriously doubt that. No responsible
person is handling this issue. Always paid hands are coming in. No parent is
sparing time to make interaction with the children. Most often parents come to
know of their children from others. Parents and children are coming together
and sitting together in front of television. Whatever is shown over the visual
media is not being disapproved by father or mother. Ugly love scenes and
suicidal traits fostered in films and serials are making indelible marks in
young minds. When they try to make these in their real life what they learn
from these media there is no need to raise our eye brows. Ask ourselves whether
we are any role model to them to practice. Lots of sermons and talks are there
but no proper role model for the younger generation to follow. There is no
wonder when our children go after sex symbols and rebels and take them as role
models.
Finally our children end up their
secondary and higher secondary education with some crammed knowledge. The
twelve or fifteen years of education has not helped him to know what he is or
who he is. The education the child
received has not brought out the potential in the child. As result without
knowing the one’s aptitude, interest or personality a career is chosen
unscientifically and pursue higher studies. In some case it clicks and most
other cases end up in failures. These hapless victims have no satisfaction in
their lives and resort to all the maladies that are visible in our God’s own
land. Who is to be blame?
Michael D’CruzCDO Education
