Illiteracy : A Demon

Illiteracy for our country is a great cause of concern, as it hinders the development of the country. There is a strong link between illiteracy and unemployement. Until and unless people are not literate enough, they will always be hunting for good employement opportunities like madmen. Less employement leads to less contribution to the country's GDP which eventually affects the growth and development of the country..
In my opinion , the Government should take necesary actions to reduce and gradually eradicate illiteracy amongst the masses. Workshops should be held , especially in the rural areas, to convey to the people the importance of education and the impact it will have on the country. They should be told about the bright future that will be in store for their children if they get them educated. Illiteracy is also rampant amongst the older people. Campaign among the illiterate adults, therefore is also a crying necessity. Adult education has found a place in different schemes and projects of Government. But much ground has not yet been covered to set up primary education. This segment has to be given top priority. Even we as responsible citizens of India should contribute towards battling this so-called war with illiteracy. Our motto should be "Each One Teach One", if we are to become a developed nation. In the words of the President of The United States of America, Baarack Obama, " Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change we seek.."
   AND the time for change is now; we are ready for it, are you...?????

                                                                               - Bhaavya Panjabi

The biggest enemy of an EDUCATED MIND

The biggest enemy of an educated mind is a mind prejudiced by caste, creed and gender. Keeping this in mind, I will share with you some instances that depict how education has changed our mindsets and brought about integrity.

While boarding the bus at my school , it usually makes me happy to notice that the girls are made to board the bus first, while the boys patiently wait behind. 

Looking through some class lists, you'll  find that there are equal no. of boys and girls studying in the classes and sometimes, the girls are outnumbering the boys!

If you enter my class during the lunch break, you’ll find me enjoying idli and dosa from my South Indian friend Meera’s lunch box ,while she is engaged in savoring my mother’s Rajma chawal and chole puri. In every class, we have children from different parts of the country, studying together for 7 hours a day, realizing how similar they are despite their differences. 

In the school where I studied when I was 12 years old, I used to play volleyball with a girl named Mariam, who was from Iran. She had to cover her body and head completely when in public places.but found it difficult to do so with our uniform. The school had a special uniform tailored only for her with long sleeves and long legs! 

We have so many teams at school for different sports. Children are selected only by their merit and not by their caste or creed. This way, they learn to work as a team, a team full of different children moving towards a similar goal, basket or score.

                                                                                                                                                     - Arushi Sharma
                                           

                                   

Studying is no child's play!

Adarsh, a student of class 11th, was deeply engrossed in reading his newly bought novel. To his surprise, he found his father standing right beside him, giving him “the look”. “Adarsh, how many times do I have to tell you? These novels you keep on reading are not going to give you any marks. Read your textbooks, son. It’ll help you.” Adarsh frankly replied “But dad, these textbooks are hardly as interesting as these novels! If only I could learn the types of business organizations as easily as I learn the lyrics of a song.”

We have many fathers like that of Adarsh in our country, don’t we? A message for all the parents : Doing something apart from that in the syllabus is no waste of time as long as it is something productive. Knowledge, of any kind, never goes waste. There’s a message for our educational board too. The education that is being provided in our country should aim at becoming more practical and involving than mere rote learning from age old printed textbooks. Else, there’s no choice left for students but to indulge themselves into the more interesting, out of the syllabus activities.

                                                                                                      

                                                                                                                - Arushi Sharma

                                                                                

                                                                                                 

Education : A chase by the money grubbing souls!

As I picked up the Sunday Times delivered at the threshold of my house, a pamphlet fell out of it. It read: “Special discount offer for applicants! 100% result guaranteed! We have 14 years of successful educational and training experience.”  This was the 10^th tutorial advertisement I was seeing in a week. Once, I saw a billboard near my school of one of the typical overrated tuition classes, with pictures of students who looked unvaryingly lifeless and exhausted, labeled by their percentage in the grand board exams! Education has become a business, hasn’t it? I’m not denying the fact that private sector schools or educational institutions have improved the quality of education given to Indian students but here, I would also like to add an opinion: they've surely turned it into a business.

Private schools are known for their good infrastructure and co- curricular activities and other attractive facilities, but are they providing the quality education to match up with the regular high fee they charge? If they were, then I’m sure we wouldn’t be receiving 10 pamphlets in a week from these after-school classes. From what I’ve gathered, the reason why students feel the need to join these classes is for personal attention or if the teachers at their school are not good enough (and schools seldom replace them).Now, the schools and the tuition classes are profiting instead of the student, who had the full right to derive profits out of the service he was paying for.No wonder, after attending 7 hours of school, 2 to 3 hours of tuition and another 1 or 2 hour for assignments and home works, the students are bound to look lifeless and weary.Students are no robots. We’ve seen the result of exhausting them beyond capacity: suicides.

In short, make the education at school good enough so that students can understand the topic at sight, without having to look for after school classes. A teacher’s job should not end at scribbling a topic name on the board and telling the students to do “silent reading”. They have to rather get inside the student’s head.Schools have to shift their focus from attracting rich students to creating rich students. Good infrastructure, fancy uniforms and huge tennis courts and swimming pools are not going to help unless you fulfill the basic need of the students : good education.

Disclaimer : I’m not pointing fingers at each and every school or naming a school specifically. Any cunning, money grubbing school out there will know what I’m talking about!

                                                                                               - Arushi Sharma

And money always outweighs!

Education is the greatest weapon

One wouldn't want to be on Taliban’s wanted list even in their worst nightmare. In fact, even the thought of coming face to face with the Taliban men can be nerve racking. Malala Yousafzai not only faced, but survived this nightmare for real.  Ah, how I admire her valor! Her mettle for the cause came as no surprise to her father, who named her after a famous warrior woman from southern Afghanistan.  She has been acting beyond her years.  Her demand is simple: Education for girls.

According to Malala, to turn the visions of a prosperous Pakistan into reality, every girl in Pakistan should go to school. Yet, the Taliban have refused to move even an inch away from their ideology: Women should not be educated. I wonder what pricks them so much about a woman being educated. Education gives a person power. It gives them a stake in the outside world, beyond the four walls they live in everyday. It’s like a magical wand handed over to an ordinary person to help them bring about change in their life and the world. Maybe this intimidates Taliban the most. They are afraid to see women in power and being dominant or equal in status, something which completely defies their Islamic ideology. However, their protest or opposition won't last long, for there's a weapon much more powerful than all the machine guns and explosives they possess. And that weapon is education.

if Malala can survive Taliban's wrath after getting shot in the head, I’m sure there are many more Malalas out there who can survive them too. 

Malala has already ignited the fire, now I hope every girl in Pakistan keeps it burning.

                                                                                                                        

                                                                                                - Arushi Sharma

Skill Based Education

                                      - Chandni Kumaarr 

The current Indian education system needs to change from mere comprehension of information to more of skill-based developmental programs. In today’s world the need of the hour is to change, just from what you learn and perceive, to the technical and skill-based knowledge. As a picture says a thousand words, so when you do something practically it will leave an impact that will remain in your mind for ages to come!

No matter how many textbooks you read, how many answers you mug up, in the end all that matters is your experience, which you get through doing something over and over again, which is obtained by sharpening your skills. Although you may have a lot of theoretical knowledge about a subject, unless you have the skills you won’t succeed. In today's world preference is given to those who have better skills than their peers who have similar qualifications.

                                    

_{Education not limited to the school premises}

                                                                                                           _{- Chandni Kumaarr}

We say that our parents are our first teachers , and eventually as we grow up we forget about it .Ever thought of it – before you actually stepped in your school who was the first one to teach you how to walk and how to talk ? And this is why we got to know each other at school and became friends . Remember the old Aesop’s Fables or The Panchtantr or Those fairy tales which your grandmother used to recite to you till you fell asleep? Oh! And the day your dad taught you to play cricket with that plastic bat ?

Guys , as we are growing up today , we have almost forgotten that education is everywhere . Education is a process of enlightenment that opens the door of your mind to the world . It is something that stays with you and is taught to you all hours a day . The school or the textbooks are the objective part of this education you receive . Even a small experience taken into account teaches us something . And it is you who decides how to perceive it .

Marks do not measure IQ

The air was thick with tension. The countdown had begun. Like everyone else, I stared at the computer screen anxiously. A message popped on the screen. This was it. The moment was finally here! “Open it!” exclaimed my parents (and half of the neighborhood).  If you’re thinking we were watching a India- Pakistan cricket match or awaiting the election results, then you’re wrong my friend.  It was a more serious matter. In fact, the most serious matter among Indians. The 10^th class board results.

Indian parents get offended when the neighbor’s kid gets higher marks than their own kid because all of a sudden it becomes a matter of dignity. The phone’s constantly ringing with prying relatives wanting to know how much the kid scored. And this is not where it ends. I remember a friend of mine who scored 92% in her board exams but was unhappy because her parents weren't satisfied and thought she should’ve (“could’ve” would’ve sounded more encouraging, eh?) scored 95%.
No wonder in India, we've lost more lives to exams than to wars. WHY? Only because we fail to realize that marks do not measure intelligence. If you put in efforts, you’ll get good marks. If you stop putting efforts, you won’t get good marks. If intelligence was to be measured by marks (and marks can merely fluctuate anytime) then we would spend our whole life wavering between “I am dumb” and “I am smart”. Just like Einstein said “Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted, counts.” And what our education system and parents do not count is other abilities and natural talents of the students, the ones not prescribed in the syllabus and not numbered in textbooks. 

Don’t give the attention your kid requires to your neighbor’s kid. He’s made for something and your kid’s made for something completely different. Something, which marks alone won’t and will never decide.

                                                                                                         - Arushi Sharma