The ABC of Education Then and Now
The word Education comes from the Latin word meaning ‘bringing up or to rear’. According to Wikipedia, Education is a process to facilitate learning. Truly said Education is given for the people, by the people and of the people. When I say Education for the people it implies it’s for the individual to gain knowledge, by the group of people who are well versed with it and of the people means it indicates how to enrich them with the knowledge of the people and the world around. Education is a means of imparting knowledge from the person who has gained knowledge to the person who is unfamiliar with it.
I would like to focus on education then and now with regards to our country India. Earlier education was provided in the gurukul system where the students called ‘shishya’ in those days would leave their home and come and stay with the Guru by being a member of his family. Here the ‘shishya’ would have to do the household chores or the duties allotted to him in rotation. As the ‘shishya’ would go about doing the different chores which were in rotation the individual would be learning the skills and techniques to fulfil the given work allotted. Besides this, the normal learning teaching process would take place and the skills required to be a responsible person and survive in this world were indirectly learned by the student. Every child needed to learn all the skills. Although every individual’s interests were not taken into consideration yet the child was well versed with the basics of every skill. As a result, the child could not excel in any of the skills.
Today’s education system has given a lot of importance to the emotions and feelings of the students. Earlier education was teacher-oriented but now it is child-centered. So, the choices can be narrowed down by the student as per their likes and interests. The use of technology which grew up in leaps and bounds over the years has created a great impact on the choice of the type of education right from the lower grades. Earlier a child had to follow only a few selected courses or boards. Now technology has bought the world closer to one another.
As a result, students can now opt for foreign boards. This has also resulted due to only 1 child per family and more nuclear families. So, each family can afford the exorbitant fees in return for the improvised quality and facilities provided by the international schools. Since then, there is no coming back and every family tries to provide the best to their child with the only intention that they mean parents will get a chance to fulfill the wish that they had once dreamt for themselves, but could not achieve it due to various reasons. One of the prominent reasons was too many mouths to feed and few hands working in a joint family. This was one of the major issues that proper career-oriented education could not reach to the common masses.
Nowadays, Thanks to educational apps like BYJU ‘S app that provides free lectures for an hour once you visit their link.
We also see that there are various organisation’s like SWAYAM where a child can complete their education through home schooling. As the name suggests every individual here need not attend school and can learn at his or her pace in the most comfortable way sitting in any corner of the world. Thanks to advancement in technology and hence becoming self-responsible and independent thinker about his or her future. In our next essay, we will learn about the impact Education has on the life of an individual and thereby his/her family.
Swati Joshi, Science Facilitator (Middle School)
