Defects of our Education System
“Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or y our selfconfidence”. Education does not mean teaching people to know what they do not know; it means teaching them to behave as they do not behave, say s John Ruskin. The prime objective of our education system is to develop a child’s over all personality. It should train not only the mind, but also the body and soul. Unfortunately, our present education system fails to achieve these objectives. The present education system does not make a child creative. It makes him a crammer. A child/pupil has to mug up nearly 200 - 300 pages a year to pass his examination. Students are not given any practical training. They never go to laboratories to verify the theories. Moreover, the present admission system has become the laughing stock of society. The school authorities have a provision for those tiny tots who seek admission to pre-nursery. This is the height of absurdity. We need not the people who can only read and write. Our nation requires engineers, scientists, technicians and doctors. Vocational education is the need of the hour but not at the cost of values. An educated man should not have only bookish knowledge. He mu st have the knowledge of practical things. Maria Montessori conceived that ‘The first idea that the child must acquire in order to be actively disciplined is that of the difference between good and evil; and the task of the educator lies in seeing that the child does not confound good with immobility, and evil with activity.
