Building Blocks
Rajasee Bhattacharya
Team I am government
Higher education is seen as an end to a better life and? as an immediate consequence of it. However, there are innumerable reasons as to why the existing approach to academia is proving to be a failure. It is, therefore, crucial to offer alternatives for the same.
The present scenario has reached a point of a saturated deadlock. The students qualified as graduates and postgraduates are just not capable of thinking independently, writing and expressing assertively, accepting failure and providing truly new insights. They are not turned into the citizens that the society needs, in order to open avenues of pioneer elements for the society and the government.
Considering that the lapse of the present academic system affects the youth at an individual level, is it advisable to wait for the government to take initiative to make alterations with the intent of qualitative improvement compared to the current situation? Is it for the citizens, then, to take up the responsibility in their own hands?
An increase in the playing field of technology in our lives has seeped down to the front of academia as well. The best of teaching professionals from over the world have made available their methodology as well as content of academic teaching. The exorbitant price of acquiring a degree in classroom education is being very promisingly replaced by online degree courses. This is giving the students the opportunity to engage with their education while also being able to attain real-time field experience of work and social interaction as apprentice.
As it is, the experience of classroom attendance is largely restricted due to several unbreachable decorum imposed upon the students. To add to that, there is an absence of any rewarding factor in terms of the socializing that are largely engaged in. The teaching methodology consists of a tendency of essentially repeating the contents provided in the text books. Putting oneself through the same experience in an online space is a generously productive substitute.
There is a tectonic shift in the methodology of provision of employment. The competence of a person is reflected in the way they conduct themselves when presented with rather generic situations. I would like you to surprise me, for instance, if I happen to be the interviewer in possession of your resume and yet am asking you to 'tell me something about yourself'.
In order to be self-sufficient, critical thinkers with innovative minds and a positive attitude towards problem solving, the students need to be liberated from the cyclic process of confinement to the prescribed syllabus. They have to be capacitated to be able to self-educate in case of confrontation with unknown new openings of knowledge acquisition.
Three languages: The universal language, mathematics; Academic language, English and the intrinsic language, knowledge of music, dance, sports and other physical activities. These are the cornerstones of enabling ourselves to be prepared to seize any new learning opportunity, challenging or not, with flying colours.
Children, from a young age, must be encourage to read amply. They must be held up while their imaginations run free. Let them be guided but not mollycoddled. Let them make mistakes and be forgiven.
Focus on increasing the skill security rather than job security is awaited. The issue of the inability of potential employees to land jobs will be invalidated if a positive sense of self-confidence can be harnessed among the youth about their abilities. They will become self-reliant in being eligible for professional work in any area that they are interested in.
The fundamental premise of provision of employment based on the existing academic narrative may be altered by the government while the citizens discard their lethargic complacency towards academics. Sky is the limit, if we want to progress, as a nation. Let the citizens and the governance system travel halfway, each, in recognizing the need of empathy and pragmatism in the pursuit of academia.
Here are some steps for us to take. Get an enrollment for online courses and several micro certificates instead of too many broad degrees. Acquire as much work experience as you possibly can. Start your own enterprise online and be responsible for your own empowerment.
