JUST A THOUGHT Failings of our education system

Our education system is in shambles. We seem to be doing most things wrong when it comes to preparing our children for the future. As a society we are doing our kids the greatest disservice by leaving them ill-prepared to face the challenges of this new millennium. Our educational institutions remind me of Nietzsches words: in large states public education will always be mediocre, for the same reason that in large kitchens the cooking is usually bad. My tangential connection with the field gives me the opportunity to see the state of our education system up close. I can tell you from personal experience that most students, both at undergraduate and graduate levels, lack some of the basic communication skills necessary for effective learning. Similarly alarming is the fact that few retain the ability for divergent or out-of-the-box thought. The whole purpose of education is to ensure that kids have the requisite skills to successfully meet the challenges of a future career. Without delving into the dichotomy of the academic vs. professional we can safely say that this basic tenet applies universally. The point is to sow seeds for the future. As a practitioner of, and researcher in, strategy science, I can also tell you that planning for the future is rife with complexities. To be able to plan for it effectively the future has to have a high level of predictability; unfortunately that is just not the case today. While a BBA degree in the 90s could assure a good job at an MNC or a local conglomerate, in the last decade the rush for BBA degrees and the consequent hyperinflation has lowered its value significantly. Very soon even an MBA will count for little. In such unpredictable landscapes it becomes paramount that our kids learn to approach new and complicated problems from creative new angles. But we are not teaching our kids how to do that. Current formal systems inhibit the ability for divergent (out of the box) thinking rather than encourage it. In recent times I have become an admirer of Sir Ken Robinson, a man who has been the stand-out critic of prevalent systems of formal education the world over. According to him, the current system is causally and temporally connected with the industrial revolution, and as such its operating principles are also bound to the scale and efficiency ideas of that era. Those ideas worked fine a hundred odd years ago, but the world has moved on since then. When a systems environment changes dramatically old models of analysis become ineffectual. In the past few decades we have witnessed a new revolution: the information revolution. Our knowledge of how we think and how we learn has increased a million fold, on top of which we are all connected to each other at a level that our predecessors could not even comprehend. It is exactly with such gargantuan environmental shifts that we need to introduce apposite systemic shifts. We need a new paradigm in education. Charles M. Reigeluth of Indiana University compares some of the imperatives that have changed due to this massive societal shift from the industrial to the informational age. According to his analysis the preceding era was defined by bureaucratic control, mass standardization, compliance, conformity, and adversarial relations, while the new era demands more autonomy, diversity, team orientation, cooperative relationships, customization, and initiative. Just as corporations today focus on customization for customers similarly educators have to start appreciating the individual needs and interests of the student. The old form of learning was time-based and group based, in the new era we have to make room for the students to be able to actually learn and the system has to incorporate models that are more person-based and attainment-based. Teaching needs to be customized and focused on the learner, which must also encourage divergent thinking. If we really want to compete in this new and connected world, and if we are to fulfil our Prime Ministers dream of a digital Bangladesh, then the first thing we need to do is introduce systemic changes in our educational institutions. We need to transition to a student-centred learning paradigm. -Bobby Hajjaj