The education situation today is beautifully presented in this slightly modified message from a ‘T’ shirt image circulated on ‘WhatsApp’.

“Things I never learned in School:

But thank God I know the Pythagorean Theorem”

Of course it is necessary to know about things like the Pythagorean Theorem, but it is even more essential to learn practical life skills.

Virtual reality, Computer Graphics, Animation and Gaming Technologies and AGI are introducing astounding ways of imaging, accessing and using information, not only for entertainment but also, for communication and more importantly for education and skill development. Simulators, Diagnostic and Repair manuals, War games, Medical procedures, Molecular manipulations, Climate studies etc, are already showing how important broad and basic technological understanding and use is. All opening up job opportunities, not only at the Research levels but also, at Technician / Operator level for which even the VIII th class dropouts can be taught the necessary skills. Skills are what enable us to competently execute or operate, with confidence as we deal with certainties, while knowledge is the distillation of information that enables us to deal with uncertainties. Hence, skills in many occupations do not need very extensive knowledge and can easily be imparted to such dropouts.

Learning Music, Arts and Crafts, Dancing, traditional family skills and growing things and perhaps even caring for animals and understanding the dignity of labour should also, be a requirement of Education.

We can also learn from Japan, where children even from Play School level, are taught social skills, dignity of all labour, and to accord due consideration to others, and even China, where such children are also taught practical – Do It Yourself (DIY) home skills.

We can learn from Finland, a country that 70 years ago had an economy based only on Agriculture and Forestry that today is a prosperous technologically advanced country. In order to make productive use of its entire population, Finland organized its school system with the aim to educate everybody well. Today Finland has equalitarian high-quality public schools with few private schools; all receive the same level of funding from the Government. The private schools are not permitted to increase their funding by charging tuition, collecting fees or varying endowments.

While school teachers in the U.S. have low social status and are drawn mostly from the lower-performing ranks of College students, Finnish school teachers go through a very competitive selection process and are drawn from the brightest High school and University students and enjoy high status (even more than University teachers), are well paid, all have advanced degrees and have lots of autonomy in how they teach. This is something that we too should do.

As a result, Finnish students score at, or near the top of world national rankings in literacy, math and problem-solving abilities and also, exhibit outstanding sense of fairness, sharing and caring.

We can also learn from Ireland, which by re-designing its education system, to become more job oriented, transformed itself from a poor country into one of the richest within a generation.

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