Is Our Education System Preparing Our Child For The Future?

Naveen KM Jul 30, 2018

In this fast-paced world, it has become imperative for us to develop not only academic capacities for our children but to grow their social and communication skills too. Preparing and making them career ready for a world that is ever changing can appear like a daunting mission and takes a coordinated approach to education and training, right from kindergarten to employment. Time and again many experts have mentioned various must-have skills that every child needs to master to be future ready. Be it content mastery or other lifelong learning skills, it is constantly working on developing new approaches to learning that will always help students to succeed in their future endeavors.

“If you want to win the competition then breed race horses, don’t have kids!” – Quote by Aamir Khan is an accurate expression of bitter truth about the current dreadful ordeal that most of the stakeholders, be it a child, parent, and teacher goes through in their lives to strive success. The most popular fallacy of good grades is measuring school success in one letter grade A. Many individuals fail to comprehend that superior grade is only one measurement of success of a student and shirk qualities like how well a child is adaptable, networked and able to reinvent themselves which broadly defines success. Gratefully, the body of world research is stressing the significance of holistic approaches to education and simplifying the existing complex landscape of long-established rigid academics system.

Ideal school environment for a child is when it emphasizes and incorporates a teaching practice that focuses less on traditional academic achievements and grades and more on psychological-emotional wellbeing, great physical and mental health. It is when all aspects of a child’s life including family, the surroundings, history, compassion, and understanding are being taught. Children need to begin to learn about themselves and about relationships. Relationships are the greatest source of human happiness and misery hence institutions must create time and resources that help children learn how to have healthy and productive relationships. Children must learn resilience as it is fundamental to overcoming difficulties, facing challenges and long-term success in any field.

Studies reveal that even people with average intellect but with high emotions are significantly more successful than those with the other way round. (Goleman, 1995). According to the University of New Hampshire psychology department, emotional intelligence is the "ability to validly reason with emotions and to use emotions to enhance thought." EQ refers to an individual's ability to perceive, control, evaluate, and express emotions. Such individuals can manage emotions, use their emotions to facilitate thinking, understand emotional meanings and precisely recognize other’s emotions.

Nowadays most of the organizations organize an emotional intelligence test to identify leaders, good team players and more open to considering factors other than tertiary qualifications when hiring fresher. Therefore inculcating quality of inquisitiveness is highly desirable as this will lead them to ponder over pertinent questions like “What kind of things that we should do that benefits society at large? What are various ways that we can do? Why are we doing it in this way? Can we explore other options? How can we do it better? This encourages them to break the mundane and bring out best out of them. We all know that scoring ‘A’ grades don’t make students ready to face real-world problems hence nurturing passion and talent, having a sense of humor, ability to face and recover from setbacks demonstrates child’s psychological health and are critical for facing real-world challenges. These are essential learning that every student needs and it should rightly begin in childhood.

No doubt, education is the cornerstone of a healthy economy and it, therefore, becomes crucial for a nation to prepare students for careers of their choice but how well these students succeed in the changing economies is a big question? “In times of change, learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.” This quote by Eric Hoffer justifies why many walk streets with degrees from highly esteemed universities in their hands and fail to land a job. This is precise because they do not look around and see that the world is changing and nothing remains permanent. Still, students aim to achieve high grades but fail to learn how to embrace change which is essential for navigating the future.

The society needs such education system wherein students emerge with tremendous drive, problem-solving abilities, high inquisitiveness, energy levels and a passionate love of learning something new. An institution that adopts various ways and implements values-based early childhood approaches for a better social, emotional, academic and spiritual development will ensure holistic development of the young child. As these qualities are only meant to be learned and cannot be inherited, education institution should be sensitive to that fact that students trained in their early childhood will be able to reap their benefits throughout their lives. This will in turn also promote healthy connection, foster an enormous sense of pride and well-being of the community in the society.