21st Century Indian Primary Education: Is It Up To The Mark?

Wow! The 21^st century!! India had evolved a lot since its inception; buildings, Industries, Hotels, Spas, Theaters etc. But, what about schools!? Are they developed enough? what about the quality of education in India? Is it on par with the rest of the world?

Well, the answer…

Let’s look at quality standards with PISA as a point of reference. (PISA) Project for International student assessment is an international comparative survey of 15 year-olds’ (46,000 learners) knowledge and skills across reading, mathematical and science literacy. India was represented by the states of Tamil Nadu and Himachal Pradesh. The recently unveiled PISA report spread over 74 countries including the Plus nations (10 countries were added to the original 64), the two Indian states (Tamil Nadu & Himachal Pradesh) came up 72nd and 73rd out of 74 in both reading and Math. In short, India failed miserably across the three areas.(Source) 

Why is our education system failing?

The Flow of Knowledge: Learn – Apply – Teach

“Knowledge is power”. Yes it is. But the point to be noted is that, it has one property which makes it so powerful. For a better understanding about what is that property, let us start with a short story. 

Once upon a time there was a child who doesn’t know how to walk. So he learnt how to walk from his father. After a few days he tried to walk on his own by applying the walking lesson his father had taught him and succeeded. After a few years, this child had become a fully grown man, got married and had a kid. Now the time has come for the same ‘once upon a time child’ to teach to his own child how to walk and he didn’t do it. 

What do you think would happen? Well, the child learnt how to walk on his own. But the question is, did the ‘once upon a time child’ fulfilled his responsibility? Well, you and I both know the answer. The other question is, what is wrong with the ‘once upon a time child’? Don’t worry. By the end of this article you will know what is wrong with him and even what is wrong with many of us.

I agree that “knowledge is power”, but I would say, that the flow of knowledge is what makes it so powerful. Please see the below figure. I call it ‘The Flow of Knowledge’.

Learning path to programming (for Beginners)

The very first day I joined C-language course, these are the words my programming guru Mr. Srikanth sir said, “Welcome to programming. Programming is a cream thing. But the best part is that it’s a one-time learning.  You learn programming once and for all. You might learn syntax 10 times. But programming, you learn only once”; and that’s absolutely true.

In times before him, in spite of being an IT graduate, I thought that learning programming is very hard. I always used to tell myself that I cannot do it. Most of the fresh graduates have this myth about programming that there are countless programming languages in the world and one need to learn all of them and it’s a huge feat that one cannot achieve etc etc… (Even I used to think the same.)

Enhance Your Communication Skills (for Beginners)

Communication is a coin with two sides. Side one is ‘Explore-ing’ and side two is ‘Express-ing’. Confused!? Let me explain you. Let’s say you are going for window shopping to a mall near by your place. What would you most likely do there? You see all the various products, designs etc. if any product really catches your heart you would try to get a bit more details about it. What is its price? From what brand is it? Etc. well, if everything is given on the tag, its ok. What if it’s not? Simple, you would ask the salesperson about it. This is what I call ‘Explore-ing’. Then you came home. Let’s say you like that product you had seen earlier in the mall very much and you had decided to buy it at any cost. But before buying it you also want to take some suggestions from your friend. So what would you do? You would call you friend and talk about it. You would describe how good it was and how much you liked it. This is what I call ‘Express-ing’. So no matter what you talk about, this is all you do; explore and express. That eventually becomes communication.

My Teachers and Their Lessons

Hi, Welcome to my blog. This is my first post. So, I wanted to make it special. In this post I am going to introduce to you my teachers and their very amazing lessons which ‘played’ and ‘are playing’ a very important role in my life. These lessons from my teachers helped me to build my character, attitude and almost everything that I am today and I am sure that they will help me in building a better myself in future.

Before jumping in, I would like to thank God and my parents for giving me an opportunity to learn from these amazingly wonderful people in my life.

Like many other people in this world, I too had a lot of teachers in my life. But all of them did not leave an impact on my life. There are some teachers who I keep remembering myself with, every now and then. It is because these teachers never confined their teachings to academics alone. They took that one extra mile to mould their students into better citizens. Here goes my list…

*Note: I used initials because, that’s the way I am used to.

Mr. DVD sir:

He was my mathematics teacher during my 9^th grade. We used to wait for his class very eagerly. Mathematics is one of the most fascinating subjects back then (even now it is). But what makes it so special when DVD sir comes to take class is that, of the 40 minutes session he used to teach math for 30 minutes and the remaining 10 minutes he used to share some of the happiest moments of his life with us. He used to tell us about some amazing moments from his childhood. Unlike many other teachers, who would seriously come to class and teach the academics and go away, DVD sir shared some part of his personal life with us. He gave us a feeling that we were his own kids. It is like he took us on a special journey into his life. This is what makes his class so special. Every day when he left the class we used to have a smile on our faces and we used to wait for the next class.

So the most important lesson he taught was, ‘world is never too small to share your experiences with others.’ So don’t confine your life to you alone. Your life should help others people to learn too. So go ahead, share…