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Learning is missing

Education is fundamental to the development and growth of every child. But, the painful fact is that every year many children are deprived of it. To quote Nelson Mandela, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” Indeed, education has played a significant role in people’s lives. First and foremost, education can make one understand how to lead a better life.
By Saroj Wagle

Education is fundamental to the development and growth of every child. But, the painful fact is that every year many children are deprived of it. To quote Nelson Mandela, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” Indeed, education has played a significant role in people’s lives. First and foremost, education can make one understand how to lead a better life.  


For me, there was an amazing experience when I had the chance to teach children. Practically, I have realized that children are like soft clays when it comes to learning. But, one thing really strikes me while looking at the same kind of so-called ‘parrot learning’ formula is followed by our institutions. 


However, the 2018 world development report explores four main themes, namely education’s promise, the need to shine a light on learning, how to make schools work for learners and how to make systems work for learning. Time and again, questions are being raised towards the teachers’ skills and motivation to teach effectively. To be sure, such ineffective inputs may hindrance for students’ learning. Of course, education is a powerful tool for raising incomes. It makes people more productive by giving them skills that allow them to increase their output. 


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By and large, education builds human capital, which translates into economic growth. If improvements are faster among the disadvantaged, the additional growth will reduce poverty, reduce inequality, and promote social mobility. Through its effect on civic agency—meaning high levels of political engagement, trust, and tolerance—education can create the building blocks for more inclusive institutions. The greater civic agency can create a political constituency for inclusive institutions, strengthening the social contract between the state and its citizens.


Having said that, by closely understanding the most recently conducted local level elections of our country. To some extent, I found that educated people played important role at a time when they were choosing their right candidates. I mean to say that vote for the right candidate only. Hence, education matters a lot for developing a nation in a holistic approach. 


So, this is the time to act for concern stakeholder in this regard sooner than later side by side applying new technology and practice in school will directly impact on learning for all the students. 


Education systems routinely report on enrollment, but not on learning. Because learning is missing somewhere in terms of number of schools, number of teachers, teacher salaries and school grants but rarely in terms of actual learning. This is how poor the quality of our education is till date. We should all work together to change this. 


Saroj is an MBA student at Charotar University of Science and Technology in Gujarat, India. 

 

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