Education -- the core subject matter they teach us and the whole system and style how that is done from school to the colleges -- shapes an individual’s behavior… and their attitude in the long run. We become who we become because of the way we are educated. Thus, the education we acquire and the system through which we do so should be practical. So it has to be the entire education system of Nepal that needs reforming.The first thing that the government has to understand, accept and acknowledge is that students and the youth are the biggest resources for a country. We have thousands of students graduating every year. The question we need to ask is -- how productive and creative are they? Have they been responsible toward themselves, the society and the nation?
Our current education system here does not make students a social and national being. Rather it has taught them to be separate individuals removed from their surrounding environment and to work for the betterment of their projected ‘self’. Despite an individual being a part of a society, the education system here has not taught the student to be social and a humanist.
Young students grow up confused about their individual roles in the society, the nation and the entire humanity. The faulty education system has instead encouraged stiff and unhealthy competition among students. It has led to students understanding that it is only the final marks that matter and they end up developing an attitude that they have to vie just for higher marks. As a result, the individual in the society is far away from the concept of mutual benefits and cooperation.
The April-25 earthquake which devastated the country and people’s lives so much further proved that our education system was impractical.
After the quake, the people -- basically the students -- could not know what role they should play immediately because the education system had not taught them how to tackle such situations. Though students could have proved an invaluable force as the best resources for voluntary services at such a critical period, nobody had an idea how to cope with the situation or how to engage the country’s most crucial resource -- its students.
Role of civil society during the pandemic
This is all because our education system does not address the issue of disaster and other calamities. The curriculum that has been designed in Nepal’s education system has put such disaster as a just subject matter of study. In a simpler sense, disasters and calamities have no connection with country’s education system. As a result, a majority of the people after the earthquake were reluctant toward addressing the immediate circumstances and their roles in it.
The best example we can look to is that of Japan. That country was also hit by strong tremors a few days after the earthquake that shook Nepal. However, unlike Nepal, the Japanese easily coped with it as the education system there had taught people on the ways to cope.
In a similar manner, teachers also have a bigger role to play during such situations. However, as a result of the faulty education system here, teachers themselves could not face up to the situation proactively. Teachers are the medium through which a student’s mind is shaped. However, teachers here could themselves not interconnect with the society. They could also not make students interconnected as the trend here is to just teach within the confines of the walls of a class room, and to limit to the texts in the books.
The basic thing to understand now is that the current curriculum practiced in Nepal’s education system has to be revised as soon as possible.
There has to be a shift from theoretical approach to teaching and learning now dictated by the curriculum to a more practical approach.
Disasters, calamities and different other social to practical issues have to be included in the curriculum of all student groups. The curriculum should be designed in such a way that students develop as a social being rather an individual being.
The government also should give practical training to the youths on different social issues. Had the youth and students been fed practical knowledge through a proper education system, they could have been proper assets to the country in the aftermath of the earthquake.
(As told to Sujan Dhungana)
