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Perfection isn’t a starting line, it isn’t a finishing line either. But what’s in the middle of the starting and finishing line is well, perfection. Unattainable as it is by our weak grasp; our reach is a deep dive into the privilege of excellence and hard work.
Revolutions are messy. Revolutions are unstable. Revolutions are unsustainable.
And as noble or passionate the idea of revolution may seem, our education system will not survive on a revolution. What we need is evolution. Slow, gradual but powerful and sustainable. The flaws in our education system sit like knots, and if there is a resolution it is to untie these knots one by one.
So what exactly can a student do? How can he, the most integral and central part of the education system take actions for the situation to change?
It begins by taking responsibility away from the education system. The responsibility of shaping the future of its student, your fist should be the citadel of your power, future, abilities and potential, the education system should neither be a catalyst not an obstacle in your growth. As a student, one should be subjected to a lot of introspection about himself and his life; the things he’s good at, the things he’s bad at, his strengths and weaknesses.
Patience is a virtue in the process and To expedite this process, students should be encouraged to try everything under the school’s hot sun. Experimentation is a sweet predecessor to the invention. Sports, crafts, art, elocution, academics; just about everything. It is only by ploughing this field that his penchant would triumph. This rigorous and rather existential process is the laying stone of the building of discovery and maximisation of one’s potential.
After the student has found his niche, the ordeal of his being commences. Success comes hard and one thing that every student who wants to carve a niche for himself but is let down by his circumstances should know that his niche isn’t an allowance, nobody owes him anything. If there’s one person who owes the actions, opportunities and it is the student and his willpower himself.
But the efforts of an individual in a not-so-powerful-rung of a system requires a catalyst for his movement to survive. And somewhere to change this system we need to opt for a different one.
In recent times, there has been a flow of fire in the field of education, and the falcon that is the wave of change is ‘Liberal education’. Liberal education is a mode of learning that unties and un-conditions the student of exactly what he has been told to learn and how to do it.
To define liberal education is an easy task and a difficult task altogether. Liberal arts is a representation of freedom, a student is free to choose his subjects in any combinations whatsoever. The traditional education system dictates that mathematics and literature don’t mix, liberal education slaughters this notion and frees the child. It encourages critical thinking and buries rote learning to the ground.
Liberal education saunters proud and produces the future leaders of this generation because they aren’t bound by anything, not even their course books which give them the wings to explore their curriculum and hence prosper as free thinkers and superior individuals who have capable and resilient thinking and execution skills. Even on a moral level, liberal education entrusts a student with appropriate responsibility which makes the student potent and confident about his identity.
Although the ideology is radical it is still nascent in a country like India. The most prominent universities are Ashoka University in Delhi and FLAME University in Pune. The excessive privatisation of institutes makes them unaffordable and gives them a false illusion of being elite. The cost of this noble education is heavy and only a small fraction can afford it which is a greek tragedy and propels a vicious cycle. This cycle is being consistently broken by the students of liberal arts however, the change is slow however it is for the better now.
The most important part on behalf of the student now remains that after he is out of the education system and goes out to explore further avenues, he must not forget his roots and what has been made of him. There are millions of students who are still going the grind who probably face the same deprivation and now comes the question of responsibility.
The fingers are pointed towards you, the successful, the survivor. The influence and confidence you have gained battling this system, ploughing this field should be a subject of investment by you. The vicious circle needs to have a paramount break by those who have gone through it. Importance should be given, initiatives should be taken, debates should be appreciated and change should be welcomed.
Because like stated, earlier Revolutions are messy. Revolutions are unstable and revolutions are unsustainable so the only key to break away from. Is evolution. And it is eventually inevitable, the question is: how?
