For years now we have been following a system of education which is typically an instructed one. In this system every students follows the instructions of the teachers, do assignments, take tests, score high marks and take up decent paying job and the life goes on. Our students are just like any other pre-programmed machine which follows the instructions that are fed into the controlling circuit. While creating such machines, man has forgotten to relieve himself from such a system.

What is so great about the present day education system?

One might wonder “what is the problem with the present education system?” It is for sure that majority of those who have been a prey to such an education system will definitely ask that question. Let us think the other way round, “what is so great about the present day education system?” The answer will be “nothing”. There is nothing great about an education system that spoon feeds students with pieces of information which makes them capable of living like machines. Students go to school every day where they are programmed with inputs that have been recorded in the text books, and they are not even allowed to think beyond the text books.

Everyone wants to be on the safer side

Today most of the students spend half of their lives in schools and colleges where they are prepared to earn a living for the other half of their lives. The natural talents that a child is blessed with are ignored and the contribution that the child might have given to the society is insulated. We cannot just blame the children for this. Every parent wants their child to get proper education and make a good living out of it. They just want their child to be on the safer side.

Medicine or engineering?

After a student passes his or her 12th grade, they are left with only two options, either medicine or engineering. This is the general attitude of the society and there may be different example of engineers and doctors who live a “successful” life with so much money, car, and a luxury house and so on. So everyone fails to see the bigger picture. How many scientists do we have in India who has won a Nobel Prize? Forget about the Nobel Prize, how many scientists we have in India who has changed the lives of average Indians. We don’t have an easy answer. This is the problem with the present education system, which is mainly an instructed one.

Just co-curricular

We do have different option in our schools, which will help students showcase their innate talents. Such options are called by the name “co-curricular” activities. The focus is on education and all other activities that will bring out the real talents of   students are just co-curricular activities. Everyone wants their children to be on the safer side, a side which we think will win the game. But suppression is not synonymous to victory. We are suppressing the natural talents of the students by forcing them to follow an outdated system of education.

Schools or factories?

Look at the irony. Each and every human being is unique, but at schools we follow a similar curriculum, read the same books and take the same exams and still we say that each one of us is unique.  And soon we can expect our education institutions to train our students in such a way that they will perform at the same level and the results will be standardized. For instance all the students who take an exam will score the same marks. Schools will be similar to factories where students will be provided with inputs and instead of products schools will produce employees for the industry. The quality assurance department will assure that the performance of the students will meet the standard set by the school. Soon we can see six-sigma being implemented in schools where each student will score more than 90 per cent marks in the exams.

Imagination is the key

What we need is creative education where children are encouraged to think and imagine. What is the purpose of understanding logic alone, where it gives only one way of finding solutions? Without creativity, the world we see today wouldn’t have existed. Without creativity there would be no cars, no electricity, no computer, and not even science as we see today. Without thinking or imagining there would have been no science or mathematics. And now we ignore creativity which has shaped the world we live in today and is after the outcomes of creativity.

Generation of visionaries and not a generation of technicians needed

Creativity helps us to explore the realities of the world and come up with solutions and suggestions that will make our life meaningful and beautiful. It aids in the creation of a better world that will consider life as a precious gift which is worth living. Creative education will help students to take up a path they like and think on their own so that they come out victorious in their professional and personal life. Such a system of education will encourage students to ask meaningful questions and thus help in developing their intellectual level. It will also help in finding out the mistakes in the theories and concepts that we have been following for years. What we need is a generation of visionaries and not a generation of technicians.

Through creative education students should be exposed to activity based learning where they are engaged with projects that will help students to put their imagination to practice. They may fail, but they will learn from their mistakes and learn how not to fail the next time. Real learning happens beyond the classrooms and may not be evident to our eyes. Ultimately their efforts will lead to the creation of new knowledge which will be useful to the world. This requires a combined effort of both body and soul, and teachers are just facilitators of such a process.