How To Fix The Global Education System &

By Suyash Handa | 24th February, 2022

Before the pandemic, things were bad. There was a general agreement worldwide that schools in countries around the world were not delivering quality education. In came the pandemic and, the global education system was thrown down the gauntlet. As a student, rarely have I ever heard that someone “likes” or “enjoys” secondary or senior secondary education (there are some exceptions everywhere but, anyway). Basically, we ask ourselves this question: “What Is School For?”

A couple of years ago, I watched a video by Prince Ea titled “What Is School for?”. Being younger back then, I didn’t quite understand the intensity of the situation he was trying to highlight but now, I think I do. Before you read on, let me ask you a question - What is the powerhouse of the cell? If you know the answer, great. But, in a situation where you didn’t know the answer, one would simply google it, right? According to me, any information that is readily available to us within seconds on the web shouldn’t be memorized by students at all. Wait a second, so doesn’t this defy the essence of education? No, it doesn’t.

Fact: Over 1.2 million students drop out of high school in the United States every year.

According to a survey, the main reasons this high drop-out rate were failing classes, boredom and 1/5th of the participating students reported that school simply wasn’t relevant to their lives.

Speaking of schools in India, education is broken too. Poverty, inaccessibility, and unavailability seem to be the major issues. Though students’ interest in the secondary curriculum seems to be low, some say that 84% of what we learn in schools doesn’t help us out in life, at all!

That was just one side of the coin. Have you ever been taught how to handle money, develop personality traits, get a job, manage time, or even how to converse effectively, in school? Well, if you find yourself in a position to say “yes”, you are very lucky. These were all-inclusive of the actual stuff we need to live a better life. Only the “top-notch”, Indian private schools cover about one or two of these themes a year. So, according to me, world governments have some work to do.

How To Fix It

Enough of the problem, let us talk about some practical and implementable solutions. It is quite evident from the tone of this article that, global textbooks need to be revamped and, countries have already started taking initiatives to solve the issue of “un-relatable” learning.

Though, hands-on education is mostly limited to younger grades, it's important to note that to learn science, you actual have to perform experiments. The only practical experiments that I, have honestly performed in my junior year (11th Grade) were for grades on my report card. What’s the point of leaning about waves and frequency if you’ve never bombarded an object with actually - waves. That brings us to another major possible solution - Hands-On Learning. Governments should make it necessary for schools in their country to spend a minimum number of hours in laboratories or say with nature (for geography etc.).

To fix the issue of dropouts in several developed countries, governments can give a thought to reducing the burden on students and making things easier. These are just some of the solutions just another student can think of. In the end, we are dreamers and, it’s our job to help improve student life across the globe by sharing content.

In conclusion, education can be fixed and, its greatest flaws can be turned into its greatest strengths if we work together

Prince Ea’s Video: https://youtu.be/_PsLRgEYf9E