Editor’s note – This article discusses the primary educational set up in India and how governmental investment or rather the insufficiency of it has been affecting primary education among other things.

Author’s note – Industrial education teaches particular skills to students that communicate to diverse careers. Students are required to acquire the knowledge and abilities necessary for making a successful change to the place of work. Democratic schools are on an increase as people start anticipating the fact that students can be very well relied upon to learn as learning is a natural process. It is a place where students and faculties are all equal, based in a direct democratic method and individuals are responsible for their education, deciding how to utilize their time.

Introduction

Education, in a broad sense, means an opportunity for learners to participate conveniently and efficiently in different departments of life. Each historical era creates a system of education that addresses to its needs. Educational systems exist because they fulfill important social functions. One of these is the integrating and socializing function. Although the key social functions of education remains the same over time, the concrete implementation of educational processes brings forth institutions that start to lead their own lives. At each historical age, the concrete implementation of educational change depends on pressing social needs, and tools and concepts presented for the implementers.

Industrial Education

Education has turned today to be highly pedagogic in nature and its primary objective is employment and bread winning. The whole system came into being to meet the needs of the industry. An earnest attempt is therefore, being made to supply the best available talents from the portal of the higher education to the growth of industry. Industry compared to education is going ahead by leaps and bounds. Thus, to bring about a healthy, harmonious and integrated social advancement, education and industry will have to cater to each other’s’ needs.

Industry does not require merely brilliant students from the academic field, but also brilliant students who can efficiently cope with the responsibilities that may be assigned to them in an industrial establishment. Merit, experience, independent thinking and participation seem to be very essential from academicians to contribute something worthwhile so that industry does not feel the poverty of matured and right men with vision and training.

The initiation for translating the dream of growth of both education and industry must come from the sponsors of industry since it is generally accepted that industry have the necessary economic status and vision for industrial growth. Thus, industry themselves have to year mark a portion of their own time and infrastructure so that educational centers can provide hope and security to the talented people after their training. The future of industry will rest on these centers as their backbone and therefore one will always grow with the assistance and co-operation of the other.

Problems with the Industrial Model

The rapid acceleration of technology, along with population growth and transformation of power throughout the world make it impossible to forecast the requirements that our society and economy will have say, five years later. On the other side, industries are growing so fast that knowledge of yesterday becomes outdated and practically irrelevant.

It is unfortunate that the courses of study and the opportunities for exposure to practical needs of industry are not easily seen or available. Sadly, most of us still believe that if everyone is taken through the painful standardized path of education where they are all brought up to standards in mathematics and science, things will work well. Among the many effects of this short-sighted method, a significant one is that the graduates in arts and humanities suffer almost everywhere.

Today, degrees do not seem to be worth anything like what they used to be worth before. Now, kids with degrees are often heading home to carry on playing video games. One needs a master's degree where previously, the job required only a bachelor's degree, and now one needs a PhD for the job that once required an MA. It is a process of academic inflation, and it demonstrates that the entire structure of our education is depreciating in quality and that we need to radically rethink and reform our view of intelligence.

One is probably withdrawn from things when one was at school, things one liked, on the grounds that one would never get a job doing those things. We know that intelligence is diverse, dynamic and distinct. In the eye of the general public, academic ability has really come to dominate as the only form of intelligence, because the universities framed the system in their image. The result is that many highly talented and creative people think they are not worth what they are really worth, because the thing they were good at was not valued in school, or was actually stigmatized.

We cannot allow things to go on this way and stay silent. According to UNESCO, in the next thirty years, more people worldwide will graduate from schools than there were graduates from the dawn of history till the present date. The reason behind this is the transformative effects of technology on the nature of work, and the rapid explosion in population. We therefore, have to rethink the fundamental principles based on which we are educating our children. The only way we can do it is by giving due worth to our creative abilities for their richness. At the same time, we should give due importance to our children for future hope.

Democratic Education

In the last few years, Sir Ken Robinson, a renowned educationalist, has spoken widely about the need for a transformation in schools, and the absence of creativity in education. He is an expert in the fields of creativity, human resources, and human potential, and is one of the most intelligent voices to bring about a revolution in education systems worldwide. Sir Ken remarked that education is immensely personal – everybody is unique and different in their interests, talents and learning capacities. Secondly, human talents are buried deep – teachers must be proficient in searching and developing these aptitudes. He stressed on the joy and pleasure of learning. In his recent book ‘The Element: How finding your passion changes everything’, he argues that everyone has a niche in life, which he terms as the ‘Element’ and that education should perfectly assist one in finding one’s Element rather than stigmatizing exceptional interests and talents.

The very word ‘democratic’ tells one that this model allows the students to have a say in the very process that shapes them so that the children could become who they want to be and not be dumped with information that is neither interesting to them nor useful in achieving their dreams. Democratic education gives due emphasis to the rights, interests and dreams of the very person whom education should ultimately and primarily benefit. The democratic approach to education permits learning to happen as a side-effect of ordinary experiences. In general, democratic education is a school model based on the amalgamation of democratic principles and education. Students at democratic schools are directly involved in choosing their goals and deciding how to reach them. Through this process they are involved in a fruitful participation that encourages self-motivation, independence and most importantly, individuality.

Democratic schools offer students the opportunity to choose what, when, and how to learn. This is based on the view that each person gains knowledge and skills in different ways, and that young adults who are directly involved in their academic process finds value and enjoyment in their education. Democratic schools give equal attention to personal development and academic learning.

In democratic schools, students and staffs work together, for solving inter-personal and community problems. This ensures that minority opinions are given due importance. In this way, students learn community consciousness and apply interpersonal skills and social consciousness in their larger communities. Democratic problem solving processes empower students to stand up for themselves and treat each other with mutual respect. Direct democracy of various forms is utilized for group decision making in democratic schools. Direct contact is assumed to be the best way for young people to learn about and understand people with experiences different from their own. Democratic schools also teach respect for human rights and equality among individuals.

An example of Democratic Education: Sudbury Valley

Any comprehensive discussion about democratic education cannot be complete without the indulgence of the topic of the Sudbury Valley model. The Sudbury Valley School has been the best-kept secret in the democratic education system for the past forty years. The secret is getting out, spread largely by students and others who have experienced the Sudbury Valley School directly. To understand the school one has to start with a completely different mindset from that which dominates current educational thinking. One has to begin with the thought: Adults do not control children's education; children educate themselves.

Today, at least two dozen schools throughout the world are modeled after Sudbury Valley. It is predicted that in fifty years’ time, the Sudbury Valley model will be focused in every standard textbook of education and will be adopted by many public school systems. Democracy is not educated in this school; it is lived where they get hands on, real life lessons in how democracy works using freedom of choice, freedom of action and freedom to tolerate results of action.

Learning at Sudbury Valley is mainly supplementary. It happens as a side effect of students' self-directed play and exploration. Self-education happens just as well for school-aged children and adolescents as it does for pre-schoolers and for hunter-gatherers. Children in this culture learn many of the most difficult lessons they will ever learn before they start school, completely on their own initiatives, without adult direction or prodding. Hunter-gatherer children learn the extraordinary portion that they must to become effective adults through their own self-directed play and exploration. Since free age mixing occurs at this school, students are exposed regularly to the activities and ideas of others who are older and younger than themselves. Much of the students' exploration at this school takes place through conversation. Students talk about everything imaginable, with each other and with staff members, and through such talk they are exposed to diverse types of ideas and arguments. Because nobody is an official authority, everything that is said and heard in conversation is understood as something to think about, not as dogma to memorize or feed back on a test. Conversation, unlike memorizing material for a test, stimulates the intellect. The Great Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky argued, long ago, that conversation is the foundation for higher thought. Thought is internalized conversation; external conversation, with other people, gets it started.

Graduates of Sudbury Valley are found today in the whole range of careers that are valued by our society. They are skilled craftsmen, entrepreneurs, artists, musicians, scientists, social workers, nurses, doctors, and so on. Those who chose to pursue higher education had no particular difficulties getting into colleges and universities, including highly selective ones, or performing well there once admitted. Many others have become successful in careers without going to college. More remarkably, previous students reported that they are happy with their lives. They are almost unanimous in reporting that they are glad that they attended Sudbury Valley and in believing that the school prepared them better than a traditional school would have for the realities of adult existence.

Problems associated with Democratic Education

In democratic schools, students are given responsibility for their own education. There is no pressure, implicitly nor explicitly, on students by staff to learn anything in particular. Students are given the responsibility to choose what to do with their time and attention. Because the curricula are different for each student, democratic schools do not compare or rank students. There are no compulsory tests apart from those that individual governments require and those that colleges require for admission.

Secondly, individuals may dominate the participation or make disruptive contribution. Participation may be viewed as a sign of inefficiency on the part of a leader, subordinates may view leader as incompetent to handle the job responsibilities. Situations can arise where responsibilities are not clear cut. Compromise can result in actions that do not turn out to be the most effective. Conflict may be resolved by making the least offensive decision and not the most effective one.

Conclusion

People are worried about our pitiable education system. Our system was implemented by the British who wanted clerks to run their colonial bureaucracy. Europe, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, China etc., do not speak English, but they have surpassed India by several magnitudes. In the mid-to-late 20th century, industrial education was a significant part of public education. Its popularity declined, however, as doors opened for more students to attend college. With the expansion of technology in the early 21st century, there has been a renewed interest in skills-oriented education and industrial training. The present system improves the memory, but our logic should be improved. Some modification is required in our education system. Our education system should focus on skills, objectives and the market demand instead of serving as a mass literacy movement.

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Posted by Dr. Sukla Das Nov 01, 2011

Industrial Vs. Democratic Education System

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