Dr Asangba Tzudir
The new estimates by the Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Report shows that 244 million children and youth between the ages of 6 and 18 worldwide were still missing out on school in 2021. In spite on the various policy initiatives under, ‘Education for all’ many children continue to be deprived of education worldwide. As such, instead of quality measures, to put it bluntly, education has been more about filling in institutions with students. Today, a serious concern is the need to provide quality education and not as an education that begins and ends as a quantifiable Pythagorean number.
Most governmental initiatives towards education have focused primarily on the need to raise literacy rates, ignoring the vital quality aspect. When it comes to educating kids, quantity and not quality has become such a ‘naturalized’ phenomena where there is always a list of do’s and don’ts and even a study routine specifying a time frame each day for studies. A deeper reflection upon such a so called regimental ‘disciplining’ also creates more issues of trust deficit. For no amount of filling their ‘needs’, even educational tools, may not really help them learn within such a space until the educator knows what actually is needed by each kid. Sometimes just a simple introduction to stories, countries, cultures, people, and the like may prick their curiosity to learn more in greater detail. A kid may be asked to collect 100 random photos as an assignment, or just one aesthetically mesmerizing photo. A short motivational talk may have more impact on the kid instead of simply telling someone to study hard.
While the focus in the last two decades has been on providing access to educational opportunities to the largest number possible, quality seems to have been sacrificed at the altar of quantity. Education is one of the largest industries in a country and the world. It is the springboard that helps humans evolve, develop and improve. The fact that, education is at the forefront of development, as a vital component in the overall strategy of sustainable development, delivering quality education has become a very paramount and a critical component for the intellectual and economic resource development.
Every level of human activity has become more competitive, and which demands people to improve their knowledge and skills which is being learnt in the process of education. In the continuing evolution of knowledge forms and curricular development, a wide ranging subjects and topics are fed into the minds of the students and which contains a lot of information as well. However, the issue at hand is that, because of the wide-ranging subjects, many a time the focus is lost. There has to be a particular subject which needs to be given due focus but because of the multi-faceted subjects the focus either lost or not given due warrant it deserves.
The more the quantity, the lesser is the possibility to reach its desired level of quality because the larger the quantity, the more you lose the level of focus and attention that is given to each subject. This thereby comes with the implication of lowering the quality. The worst is the fact that, in the evolution of quantity education, it really has created a negative impact on the mental health of the students. The quantity of education really adds to the high level of stress.
Coming to quality education, while grades continue to be considered a key indicator for measuring quality education, there are more important aspects of content delivery and learning which in turn will help develop the skills one is born with, and which will help one become more productive in their field and thereby develop more knowledge and skills.
Some key elements of quality include the teacher and the teaching methods which focuses on content delivery concentrating on the quality of knowledge and not its quantity. Quantity is sometimes essential but depends on the nature of the course. Nonetheless, it is the application which makes a teacher more engaged with the course towards quality delivery, and while the creation of a learning environment is integral to engaged learning, there are also important preconditions for students which teachers need to be mindful about considering the fact that students comes from various diverse backgrounds and which interfere in the studies.
On a certain level of academics, grades continue to lead the education indicators. However, education is about learning and applying it. To take the case of the latest FYUGP where the course is being reduced to 4 and 3 credits respectively, there has also been a reduction in the course topics. This helps students reduce stress and thereby create better focus.
On the whole, while emphasis on quality education is the need of the hour, it cannot be denied that the best education comes with a balanced mix of both quality and quantity.
(Dr Asangba Tzudir writes a weekly guest editorial for The Morung Express. Comments can be mailed to asangtz@gmail.com)
