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| EDUCATION TRIBUNE |
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Helping
you make your mark Curb the
school dropout rate Campus
Notes
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Helping you make your mark TALENT is an “unusual promise” or an “urge to excel’ in the area of one’s liking. Talented people are the “seed people, concept changers and pulse takers”. The destiny of a nation depends largely upon the individuals who have the capacity to show consistently high performance and productivity in the sphere of their pursuits. However, in our country many potential Ramans and Tagores are herding cattle or breaking stones due to lack of proper guidance and opportunities. The new revolutionary function of Indian education is to serve as a great conduit for the development of talent at every level of ability and aspiration. In order to achieve the basic aim of education, there is a strong need to bring out the best from individual personality. This great purpose requires selection of appropriate courses, which should always be in consonance with the interest and hidden potentialities of students. But the students from poor socio-economic status are in disadvantageous state because of the negligible guidance available at home due to deficient intellectual background of parents. The problem further aggravates due to absence of guidance and counselling in our education system. Guidance and counselling is of paramount importance in shaping the future of younger generation. Guidance enables each individual to understand his talent, abilities and interests to develop them to the maximum possible limits. It helps individual to relate them to life goals and finally to reach a state of complete and mature self-guidance. Well-planned guidance and counselling programmes help and prepare the students in making appropriate decisions keeping in view their inter- and intra-individual difference. No two persons are alike in this world. God has endowed each person with certain innate abilities and capabilities as well as interests. Every society needs people from different walks of life to carry out the task successfully suited to them in the light of their hidden potentialities. The major role of the teacher and the counsellor is to bring out the best from the individual personality for the betterment of the self and society. This requires a well-organised, accessible guidance and counselling programme at each level of education. In absence of guidance and counselling, students may face a number of problems and deviate from their basic aim. Potential learners enter educational institutions with their unique strengths and weaknesses. It implies that they present a variety of needs which may include the need for information about learning opportunities; for helping in overcoming the residual pain of previous encounters with the educational system; for assistance in determining learning directions and career; for financial assistance; for help in learning how to learn; for help with personal of family emotional or psychological support and in managing stress and anxiety. Thus, educational guidance and counselling may serve a number of important functions for individuals, institutions, society and nation as a whole. It can help remove barriers for the individual, barriers which may be informational, dispositional or institutional in nature. As a result, guidance and counselling provide improved access to educational opportunities to students and increase the likelihood of healthy competition in different areas of life. Earlier, higher education was considered for the blessed few belonging to high socio-economic strata of our society. In present circumstances, people from all sections belonging to rural and urban areas are making inroads in higher education. Majority of them are first-generation learners having no/little parental/family guidance to help them in making right choices of course and adjust to the new challenges of tertiary education. Growth and changes must be built into any career decision; they are heartbeat of the process of career planning. There are innumerable instances where after failing to qualify in a prestigious competitive examination, the students take extreme decision of committing suicide. This may be the result of the absence of guidance and counselling programmes. Thus, counselling should be an integral part of the educational system. Counselling sessions including students as well as their parents must be conducted before the start of examinations. Insecurity about future, anxiety and frustration are the root causes of poor mental health and distorted personality development. In order to tackle these problems, sincere and concerted efforts of the family, teachers and trained counsellors are required. Guidance and counselling should be made an integral part of the education system so that millions of students get attracted towards professional courses after knowing their abilities, interests and aptitudes. Therefore, there is need to introduce radical changes in our educational system. Guidance and counselling can provide a ray of hope in our quest to boost the sagging morale of our youths. Moreover, it will also produce the most required human resource needed for the development of our country.
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Curb the school dropout rate OUR education system is in a dismal state overall. Every year a large number of children do not finish high school. The dropout rates for minority students, students from low-income families, and disabled students are even higher. This is not just a problem affecting certain individuals and schools, it is a community-wide problem that affects everyone. India spends just 3.5 per cent of its gross domestic product on education, way below China’s 8 per cent. Of its 1 million schools, most are state-run and substandard. According to the Education Department, by the age of 10 about 40 per cent children enrolled in primary school drop out, while just over a third of high school students graduate. There are a number of reasons why a school becomes a dropout factory. For example, some students actually transfer, rather than dropping out, but it can be difficult to track students through multiple schools and districts, so they are often included in the dropout statistics. In other cases, students really do drop out, or they fail to make the necessary grades to graduate, and decide not to pursue remedial instruction. Dropout reasons vary by age, grade, ethnicity, and gender as well. Engagement and marriage, household chores mainly looking after children and financial crisis at home are very common reasons for high dropout rate among girls. For boys, the main reasons for dropping out are financial crisis, inability to get good results in school examinations and the need to be productive and contribute to the family income. Another very important cause for dropping out is the belief that education is unnecessary and of no use. Some parents are not interested in education and do not support their children in studying. Moreover, the quality of education (both content and methodology) is very poor. The curriculums do not equip children with various skills that they require to enter the world of responsibilities. Practical learning is missing from our education system. All these problems create those young people who do not have any skills and who will not be able to improve their lives for the family and the country. Schools are at increased risk of becoming dropout factories when they have limited funding, which makes it difficult to maintain academic programmes and high-quality teachers. Schools with students from families with a limited education level may also become dropout factories, because the parents may not value education or push their children to finish high school education. Children may also have to cope with problems such as parents with substance addictions, gang wars, the need to care for younger siblings, or the need to work to support their families. Keeping in mind the needs of low-income groups, respective education departments need to rework on the curriculum content and methodology. Work-based practical learning that provide children with skills, which is necessary to start working by the age of 16-18 years, can ensure a low dropout rate. Currently, such work-based training is limited to the ITI (Industrial Training Institutes) and ITCs (Industrial Training Centres). Some private vocational training institutes also provide such work-based learning opportunities. There are several things that can be done about these problems. Parents should be encouraged to send their children to school. Schools with baby-minding facilities should be opened specially for married students. The government needs to stress the importance of education and even offer financial support to students to continue. This will encourage students to stay at school rather than start working. The government should take necessary measures so that more children are able to finish school. However, unless the Education Department takes a stand to revamp the curriculums in all its schools, bring in work-based learning, improve the quality of learning and budgets for infrastructure and resource development, solving the problem of dropouts will be a far-fetched dream.
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Campus Notes A student branch of the Computer Society of India has been established at Guru Jambheshwar University of Science & Technology here. More than 450 students were enrolled as members of the Computer Society of India at a function organised on the Foundation Day of the Society. M. N. Hoda, chairman, CSI, Delhi Chapter, said on the occasion that professional educational institutions should be run like an enterprise in which the students must be considered as customers. He said teachers must accept changes well in time to keep pace with the ongoing developments. Dharminder Kumar, Dean, Faculty of Engineering & Technology, said the Computer Society of India was established in 1965 to steer the Indian IT industry. The CSI had 66 chapters all over India, 381 student branches and more than 40,000 members, including IT industry leaders, scientists and academicians. The mission of CSI is to facilitate research, knowledge sharing, learning and career enhancement for IT professionals, he said, adding that the CSI was also working closely with other industry associations, government bodies and academia to ensure that the benefits of IT advancement ultimately percolate down to every single citizen of India. Zainab makes a mark
Zainab Asad, a student of M.Sc (bio-technology), Department of Bio & Nano Technology, Guru Jambheshwar University of Science & Technology, has secured the third rank in all-India GATE-2010 examination. She took the examination in February last in the discipline of life sciences. She did her graduation from A. N. College, Patna and cleared combined entrance examinations for M.Sc (bio-technology) conducted by Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. She had also qualified CSIR-JRF in June 2009. Zainab aspires to be a scientist to use her talent for the betterment of society. RTI’s role in national development
The National Service Scheme unit of the university organised a seminar on "National Development". Ramon Magsaysay Award winner Arvind Kejariwal was the key note speaker. Kejriwal said participatory decision-making and decentralisation of power were essential for all-round development of the nation and society. He emphasised the relevance of gram sabhas for rural development and said awareness of the Right to Information Act needed to be created at the grassroots level. He appealed to youth to be sensitive and participate in the development process. Programme coordinator, NSS, Sandeep Rana said NSS volunteers undertook a campaign to create awareness about role of gram sabhas in 20 different villages of Hisar district. — Contributed by Bijendra Ahlawat
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TALENT
is an “unusual promise” or an “urge to excel’ in the area of
one’s liking. Talented people are the “seed people, concept
changers and pulse takers”. The destiny of a nation depends largely
upon the individuals who have the capacity to show consistently high
performance and productivity in the sphere of their pursuits. However,
in our country many potential Ramans and Tagores are herding cattle or
breaking stones due to lack of proper guidance and opportunities.