How often at school have you wondered, History is so boring and why am I supposed to memorize dates and places? What am I going to do with it! Yes, you are right. Most often what is taught in school is NOT used in real life. This could be one of the reasons, why brilliant students fail to shine in their careers.
Why do many employers hesitate to recruit a fresher? May be, the employers doubt their market-readiness or it could be the lack of time and resources to train a fresher. Given this situation, shouldn't the education system be changed to help students cope with their career?
My kid is following Alpha-Omega education system, which is based on self-learning syllabus. This system increases self-confidence and allows the students to learn at their own pace. However, I still feel that there is a gap, but was unable to define exactly what it was. This gut feeling, coupled with my thoughts on the employers' attitude towards the fresher, urged me to explore further in this angle.
I learnt that Reading, wRiting, and aRithmetic are identified as the 3 Rs of the 21st Century Skill Sets. Yet, generally, creativity is supposed to be the much required skill in both education and business. When education focuses on 3Rs, how does it strive to bring out creativity? What is considered as creativity by educators and employers? While I was still thinking and researching in these lines, I started to explore more on educational and employment requirements. In this saga, I came across an interesting table, (which is given below) that confirms my doubts...
Why do many employers hesitate to recruit a fresher? May be, the employers doubt their market-readiness or it could be the lack of time and resources to train a fresher. Given this situation, shouldn't the education system be changed to help students cope with their career?
My kid is following Alpha-Omega education system, which is based on self-learning syllabus. This system increases self-confidence and allows the students to learn at their own pace. However, I still feel that there is a gap, but was unable to define exactly what it was. This gut feeling, coupled with my thoughts on the employers' attitude towards the fresher, urged me to explore further in this angle.
I learnt that Reading, wRiting, and aRithmetic are identified as the 3 Rs of the 21st Century Skill Sets. Yet, generally, creativity is supposed to be the much required skill in both education and business. When education focuses on 3Rs, how does it strive to bring out creativity? What is considered as creativity by educators and employers? While I was still thinking and researching in these lines, I started to explore more on educational and employment requirements. In this saga, I came across an interesting table, (which is given below) that confirms my doubts...
Obviously, the employers and the educators differ in ranking creative skills, which could show us why education is far behind in meeting the expectations of the employers. The striking difference in this table is the ranking for two skills:
Problem Identification or Articulation - This is ranked as the 1st skill by employers where as educators do not have high regards for this skill, therefore they rank it in the 9th place! In businesses, identifying the root cause of a problem is the key to prevent any future recurrences. At school, everything is pre-defined and there is no room for assumptions, so students do not get a chance to identify any problems.
Problem Solving - This stands in the 8th place as per the employers list whereas the educators place it in the 1st rank! Often we come across employees who try to solve the problem, instead of looking beyond the problem and analyze the reason behind it. Here problem is looked like school exam, so their only aim is to score high grades. In business, this type of attitude towards problem solving is like fire fighting, which would result in waste of time and resources.
Here, I recall an interesting quote by Oscar Wilde:
Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth learning can be taught.
Though this is true, we should still take steps to facilitate learning. To align education and businesses, a couple of steps should be taken by educators and businesses, they are:
Problem Identification or Articulation - This is ranked as the 1st skill by employers where as educators do not have high regards for this skill, therefore they rank it in the 9th place! In businesses, identifying the root cause of a problem is the key to prevent any future recurrences. At school, everything is pre-defined and there is no room for assumptions, so students do not get a chance to identify any problems.
Problem Solving - This stands in the 8th place as per the employers list whereas the educators place it in the 1st rank! Often we come across employees who try to solve the problem, instead of looking beyond the problem and analyze the reason behind it. Here problem is looked like school exam, so their only aim is to score high grades. In business, this type of attitude towards problem solving is like fire fighting, which would result in waste of time and resources.
Here, I recall an interesting quote by Oscar Wilde:
Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth learning can be taught.
Though this is true, we should still take steps to facilitate learning. To align education and businesses, a couple of steps should be taken by educators and businesses, they are:
- Educators should focus in designing practical learning based syllabus instead of memorization based learning.
- Employers or rather businesses should actively get involved in designing higher education.
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