Education: Transforming The Most Unscientific And Mismanaged Industry Into A Scientific, Competitive And Learner-Friendly Industry
Politics / Education Feb 02, 2014 - 12:01 PM GMTBy: Dr_R_M_Mathew
The Lost Generation
Education is the most unscientific and mismanaged industry. For the ‘lost generation’ of the Global Economic Crisis, Education has become a necessary evil. Without education, one’s life is doomed; life is also doomed, if one goes for education, it turns everybody a life-long debtor or at least a debtor during the prime time of the youth. The steady decline of the quality, the increasing irrelevance and the exponential rise of the social and personal cost of education have been fermenting into political upheavals and revolutions worldwide.
But parents and the learners have no other option but to go for the time consuming and exorbitantly expensive education. On an average, a middle class family has to spend about 40 to 60 % of the family income for the education of two or three children. However, education has emerged as the biggest business or industry capable of employing millions and making good profit though the students and their parents are the looser.
The Greatest Human Endeavor and Enterprise
Since the time of Aristotle's Academy about 600 BC., Education has been emerged as the greatest human endeavor and enterprise. Nobody dares to
question the worth of education or denounce education and proposes alternatives or bring revolution as it is considered the greatest crime or blunder or blasphemy . No revolution or at least innovation has been taken place in education for the last 2600 years though all the other human endeavors or enterprises or institutions related to food, shelter, family, faith, religions, ideology, transport, marriage, entertainment, communications, and etc. have undergone drastic changes and revolutions. In spite of the false claims, even Information Technology could not go deep in the heart of education to make a revolution for the over-dominance of ‘Data’ and ‘Information’ over ‘Wisdom’ and ‘Knowledge’. IT is built upon Data Structure.
Knowledge, not Information
Knowledge is dynamic, non-liner and multi-dimensional as the human brain functions. The building blocks of knowledge are concepts; each concept has hundreds of levels of depths and dimensions according to the nature of the brain of the each learner or individual. For the sake of simplicity, we can categorize learners as brilliant, bright and dull or above average, average and below average. In a different discipline or classroom or school or university, brilliant students may turn dull and vice-versa.
Disregarding these basic facts, education has been designed and delivered in class rooms with instructions or teaching and learning materials in a static, linear and uni-dimensional format. Education has been designed just for one category of the learners, probably ‘the average’, ignoring both the brilliant and the dull, resulting over 70% wastage; even among the average, just 30% alone is benefitted. In short, the wastage involved in education is above 80%.
The Spoiled Lots
Just 2 - 5 % students are lucky enough to have the best teachers, the quality learning or reading resources and the best schools or universities. The rest is
spoiled with poor teachers, substandard learning resources and ill-equipped and poorly managed schools and universities. For the sake of 2 -5% students, over 95% students is spoiled. Education has been designed for the 2% elite to own and control over 80% of the wealth or resources of the humanity. Education is the major stumbling block of the ‘Just Global Social Order’ ensuring ‘Food, Dignity and Knowledge for All ’.
From kindergarten to university education, the dropout rate is more than 40%; another 55% that remains in schools or universities, has no other option but struggling for survival till end, some times worse than the uneducated. For them education brings life-long debt or makes them debtors till the middle age and delivers mismatched skills or knowledge without the option for retraining.
The actual beneficiary of the education is just 2 - 5% of the entire learners. Over 90% of the schools and universities is rigid and mismanaged institutions without any provision for restructuring or improvements. The reason is; education is delivered in the twenty first century with a very old structure, methodology and philosophy developed about 2600 years ago. Everybody is afraid of questioning their sanctity or relevance for the widely prevailing myths and superstitions in education. That is why; no revolution has been taken place in education for the last 2600 years. The best brains and talents always keep aloof from Education, leaving the mediocre to dictate or dominate .
Myths and Superstitions of Education
Myths and superstitions in education include: education or knowledge is divine or godly and teachers have powers to bless or curse the students; questioning the worth of education and its organizational or managerial structures and competency is unacceptable or unpardonable sin or crime ; education automatically brings development and employment or generates income and wealth and therefore everybody must bear the cost, directly or indirectly.
It is time to realize that Education and Knowledge are not divine; education is an industry charged with the creation of skills, expertise and knowledge besides a set of socially accepted values and outlooks and their efficient delivery; like any other product, knowledge or skill can be produced, marketed, distributed and consumed; there are laws governing the consumption and production of knowledge; no teacher has any divine power to bless or curse any learner; every learner has the right to get the quality education which should not be limited to the few chosen one or elite; every teacher is a learner has to deliver the best packages of skill, expertise and knowledge to his or her students.
Education is meant for making knowledge accessible or usable for the entire humanity beyond the boundaries of the school or universities as knowledge empowers all. Education needs, not just reforms, but revolutions in all aspects of skill and knowledge production, consumption, marketing and delivery besides the structural, organizational and managerial aspects of the schools and universities. Education needs social interventions as it is not the exclusive regime of educationists, teachers or administrators though they demand absolute autonomy but the concern of the society at large that bears the cost or burden of education.
Illogical and Unscientific
It is illogical and unscientific to make learners to spend such long years in schools and universities , exert so much pain, strain and stress and incur so much expenses for acquiring such a silly, unjustifiably small and substandard or even irrelevant skill, expertise, values ,outlooks and knowledge. Everybody knows that even a doctorate degree holder is incompetent in his or her own field without much problem-solving abilities. It is tragic to note that over 60% of the humanity lives beyond the reach of the existing education.
If education is made scientific and efficient, by spending just one fifth of time, money and strain one can have at least tenfold skills, expertise, knowledge and values or outlooks. It is time for a Revolution in Education at all levels to benefit all and to build up a New Global Social Order ensuring Food, Dignity and Knowledge for All. Otherwise; everybody has to pay a very great price encountering untold famine, misery, bloodsheds and terror and the total collapse of socio-economic and political systems far beyond the expectations of the men and women of the World Economic Forum in Davos in Switzerland or of the UN or UNESCO or in the ministries of education, including higher education or human resource development.
Knowmatics and Revolution in Education
Knowmatics, the Mathematics, Cybernetics and Engineering of Knowledge, Skills Acquisition and Scientific Productivity, is founded on Mathew’s Theories of Knowledge Consumption and Production. They are capable of augmenting skill acquisition, scientific productivity and knowledge production, consumption and delivery besides designing Dynamic Knowledge Banks or Corporations and developing Knowledge Industry on a sound footing quite different from Information Technology and IT enabled systems and services.
In short, Knowmatics is the basis of the coming Education Revolution for ensuring a tenfold productivity and efficiency of education with one fifth coast and making knowledge accessible and usable for the entire humanity within a short span of time. Knowledge Industry based on Knowmatics will be emerged shortly as the biggest industry, far ahead of IT enabled Industry, to transform knowledge and brainpower into value-added marketable products. It offers vast investment, growth and profit-making opportunities.
These issues are discussed at depth in our paper,’ Knowmatics – A New Revolution in Higher Education’, Journal of the World Universities Forum 4,1,2011:1-11, besides YouTube (www.youtube.com/watch?v=4p0SXqRuV3k ) and a handful of presentations on education at www.slideshare.net/drrajumathew.
By Dr. Raju M. Mathew
© 2014 Copyright Dr. Raju M. Mathew - All Rights Reserved
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