Education entails gardening of a human being to make hislife supportable with the attaining of proficiency and dexterity. It is thebasic human necessity of human life in the present changing world and as aresult, everyone is ardent to learn and educate himself, equip oneself with theknowledge to face the challenges of life. Everybody has now realized that onlythrough the right type of education, standard individuals and all-inclusivesociety can be created. To achieve better goals and better results, an idyllicsystem of education is needed to ensure a objective and all-encompassing training of mind, body andsoul of our progeny.
Right now, there has been a general feeling among theeducationists, thinkers and leaders that there is something off beam in thesystem of education in J and K State. This is a hard fact that the present predicament in our education isbecause of social growth and as a matter of fact, more and more people have wayin to the modern techniques of attaining knowledge and education. The increase in population and thesimultaneous awareness among the masses has created an ever widening gapbetween the opportunities and the seekers of learning. Perceptibly, there is a need for a far morebroad development in the opportunities of education and training facilities, toensure a proper balance. It is very that more value is being attributed toquantity rather than to the quality. There has been a burgeon growth ofinstitutions in the State to gratify the growing population of the aspiringyouth but there has been also incredibledecline in the quality of education because less attention is given to career –oriented education. Why the other countries and particularly, the westerncountries of the world are ahead of our system of education is due to the factthat they very early observe a child or student in their institutions oflearning and find out his area of interest and passion? While picking up the idea, they shove thestudent towards the same field and consequently, we find that they are able toproduce the best bureaucrats, politicians, doctors, engineers, lawyers,teachers, scientists, and sportsmen. But here in our state, such a policy andplanning of education is missing in the school education as well as in thehigher education system. A student here is not provided proper counseling tochoose his area of specialization. He wants some particular area of study topursue but his teachers and parents propel upon him something else. If acontender of education desires to hunt a particular profession in his life, itis our duty to steer him or her properly towards that goal. But ourinstitutions vacillate on this front and therefore, the confusing state ofaffairs in our institutions has not enabled us to produce the best teachers,doctors, engineers, civil servant and scientist in our State of J and K. Or we can put across the hard fact thatexcepting a few or less, we have not been able to produce the standard andbalanced personalities in our society. Our State needs to mull over the factthat we need skilled workmen who are beneficial and profiting for the Statewhich of course will increase our economical standards also.
Our educational standard is at the lowest ebb due to thedefective prospectus, syllabi and the method of examinations. All of these donot costume to the need of the student as well as to the society. There iswide-ranging propensity with the school authorities to prescribe more and morebooks for various types of study to the young students. Everyone notes negatively on the sight ofyoung school boys and girls carrying hulking load of books on their backs. Wecannot imagine advancing the process of gaining knowledge by prescribing lotsof books for study with no time for these growing children. The process oflearning should be an enjoyable occurrence, not an atrocious phenomenon whichthe students of today are strained to endure. Moreover, our policy on educationonly believes that students attend classes regularly, more and more childrenget admitted and there are less drop-outs. In order to ensure regularattendance, several measures have been introduced, such as the mid-day mealsand less failures up to class seventh. Again the stress is on the quantity andnot on the quality. We have not been able to equip our schools and collegesfully in every area even in the 21st century and it can be seen that manyschools in the State do not have proper accommodation and staff. The buildingsof the schools are not well maintained and there are no facilities for humanneeds. So many schemes have been introduced and immense funds are beingreceived from the centre but it is very unfortunate that these are not properlyutilized on infrastructure and other basic facilities of schools.
There is no certification that obtaining school or highereducation is going to place one properly in today’s world of competition. Goodgrades, which by today’s standard is a signal for an educated individual, toget a good job but alone, good grades are completely iniquitous indication ofhow a person will perform under the pressure of the real world. Instead oflooking at a person’s grades during an employment interview and decidingwhether that person is eligible for a particular position, it ought to beexamined whether the person is capable of taking any challenge. In order tofind the real talent of a person, he may be allowed to know his position in theworkplace. It is necessary that teachers are buoyant to challenge students toreach to their full potential, rather than least ability. Unfortunately, webelieve in purging and tracking of all students to challenge, rather than justthose who are gifted.
The educational system of Jammu and Kashmir is inadequate inmeeting the standards whereas our counterpart states have made much advancementin the case. Our education system does not possess a standard for goals,curriculum, or regulations and is regulated by states which implement their owncurriculum, set their own targets and have their own requirements. The fact isthat we have subordinated our outlook and are not providing objective andcareer- oriented education to our future generation,