that are taking place in the school system.
What is also remarkable in this seeping force of changes in education is that students too adapt themselves very well to change. This behaviour in them makes it so much more challenging for the educationists to understand change and keep pace with it. Very recently I was leading a workshop on ‘Understanding the Changing Era of Education’ for a group of ICSE Principals from Andhra Pradesh in the early part of February. During the course of the workshop we were discussing several issues that are increasingly having a big influence on the private schooling system in India. Economic prosperity of the nation driven by the middle class boom, the influence of media on society and others are probably some of the issues. The attitude of the educated parent towards education has changed tremendously with every action of the school coming in for close scrutiny. It is very common for schools to hear parents commenting “We are paying you money, why is my child not doing well in class?” or “From the past ten years we have not touched our child, who gave you the authority to punish my child?” This materialistic attitude of parents has resulted in several behavioral changes in children and topping the list is the fact that teachers are given very little respect as a consequence. This in turn has affected the overall morale of the teaching community.
The changing scenario of the Indian media has resulted in a flood of channels that highlight a lot of issues having a tremendous impact on the psycho-social development of children. Portraying sensitive issues openly creates a lot of confusion in the minds of children who have loads of questions and queries perpetually. Teachers and educationists are increasingly being confronted by students with very awkward questions. Most often they are ill-equipped to handle such questions thereby adding to the confusion of the children. One of the important areas of change in the coming academic year for Principals should be to include parents in the educational process and sensitise the teachers on important issues of child development.
Yet another debatable topic at the workshop was the failure of government run schools in India leading to the prosperity of the private schooling system. Just in case the government wakes up tomorrow to give top priority to schooling and the schools under the parasol of the government start functioning effectively; how will the private schools cope with the change? Railways, Telecom, Power and many other public sector organisations have turned around completely from being redundant loss making to profit making organisations world class organisations. This is an important issue for private schools to think about.
Mentor is now a year old with this issue. Last year around this time, it was almost a dream for us at ‘The Activity’ to come up with a magazine that would bring about a positive change in the educational scenario of India. The concept of Mentor has been accepted very well by educationists across the country and our efforts have been laudable countrywide. It has been an amazing journey so far, for bringing out Mentor every month has been both challenging and gratifying. The constant inputs and feedback that we have received from the schools has gone a long way in shaping the content and the context of the magazine. We take a break for a couple of months now and we will be back with our June issue. I would like to see Mentor move to the next level by building stronger bridges between educationists across the country, yet another step towards making a better educational system. |
