Why it’s Important to Seed Innovation in the Indian School Education System?
By Udisha Srivastav
Over the last few years, there has been a consciousness shift towards the need for seeding innovation learning processes in the Indian school education system. In contemporary, innovation is being deemed critical to modern education. However, in India, the school education systems aren’t underdoing enough changes to build an ecosystem of innovation.
On a brighter side, India has improved its 2019 ranking in the Global Innovation Index (GII). The GII rankings, published by Cornell University, INSEAD, GII Knowledge Partners, and the UN World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), have suggested that India has moved by five places to 52nd position in 2019 from 57th position in the year 2018. However, the ground reality of the Indian start-up ecosystem suggests otherwise.
Indian education system!
The current school education system in India is dumbed down to a limited number of parameters that supposedly define the potential of students. One significant indicator that measures their skill and talent are the marks that they manage to get annually. Though, it’s an intriguing question that why the prospects of students should be judged keeping in mind just their ability to remember important dates and information. In addition, why a student’s report card should only grade them on the subjects’ scores? Why not on their creativity, innovation, and imaginative skills?
Nothing could be more soothing than indulging in activities and processes that lead to exploring one’s creativity. For the same reason, ample opportunities must be given to students to be as academically adventurous and innovative as they could be. The exercise of innovation would help students to implement their creative skills outside the realm of academia. Innovation based learning and mentoring would assist students to realize their entrepreneurial abilities and would help them to set worthy long-term goals, and not just participate in the rat race to score the highest.
One can trace an astounding relevance related to innovation in the education sector. However, it is not uncommon to find that the linking between academia and innovation consciousness hasn’t yet established. All these questions and contentions lead us to look at our school education system closely.
A long road ahead!
It is to be annotated that most start-ups that significantly flourish in India have their origins in the West. Besides, a few start-ups have gained pace in India. However, they are continuously eyed-on by the West who has always been eager to pump the investment and resources machinery into the start-up businesses. Henceforth, innovation, and research are driving the steer of development in the 21st century.
A developing country like India needs to strengthen its base in terms of innovation and research-based learning. It’s disheartening to see that while India has an abundance of human resources; people in the country are the worst-hit due to the poverty and unemployment crisis. For the same, it’s the need of the hour to fill in the vacuum created by the lack of innovative learning processes. It’s high time that we redeem the country’s value in the international domain.