Notes on Education

  I t goes without saying that a school that is running for profit will admit even a two month old baby to school as long as it makes a profit unless the government stops that. If not two month old children as young as two are being admitted to preschools across India. It goes without saying that the children get damaged psychologically simply because a school environment where a group of children have to be managed can not provide the love and care a child of less than five requires for an all around development. However, if that was not enough something far worse is happening. Children as young as three are being sexually molested in these schools as one was yesterday in Bangalore and more earlier damaging the child for life. The government must step in and ban any sort of school for children under age four. Just one year of preschool or kindergarten is enough before entering class one at age five or six. Parents need to be educated that very early school damages the min

Graduate of UBC An Open Letter to The Right Honorable Smriti Z. Irani, Minister for HRD Government of India Dear Minister, Please accept my congratulations at your new appointment. Many highly educated Indians and academics including myself are highly excited and pleased in finally seeing an energetic and capable young Minister for education in India. Unfortunately it has not always been so in India and as a result, standards of education have suffered. It may be mentioned that this letter comes to you from a person who has attained the highest levels of formal education, from the finest of universities as available in our world. These include the Indian Institute of Technology at Delhi for a bachelors plus masters degree (with distinction and top rank) and doctor’s degree from the University of British Columbia in Canada on a doctoral fellowship of the university. Later, there was good fortune to serve on the faculty of these esteemed unive

W ith progress of science and knowledge one would have expected that standard of basic arithmetic of school children too would have improved. However, surprisingly, this is one area where instead of improvement deterioration appears to have taken place in recent decades. Several surveys carried out in different parts of the world indicate that while children are becoming better at electronic things like computers, their most basic arithmetic skills are deteriorating. Even fourth or fifth graders are lagging behind in basic skills such as addition, subtraction, multiplication and division of numbers. A review of the scenario by this author seems to indicate that a primary reason for this is the fact that curriculums have been expanded much too rapidly with the consequence that far too much knowledge is being thrust upon youngest of children leaving them disinterested in the subject. Attempts have been made to include algebra at elementary school level as well as concepts from s

  A trend has been noted in arithmetic education of children across many countries around the world. It has been noted that while several fifth and six graders are unable to carry out simple addition and subtraction exercises, leave alone multiplication and divisions, there is a tendency to rush children even as young as three with too much learning by their respective school boards or private managements The need of the day is to slow down the pace at which education is thrust upon children while ensuring that whatever is taught is done so firmly. It goes without saying that the process of learning must be made enjoyable to engage a child. While many schools begin nursery education at three and include pre-primary grades such as lower KG and upper KG, the view of this author as well as several educators around the world is that preschool education must not begin under the age of four under any circumstances. A child under four is best at home under the care of a loving