In his famous Minute on Indian Education (1835), British Raj era educationist Thomas Babington Macaulay articulated the objective of India’s then new English language education system was to fashion “a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern” i.e, a system which would churn out obedient clerks ever-ready to serve government and people in authority. Although after India wrested its independence from imperial Great Britain, the education model decreed by this English grandee has transformed in terms of syllabus and content, the pedagogy of learning by cramming and memorisation has hardly changed. In the majority of India’s 1.5 million schools, particularly 1.2 million government schools, learning by rote and memorisation for passing school and board exams remains the rule, rather than exception. This negligence and lassitude has cost post-independence India dearly. Not a single product or service such as the computer, internet or cell phone, which have transformed global economics has originated in India. The tedious refrain of our political leaders and masters is centred around how inventive people of the sub-continent were several millennia ago.
Very belatedly — 23 years after our affiliate magazine EducationWorld was launched with the objective of precipitating root and branch reform of India’s moribund education system — the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, formulated after an interregnum of 34 years, acknowledges that the country’s 1.5 million schools need to “move away from the culture of rote learning as is largely present today”. Throughout the 63-page document NEP 2020 exhorts educators from preschool to higher education to fashion “learning environments which promote creativity” to deliver “holistic and multi-disciplinary education”.
In our cover story this month we argue that while policy, syllabus and curriculum designers and educators need to urgently integrate creativity and innovation in education curriculums, parents also have a duty of care to develop this mindset in children at home.
For this feature, we interviewed a galaxy of experts including educators, parenting counsellors and paediatricians to present a curated list of effective ways and means to develop children’s inherent innovation and creative thinking skills. This feature also includes an enlightening essay by Mitch Resnick, professor of learning research, MIT Media Lab, at the top-ranked Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston, providing practical advice to parents to unlock the inherent creativity and innovation skills with which all children are divinely gifted.
This month’s mind-bending cover story aside, there’s much else in this issue. Check out our early childhood story on the importance of children getting sufficient sleep, and Middle Years story advising parents to take special care to protect tweens from sexual abuse, cyber bullying and other forms of abuse.
