21st Century Education, A True Paradigm Shift

 Paradigm Shift………………                                   

Once upon a time the concept of ‘Guru’, prevailed in India. ‘Guru’ with his knowledge and experience was considered as infallible and represented the ‘total knowledge’. Just this scenario has reversed by the beginning of the 21^st century. Teachers are facing challenges because of the unknown, unseen and unpredictable future, which is beyond their calculation. The young minds are better problem solvers, decision makers and enablers too. Therefore there would be the paradigm shift in the role of the teachers from ‘a knowledge giver’ to ‘facilitator and guide’! Education can’t be bound to prescribed syllabus only. Teachers need to guide their students towards Entrepreneurial which is not only a venture of creation but also includes management and scaling. Core role of education will be to make students active, successful and a contributing member of the society.

It is a transition………………

It is a transition from rote learning to skill based conceptual learning; teacher centered classroom to student centered classrooms. Some thirty to forty years back role of educators were to prepare students for different tasks and the most important was to transmit the specific values and cultures. Presently due to the globalization there is absolute blending of this tradition which helped to give rise to unique belief system and the area being vast, the adoptability varies.

Boom in IT sector……………………

Due to the vastness of Information technology, today’s students are much more exposed to versatile challenges and they are ready to solve them using their knowledge and new information. They are no more teacher-dependent and wait for the answer from the teachers; they are supposed to learn how to learn of their own. Here the teachers are facilitators; should guide the students when they gather the information. So learning has become a discovery, no more the memorization of the fact.

With the enhancement of sources of knowledge, students need to work collaboratively in discovering information, here the role of the teachers are supposed to make the collaborative study more dynamic, help them to recognize other’s talent and exchange and alter roles while working in a project. This collaborative study will be in the school, and around the world.

Contextual learning plays a key role, where the teachers guide the students for skill development and let them know the application of the knowledge. The value of learning needs to be understood by the students otherwise the lesson seems meaningless, if there is no purpose of the learning.

Another important aspect of today’s education is, the community and the society, needs to be incorporated in the total learning system. Students have to realize that they are the contributory members of the global community.

Technology if not used as method of instruction the teaching will be incomplete; nevertheless it will be the substitute of the educator, which will be a destructive weapon for the society.

Onset of the pandemic, year 2020………………..

Since the last 20 years education was struggling with lots of ups and downs and trying for the utmost adjustment to accommodate the paradigm shift. But the year 2020, brought a big question mark on the education sector, leading to the near-total closures of schools, universities and colleges with the onset of COVID-19. Most governments around the world have temporarily closed educational institutions in an attempt to contain the spread of COVID-19.

What next……………………

Now the question arise, what next? Is it the end of class room? With a big uncertainty, but the only certain is that the coming days are going to witness a phenomenal change. As academicians, it is our challenge to utilize technology to deliver quality education among all. If we take the positive side of the coin, it can be an evolution to shift the focus from ‘marks based’ academic curriculum to ‘life based’ overall development; which was an urgent need of the 21^st century education.

At present there is a large gap between the learning and the requirement. In education, especially in India, the consumption of online medium was so far used as an entertainment; but it actually should have been the most popular and preferred media by this time. The onset of COVID-19, forcefully made this the only important media, around the globe and even in India.

So let’s hope for the best and give a call to all the educators, for an optimistic outcome and deliver quality education equally, universally and of course in a simplified way.