Envisioning Community-Centric Education Driven By Youth
Education is the strongest pillar of nation building. Let’s take some time to understand the education system we go through. The centre of knowledge are the teachers, and the institutions with the brightest teachers and resources, is the go-to place for most students. With the premiere institutions being the IIT’s and NIT’s, the students certainly focus on going to such institutions for pursuing UG/PG. Apart from faculties and resources, since these students are some of the best in the country, one would only be surrounded by the best and that sort of an environment pushes them to do more. However, the number of seats in these institutions being low, requires the left out students who have equal potential to try out different approaches to excel.
Today, the focus has shifted from teacher-centric education to student-centric one, to help students get educated based on his/her strengths, interests and purpose.
This shift has happened because of the vast knowledge (well articulated information) made available to students at no cost or at an affordable price through the internet. With the advent of private entities like Byju’s, Unacademy, Vedantu and so on , there will only be a rise in content creators. Apart from this, the best of the research done in top institutions and industry are already found for ones reference in digital platforms.
Therefore, the question really is, who’s structuring this and making it available to the students in a way that it is growth focussed? In the Education system today, the teachers are expected to do this as a responsibility towards the students, but unless the faculties are passionate towards the profession and are constantly learning or exposed to opportunities and networks, creating a path for the students is a little challenging. For those, who’s profession is not their passion, or for those who wish to indulge in teaching and not mentoring, the responsibility of guiding the students certainly seems overwhelming. This specifically is more critical in Higher Education, where the outcome of their studies is a career choice, and most of the students feel that they are not ready!
How do we address this situation?
The answer is right in front of us! Youth inspires youth. So, if there could be somebody who could facilitate/drive together the process of bringing together the right set of people , resources and mobilise the students, it would be the youth themselves! In an Engineering course, there would be students who aspire to lead rather than being mere participants. Such students, from various institutions, when being mentored by some successful, passionate entrepreneurs and professionals, create aspiration and also a drive to do more for the rest of the student community.
The learning paradigm invites us to realize that all space is learning space, and community involvement is essential to its creation. - Community: The Hidden Context for Learning
Deborah J. Bickford and David J. Wright
The process of identification of such students itself should be rather rewarding to them. Leadership sessions on how to mold the aspirational minds of the institution while helping them in self growth, is necessary. Such students can then harness the power of technology to facilitate mentoring, access resources available on the internet and bring together like-minded passionate people to develop meaningful solutions.
We don’t need a mob, we need a group of motivated students who don’t look at failures or obstacles as deterrents, but as a learning opportunities. They should be able to inspire others that, with determination, hard work and proper guidance, they can surpass any obstacles!
