I don’t think this article will tread new ground, but its an attempt at organizing my thoughts.
Observe events of the past few months. We have been forced to go from classroom lectures to online classes – video recordings of lecturers speaking about their topics. If we have a hypothetical college in Pune with ~400 students in a batch, and therefore ~7 divisions, we suddenly realize that we do not need 7 lectures, but can do with just one. And that one lecture can be conducted by the most effective teacher. So not only is a lot of labor saved, but students get the best instruction.
Question: Why not do this as a practice, if there are benefits all around? Why subjugate students to sub-standard teaching?
Thinking further, extend this to all colleges in Pune. Get the best teacher for each topic, and we only need one lecturer and students get the best of Pune, not just the best of their college.
Question: What differentiator is a college providing to justify locking in students to only their offering?
And naturally, why limit ourselves to Pune? Why not get the best teacher in the entire world?
There are two additional factors to take into consideration.
First, evaluations. How do we give feedback to students so that they understand how much they have learned, and what they need to focus on (this is should be the primary goal of evaluations)?
Second, degrees. What purpose do they serve?
This leads me to wonder why we even have colleges and universities in today’s day and age. Companies have their own criteria for evaluating applicants, and if they use college scores at all, it is as a filter (which is pretty stupid!). There are many that conduct tests online, so it doesn’t matter where you studied, but what you know (see Hackerrank for continuous iterations of this).
So:
- I can attend courses online, learning from the best teachers in the world. In some cases, I can learn the same subject from multiple teachers, to get different perspectives, and deepen my understanding.
- I can engage with mentors who have the right research, academic and industry experience to guide the subjects that I focus on.
- I can build a portfolio of projects to demonstrate my capabilities. I can contribute to world-class open source projects so that I am gain experience working in teams large and small.
Why do I need to attend college at all?
One response to “The Current Education System is Dead”
Fair thought, Shrirang. However, differ on views on not having degrees at all although I can relate to what you are saying. Degrees mainly serve some sort of standardisation that helps potential employers to compare folks and filter. Not everyone conducts an online test as the first filter and there lies the issue. I would be happy though if we match in the direction you are outlining since I am equally frustrated by the greedy educational institutions of today who are doing business in the name of education. I hope Corona kills the educational system virus that is plaguing our nation. Overall, great thoughts!