The simple reason why we are obsessed with this ranking game in education is because we are driven by the prevailing system where ‘employability becomes the central concern’ (to borrow the language of Shiv Visvanathan). This is destroying the whole purpose of education.
They said a right education system is one that gives importance to attitudes and values which is the frame of sustained growth of a society. According to eminent educationist Dr N M Bhagia, it is the attitudes and values of individuals to themselves, to their fellows, and to their surroundings which determine the decisions they take and activities they conduct. It is also said that the “man-values-education is a sacred triangle where education is a vital medium to imbibe, foster and perpetuate values in man.” However, due to faulty strategies we employ, we do not give value to these ‘values’. Our concept of education is always correlated with jobs or materials. According to eminent educationist V R Taneja, for failure to reach situations of profit and power, the students condemn education as irrelevant. Such people resort to deplorable means to achieve success even at the cost of their self-respect and dignity, V R Taneja added. For these reasons violent discords have become parts of our life. Hence, our society degrades in want of a sound education system.
For a long time now experts have been expressing that skill and fact learning will see their full meanings and purposes when values inhere them. It is sad to see that the people at the helm who talk of bringing egalitarianism and quality education are insensitive to the views of the experts.
According to Shiv Visvanathan, this ranking game has had a more individualistic bias. “Earlier we used to worry about the number of nobel prizes a country received and wonder why India hardly made the grade. Analysts failed to understand that rankings reduced the educational universe to a flat land, a uniform terrain where diversity and difference were ignored. What one did for economic indicators one did for education with even more devastating consequence. There was a literal economisation within the ranking game. In fact, rankings turned education into a dismal science,” he said.
According to Shiv Visvanathan, globalisation is often a seductive game inviting people into unnecessary comparisons and unreal clubs. “One creates a system where one wants to rank everything from the most developed nations, the finest cars, the most beautiful women, often without wondering who the rankers are and what constitutes the basis of rankings. When it is the ten most beautiful women in the world, there is a voyeuristic enjoyment as long as one does not ask what beauty is or whether there is a racist element to it. Globalisation creates unwelcome clubs and comparisons which often destroy an otherwise welcome diversity”, he added.
Well, what we don’t understand is—the Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD) spending huge amount of money with its top think tanks scratching their heads all these years trying to refine our education system, is still unable to prove its worth.
The urgent need to dilate on the issue at the appropriate platforms arises today. Hot debates and more hot debates should be encouraged by the Ministry of Human Resource Development towards refining the system.
