The present schooling system and its curriculum have not changed fundamentally over the past 200 years. The current system owes much to the thinking and prejudices of its originator, notably, T.B. Macaulay (an English Governor General) who prepared its foundation note in 1835. This inheritance from a colonial leadership was merged at some level with the recommendations of American educationists, most notably the Committee of 10, set up by Harvard in the 1890s.
The objectives of the Macaulay system are specific to India and do not reflect the concerns of the education system from Macaulay’s own country.
As a result of these controlling influences, the curriculum for learning receded further and further away from real life – and from learning in and from real life – to learning in artificial environments called classrooms where children are now fed huge quantities of so-called knowledge from text books for a decade of their lives and more. The lessons from such text books have very little direct or meaningful connection with the living world outside school walls. The ultimate result leads to a cramming of facts and information and an almost complete debunking and downplaying of any experience outside the text book. Read the rest of this entry »
