Stress to rethink education system: Jayadev Galla

GUNTUR: Guntur MP Jayadev Galla here spoke about the need to face the challenge of automation and the need for schools to upgrade from conventional education system to modern education system, in Parliament session on Friday. He was speaking on Right to Education (Amendment Bill 2017). He said that the Bill has only one objective and that is to increase the period for teachers to acquire prescribed qualification by four more years i.e., up to March 2019, which is good to lakhs of teachers in the country who have been requesting for it for the last two years.  

He said that since March 2015, teachers were denied from getting requisite qualification in view of deadline and, secondly, the state governments were not able to continue the process of imparting training to untrained teachers because of legislative hurdle. He recalled that current system of education was developed in the wake of the industrial revolution in the early 1800’s. The education system is designed to recognise, develop and reward only some types of intelligence. Till now, this has resulted in many children being unable to recognise their own talent, or even if they did, inadequate resources and opportunities to develop their talent.

Mr Jayadev said that the advent of the fourth industrial revolution, on the back of rapid technological changes taking place right now, one needs a complete rethink on the education system. He feared that with artificial intelligence, robotics, machine learning, 3D printing, autonomous cars, buses, trucks, and maybe even planes, the vast majority of our jobs will be lost to automation. He explained that even in services, low-end, coding, accounting, legal, teaching and so many more jobs will become automated.

Mr Jayadev analysed the skills and knowledge required by children, studying in schools today, will be inadequate by the time they are looking for jobs. He sought “the curriculum, the methodology, the duration and the outcomes need to be relooked at not only the primary level but at secondary, technical training, undergraduate and even graduate levels”.