When I went to an English medium school recently, I came to know about an interesting new development. In hindsight, it turned out to be not so interesting: the school conducts civil service training from class six onwards! (No need to specially mention that they charge special fees for it.) The interest that arose in me about the zeal to create a sense of purpose in children in junior classes and to prepare them for competitive examinations faded in a moment. Is it desirable, practical or necessary to sacrifice a class six student, aged 11 or 12, for the civil service preparation?
How limited are the boundaries of knowledge at the age of 11. What kind of training can be given for an examination that has to be written after at least 10 years, after completing school education in the next six years and university studies in another three or five years?
So, it has to be assumed that the goal of training is personality development. Who doesn’t know that single-minded external influence during adolescence, the critical age when personality develops, will only disrupt natural mental development? Some attitudes and values that help to satisfactorily pass civil service examination can be developed through training. Social awareness, leadership quality, sense of justice, humanity and optimism are among them. However, the insistence that this training must start at the age of 11 does not gel with the laws of nature. Each child will have his natural abilities and weaknesses. What we should do is to create circumstances for children’s growth by encouraging their abilities and correcting their weaknesses.
What scientifically developed training programmes are these schools implementing? The excessive desire to cast children in the mould made by parents and schools will hamper their natural personality development. This will take away the child’s right to take his own decisions.
Encourage children to think independently; allow them to question everything; enable them to present their ideas in their mother tongue and in English; open their eyes to the reality around them; tell them stories about virtues, honesty, simplicity and selflessness; encourage them to watch nature — only so much preparation is needed in schools. As per what he reads, let the child have his own dreams about much greater heights than just civil service. Let them have their own equations with life and society.
Many years ago, many Keralites lost money after getting fascinated by tempting offers to become millionaires by investing in goats, teak and manchiam. The farce of civil service training in Class VI is a new tool in the imaginative art form of cheating in Kerala. This is a good example of how some deeds can go so wrong.
(The writer is the vice-chancellor of Malayalam University and former chief secretary of Kerala)
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