Is Education Only About Marks? Prof. Dipankar Sarkar (Dean, IIPM-Kolkata) is of the opinion that there may be a need to revamp the education system to address industry needs |
 It is indeed intriguing to note how organisations tend to show preference to good academic record, and use it as one of the major criteria for recruitment in entry-level jobs. One can understand the need for elimination, but many talented and competent resources could be left out when academic performance (in age-old curricula, taught in an archaic method) is used for elimination. A few days back I happened to ask a post-graduate topper in Sociology from a well-known university in Mumbai, perhaps audaciously, how human behavioural traits pass through generations. It was not to test her knowledge, but in context of one of our discussions. I thought it would be an easy one for her to answer. But to my surprise, she just did not have a clue and ended up giving me a long lecture on genes, without really addressing the issue on how behavioural traits, which might be acquired by one generation through behavioural changes, are passed on to future generations. I am sure this specific issue was not part of her syllabus or even amongst the most probable questions in her examination. On another occasion, I was bemused to find that an M.Com post-graduate from a university in Ahmedabad could not answer a question on why profits are shown as liabilities and losses as assets in the balance sheets of companies. These two cases would perhaps summarise the state of higher education in India and its by-products. The country sees hundreds of graduates carrying papers (read degrees) but this does not necessarily translate into tools that would equip them to face situations successfully in their professional and personal lives. Most organisations that recruit people for entry-level jobs shortlist applicants on the basis of past academic records or on the basis of a cut-off mark in a qualifying examination. Once the elimination is done, an interview is conducted to assess the candidates for the job in question. Some organisations also attempt to assess the aptitudes (skills and abilities) of candidates, through tests which might not necessarily have been tested for validity or reliability. There can be exceptions, but largely this is what most companies do. But then what is the reason behind this? Organisations would actually not waste time in assessing abilities in detail because if they do so, they may end up finding very few suitable candidates. Therefore, it makes more sense to hire fresh candidates and train them from scratch. Fresh recruits have to re-learn everything they learnt in the college classrooms and any HR manager would testify to this. This is so because there is a huge disconnect between academic learning and industry requirements. |
Another question to ponder over is whether we have the experts who can build appropriate aptitude tests. However, the purpose of this article is not merely to voice this concern, but to suggest, that although these solutions may make some sense, in order to actually develop industry-ready graduates, we need to understand a few core paradigms about education and then implement them rigorously across the academic curriculum. Until such changes actually happen, organisations would perhaps have to think of alternate methods for elimination of applicants at the entry-level. Education is about preparing the mind to take on life’s complexities and perform adequately in diverse situations. If education restricts itself to preparing students on the issues related to working life, then we can safely say it would help individuals in their professional life. In this scenario, one would meet hundreds of different people in various locations. In order to get to the final goal, a professional needs to be able to know how to anticipate the likely behaviour of a person or how an event is likely to unfold, so as to be able to perform in the most appropriate manner. To simplify complex situations, human beings are psychologically and biologically programmed to first categorise incoming information (trillions of bits of information from the environment and the people surrounding us which is received by the five senses) and then attach what is called ‘schema’ (means schemes, plans, format or simply future possibilities) to that incoming information. This further pushes one to then choose to act in a particular way in response to the incoming information depending on his/her schema. For example, if a man with torn clothes, unshaven beard, unkempt hair, and filthy looks accosts me on the street, I will first categorise the man as a dangerous man, and then attach a schema that the man may cause some harm to me. My action would most certainly be to avoid the man. Schema is basically an individual’s worldview, and a method for making sense of this complex world. Schema comes from one’s beliefs, values, attitudes, role perceptions, and motives. An individual’s capability to categorise and attach a schema develops mostly through personal experiences as well as through modelling (that is, learning from the behaviour of other people) and vicarious experiences (that is, learning from the experiences of others). The belief that one can perform adequately in a given situation also develops similarly. The more capable one is in terms of categorising and attaching the right schema, and the more one believes that one can perform adequately in specific situations, the more successful one will be in handling life’s complex situations. The belief that one can perform adequately in a given situation is called self-efficacy. Self-efficacy can be developed from the experiences of the outcomes from an action. An action or a behaviour could have two types of outcomes - positive and negative. If an action produces a positive outcome most of the times when the action is performed, we develop a high expectancy (high expectation or high probability of occurrence) about the positive outcome, and therefore this strengthens the belief that we can perform the action adequately. On the other hand, if negative outcomes occur more often when the action is performed, it could give rise to a lack of self-belief. But by the very nature of probability, it can be understood that the more one does a task, the higher could be the chance of success, that is, getting a positive outcome. |
