THE GIST of Editorial for UPSC Exams : 24 June 2020 (Transforming education (The Hindu))

Mains Paper 2: Education
Prelims level:
Mains level: Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Education

Context:

• COVID-19 has knocked down economies, stranded people, hit education, work and travel, and cut short people’s lives.
• If the pandemic has one lesson for humanity, it is that people, places and non-human entities and processes are connected.
• These connections have long been ignored in most spheres, including economic landscapes, food systems and pedagogies.

Green economy:

• At this time, there has been a lot of talk about investing in a “green economy” with more renewables, reduced motorised transport or travel, and more working from home.
• These are all good ideas but they could also be interpreted as mere tinkering at the edges.
• In another 15-18 months, perhaps with a vaccine in place, the understanding we have gained during the lockdown may be all but forgotten.
• The green economy, as promising as it could be to tackle climate change, may leave the discourse on development untouched.
• If we want long-lasting and transformational changes to connect sustainably with the web of life, we have to think about how we educate ourselves.

A different education:

• We must recognise, at an early age, the interconnectedness of the natural world with our everyday lives, and with the well-being of the planet.
• To accomplish that, education in history, geography, economics, biology and chemistry, for example, would have to be very different.
• Instead of presenting each discipline as distinct and separate, we ought to integrate their domains with the natural world.
• History is set in periods divided by wars and victors, but should include ecological changes to the landscape in a region as part of the lesson.
• Similarly, geography must describe the land and the forests, how cities develop and what these changes do to the coast and the hinterland, water bodies and the commons.

Illustrations and models:

• There is a renewed interest in using more illustrations and models to enliven learning in the sciences.
• Biology and chemistry need not begin with the periodic table, reactions and cells, but start by framing the organism and cells as located within a milieu where materials, energy and information are exchanged.
• Chemistry could begin with cycles such as the nitrogen, carbon, phosphorus, and water cycles, which link together the biosphere, rocks and minerals.
• This type of teaching and learning will not do away with previously taught knowledge.
• It introduces a holism where there is reductionism, and the foundation would be the linkages across human and non-human entities.

Small beginnings:

• Such new learning would set the grounds for understanding climate change from rising anthropogenic greenhouse gases.
• There has been a small movement to include the anthropogenic changes we have wrought on the earth into fields of inquiry such as literature, culture studies and history.
• Still, this inclusive thinking is not mainstream. A significant level of unlearning will have to be done along with new learning.
• Curriculum developers will have to restructure and rebuild materials used to impart knowledge.

Gaia hypothesis:

• The Gaia hypothesis put forth by James Lovelock is an ecological theory proposing that living creatures and the physical world are in a complex interacting system that maintains equilibrium.
• One might imagine the COVID-19 crisis as Gaia giving us a warning, showing how flimsy human life and the structures we rely upon are.

Conclusion:

• Unchecked rapaciousness has been unleashed by policies that support “growth at any cost”.
• It will ultimately fail since all goods used in any economy arise from the natural world.
• Our educational system needs to lay down the bricks for this understanding.

Prelims Questions:

Q.1) With reference to the World Elder Abuse Awareness Day, consider the following statements:
1. World Elder Abuse Awareness Day is being observed on June 15, 2020 with the theme "Safeguard older persons during COVID-19 and beyond”.
2. It was officially recognized by the United Nations General Assembly in 2011.

Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

(a) 1 only
(b) 2 only
(c) Both 1 and 2
(d) Neither 1 nor 2

Answer: C

Mains Questions:
Q.1) During post COIVID period what are the measures needed to transform the education system in India?