Our New Education Policy and A World of Possibilites

The recent changes to our school exam system brought about by our HRD Minister Mr. Kapil Sibal is welcome news. What he effectively did was to firmly press the 'delete' button on exams till Class X. It is clearly a 'winner'. Over the last two years the ministry has been trying to do this in slow but steady steps. So, it might not not come as a surprize if, in the near future, we see this happen to Class XII school leaving exams too (we have already done away with Class XI exams).

Apparently, this winning move aims to reduce or remove the unnecessary exam stress that children are subjected to and let them concentrate on learning and realize their true calling in life in a stress free environment. They would then go out into the world and and pursue their dreams to realize their potential and contribute to the society in terms of job and wealth creation.

But is there something more than what meets the eye?

It is a shift in paradigm. For the last three hundred years or so our world is ruled by a ruthless and unrelenting measurement system. We classify and compare things. So a student who gets 92% is better than a student who scores 80%. Similarly a person who earns more is better than a person who earns less. And a larger car is better than a smaller car.  Likewise, an employee who is rated higher by his boss is much better than an employee who for some reason has been rated lower by his boss. We extend this logic to almost everything we see and do. A '34 - 26 - 36' is better than '36 - 28- 38'. A taller person is more appealling than a shorter person (though I believe proportions are always the same). A larger house is better than a smaller house. A larger company is better than a smaller company. A larger tree is better than a smaller tree or a flowering plant (that is why we plant big trees for greening purpose rather than small seasonal flowering plants, which can not only really liven up the environment with their beauty, smell and colour but also create employment for many and create wealth for the nation). 

Intutively, we understand that this paradigm is false. It does not breed operational excellence or innovation -- two of the most dreaded words that industries badly need today to survive and grow. How can we initiate innovation when we tend to measure everybody on the same fixed scale? Innovation is 'disruptive' and would often call for absolutely new ways of seeing and doing things. But our existing measurement systems effectively bottle up new ideas. People are simply too scared to try out. People refuse to engage in serious play and thinking since they don't want to upset their annual measurement ritual. A person who gets used to such measurement systems effectively dies (internally) in a few years and work becomes drudgery -- something to earn the daily bread for the next 30 years or so. Human dignity is grossly compromised. May I venture to say that it is a gross violation of human rights that goes unnoticed!

But man does not live by bread alone. A human being is essentially a very dynamic and adaptive system that yearns for expressing its true potential. Our meaningless measurement system kills all this and more. We are creating generations of robots whose only task is to follow supposedly 'sane' and 'well meaning' 'advices' from seniors, groomed in the same measurement system. Creativity, the essence of human freedom, and free will are  lost forever.

What might happen if we continue to do this? Darwin's prediction might be helpful to understand as to what might happen. He clearly said that it is not the strongest or the fittest that would survive but the species that are most 'responsive' to change would survive and develop. And if this is true then organisations that don't quicky adapt to changes would die. All natural objects (of which human being is one such object) is most capable of responding and adapting to changes. But can this be done in our present organisations? At present the answer is 'no'.

But how do we create 'responsive' human beings in our organisations? Certainly our measurement system would be at odds with this objective. A good response comes from understanding changes, quickly forgeting the usual ways of doing things, thinking about an issue from various perspectives, creating good number of responses and then selecting the best response to challenge the change at hand.

For this to happen we need 'Thinking and Responsive' organisations in today's context. Not the old outdated organisations of yesteryears that depended on the ideas of Taylor, the Christian churches and military organisations.  We simply can't measure people like the way we count our money. To echo Tenneyson's famous poem -- 'their's is not to do and die'.

Surely the top management and the HR departments have a lot of thinking to do on this. It is a challenge that has to be met squarely and effectively. Simply creating weird 'measurement score cards' would not serve the present purpose. How do we make people 'forget' old outdated ways of doing things? How do we make people 'learn'? How do we induce people to contribute through their new thinking and responses? How do we unfold the latent potential of an employee for the betterment of the organisations? How do we allow people to live and breathe like a human being and create better generations for the future?

Are we too late? Perhaps not. The change is now in the air. The old world order is changing. And this is the right time to 'respond' to this change.

A new world of immense possibilities awaits us.

Signing off for now,
Yours
dibyendu de