Education means the process of learning something useful for our lives. Previously, kids used to learn kindness, politeness and many other useful things from learned saints at the hut. As time changed, the process should also be changed but education shouldn’t change kids into machines who completely “memorise” knowledge.

For example: The sole purpose of language is to make communication easier and to express more clearly. But nowadays, language is assumed to be how well you memorise the answers to the questions in a given chapter and how nicely you change active voice into passive voice. Children are forced to read (not even learn) nonsense. We studied the biographies of Leonardo Da Vinci, Bhimsen Thapa and many more personalities. It’s good to learn about their lives and be inspired but memorising their birth dates and their parents’ names is insane. I hardly remember the birth date of my grandparents but I’m forced to memorise the birth date of Florence Nightingale. Some things are taught without letting the kids know their importance. I don’t know the importance of (a2+b2) yet, except using it to solve mathematical problems which I feel is unimportant too. We have studied that the iron is written as “Fe” in a periodic table but haven’t learned how to pay taxes.

These things are taught forcefully to the kids and so, I think this is the why we have comparatively unproductive manpower than that of foreign countries. The education system of Nepal makes the student a dull donkey. Actually, by memorising all this information, we are being taught to be lab assistants to foreign scientists and researchers instead of being taught to be researchers ourselves. We are taught to get a nice job instead of providing a nice job to others or being self-employed.

Though rote topics should be included in schools for interested students, they shouldn’t be a compulsion. Instead, more productive, useful topics and practical sciences should be included as compulsory subjects.

Even great personalities like Einstein were against the education system. So, to make our education system more productive, the education system should be changed in order to finally develop our nation.

Aryal is class 12 student at SOS Hermann Gmeiner Higher Secondary School, Gandaki