Greater kashmir, March 26 reports:
Next time your school going kid spells some word erroneously; don’t haul him or her up as this could be taught from prescribed textbooks in school.
Spelling mistakes in English. Incorrect solutions in mathematics. Wrong definitions in science. And Urdu text without punctuation marks.
These are no silly mistakes by schoolchildren, but errors in textbooks prescribed by some private schools – severely affecting child’s education in the Valley.
Ironically, even though the government is aware of these misgivings, they have “surrendered” before the “erring schools”.
It took them so long to discover this? Well.. at least they reported it.
Most of us are silent watchers anyways…
Talking of all that wrong and is taught in schools would not only make a good research paper (to think of it..?) but also actually go a long way in doing something to fix this state of affairs.
Truly said, the text book are of very poor quality, with loads of mistakes (why cant they even run a quick spell check?)
Anyways… what is reported here is talking of errors that are obviously accepted as wrong..
what about those that we know are wrong, and yet knowingly teach the kids?
what?
What am I talking of..
well things of importance..
1. For example in every school the children are taught the theory of evolution – not to speak of it as a theory but something that is made to be understood to be fact… that the children are encouraged not to question. Strange but true….
2. And in every school, in every map that we study now and for I don’t know how many years back.. the map of India shows Kashmir as part of India (no no. I am not making another anti-India statement here).. the Kashmir that is shown includes the part of Kashmir that lies in Pakistan and the one under China.. (So much so that for a long time as a child I thought Kashmir is actually larger in size than it is.. i.e. the one shown in map + some part in Pakistan + in China).. it is a lie that prevails not only on text books but also national news for that matter.. lies.. lies.. lies..uff!!!
Education! Information!
Your doing your part to point out the problem. Do you think that publishers of books can keep up with changing information AND keep costs low enough for students and educators? This is a difficult problem. I realize it does not address your specific concern but any changes are very costly. Isn’t it more important to have teachers that can show the nuances of the information and how the information can be verified?
Certainly there is a great need to overhaul the education system – the syllabus, the teachers, the teaching process, the books, the examination system – just about everything.
Talking of publishers – let alone the private publishing companies, even the books developed by the state board of education lack in quality.
Updating and providing latest information is certainly not easy, but mistakes like spelling of donkey as donkankey or grammatical errors in books cant be tolerated.
And talking specifically of teachers, sadly, the teaching profession is taken up by people who cant find place in more “attractive” jobs. And excluding the ones in the government schools, they are paid miserably.
Everything is a mess.