The Importance and Need of Personalised Learning in the Education System of Today

As responsible citizens of India, we all realise the need and importance of imparting quality education in schools. Have we ever asked ourselves this question that – Is only attending school sufficient for a child to learn and grow? Are our schools effective enough towards child growth and development? Are we able to meet our education standards by just imparting education for the sake of doing so? The clear answer to all these questions is No.

The present day agenda is not just imparting education to maximum or say all children, but it is to impart quality and effective education to all. There is a thin line difference between these two things. Today in the urge of earning money, the education system has lowered its standards. 40 – 50 children in one section of the class are enrolled for minting money. Indeed this is not justified. What is the use of enrolling 2000 students in a primary school, when we are failing to effectively teach even half of this number? It is truly a big failure on our part. Personalised learning and attention is the need of each and every student in the classroom, but unfortunately we are failing to realise this. Most of the students never noticed in the classrooms and many others just hide themselves in the crowdy classrooms just to escape the misery of learning in class. As per a recent study, it has been found that over 50% of students in Grade 5 cannot read at the second-grade level, despite primary school enrollment rates over 95% (Pratham, 2017). The Ministry of Human Resources and Development has suggested that the ideal student teacher ratio in a classroom should be 30:1 and 35:1 for primary and upper primary classes respectively. As survey has revealed that over 30 percent of the primary schools and 15 percent of the upper primary schools have enrolled more number of students as compared to these proposed figures. The education system needs to incorporate changes into itself in order to make itself effective. There is need to understand that a classroom consists of numerous children. Each child has his own capacities, learning abilities, grasping powers etc. No two children can be expected to learn and perform at the same pace. The issue is that presently the kind of classroom teaching that is under practice is one which has strict guidelines and limited resources. The teachers are restricted by limited time and resultantly limited teaching methods and styles. If seen logically, why is there need for a strict curriculum to be followed for each class? Ideally, the curriculum should vary according to each and every child and his needs. Some students are extremely sharp to grasp more than needed at a particular time. On the contrary, some other students may require more time or repeated clarifications on a certain subject to excel at it. Also, for some time it is important to ignore the grades obtained by the students. One effective answer to this problem is: Mindspark. Mindspark is a tool that ensures a quality learning-teaching environment. It is a bold move towards personalized learning. It helps the students to learn at their own speed and remains ignorant to students current grade, thereby allowing them to prioritize their fundamentals before moving on to the next topic. Mindspark also consists of a series of assignments, tests and questionnaires that help the students as well as the teachers to determine that exactly how much has the student grasped and where exactly he/ she needs extra attention.

By: Anuja Arora                                                                                                          

Content: http://blog.ei-india.com/2018/10/16/how-personalized-learning-can-save-the-failing-education-system/