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Objectives Our objective in general school education is to let the child realise its full potential. With a good education, the child must feel confident to face the world, and must be even eager to do something on its own. Earning to make a living is incidental. The real life achievement is "our own contribution" for community progress. On these criteria, our education system has failed miserably. So we should talk about how to make general education meet these criteria. We are not talking of how to give 'vocational education to some, so that they get some earning. We are talking of giving basic skills as an integral part of general education. The major faults of the school systems are: 1. It is too abstract and dull for most of the learners, from the primary stage. 2. If they miss out on the early stages, it becomes even more difficult to catch up later and they are doomed to "fail'. 3. Even if they do succeed, the returns of this education are uncertain for the majority. The correction we seek for the classroom system is through the following: 1. At every stage, the teaching must start with concrete action. ‘practical" must come before the "theory". 2. Every skill must be learnt through its application, use it and then understand the why of it. 3. Skills must be internalised by constant application, inside and outside the classroom. 4. The system must provide for different pace of learning for different students. We should not force the pace, at least not in the primary stage of education. Rural Development Through Education System 66
