FUTURE STUDIES – FROM FASHION TO FUSION

FUTURE STUDIES – FROM FASHION TO FUSION

Down the memory lane, I recall an attempt by the CBSE to introduce a subject called Future studies in early eighties as an elective subject at the senior school level. The course was a well-designed and articulated course to promote the students towards an integrated thinking about the future, its social dimensions, its cultural dimensions, the scientific and technological foreseeable dynamics, the scope in space technology and in trades and businesses. The course opened up itself to many innovative thoughts among the students provoking wishful thinking, innovation, enterprise and a logical line of thinking between the dreams and the possibilities. This also triggered intuition and creativity. This course was an alternate to other elective subjects like Physics, chemistry, Maths and the like in both commerce and arts .

Further the spirit of this course was drawn down to the junior school as an extention of the “Work Experience” and fired the enthusiasm of the students to extend their scope of imagination of things – how the transport system would operate in the future.. when I read the news of the transport innovation in china where the giant bus runs over cars, I recall how a similar idea was floated by a 8^th class student in eighties.. and projection of space shutteles what not…

But as the typical threat to innovative ideas in education, the pedagogues and educators who stood by conventional wisdom that the world works only with MPC or PCB or a select few subjects articulated such wishful thinkings because that was not the part of a curricular framework or a policy document. Some wondered whether the students are being transported to a world of fiction, others arugued how it would help in getting them bread and butter and a few others that the subject lacked focus… and not the least “Sir, please understand you are in India…” .

While I salute the commitment and wisdom of a number of people who stood against innovations in education, not because they didn’t believe in it, but it was hard for them to cope with such changes.. the system has always been a victim.. and we had always bargained with the competence and capabilities of our young thinkers.

So did things go with subjects like “Enterpreneurship”.. because even our univesities found that a combination of select subjects could not be substituted for purposes of admission to higher courses even if the learnings in these subjects had both a greater and associated value..

But I think..instead of lamenting… it is time that the New Education Policy takes cognizance of the immense and unlimited competence of the thinking and creative abilities of our younger generation and offers the much needed flexibility…

Investigating the Future as a logical exercise appears no more as a fashion .. it needs to find a fusion with the existing curricula in all disciplines both intrinsically and extrinsically. No doubt, it appears a difficult exercise, especially in convincing parents who want to prepare their wards to IITs when the kids are admitted in LKG. !!

The following words of Alvin Toffler in “Future Shock” deserve special mention:

“It would be a mistake to assume that the present educational system is unchanging. On the contrary, it is undergoing rapid change. But much of this change is no more than an attempt to redefine the existing machinery, making it ever more efficient in pursuit of obsolete goals.”