Education of the Capitalistic Economy

Seriously!!!! That’s what came to my mind as the sponsored post popped up at my Facebook wall. The video began with a touchy tagline- “She will grow up to be a CEO, give her the extra edge early, so that she can take on the world as an adult.” I quickly cross checked the facts. Here’s what I found – According to the Harvard Business Review’s latest report, among the hundred best performing CEO’s only 29 are MBA’s. It also revealed that only one third CEO’s among the entire CEO’s in the world have an MBA degree.

The absurdity of the post annoyed me. Why do we want our children to grow up early? Why don’t we let them evolve & learn at their own pace doing the age-appropriate things? What’s the hurry? Why we project life’s a race to be won? Why we create fear that if they missed something like a ‘Teenage MBA’ they will miss the initial acceleration?

I become all the more disturbed, when I comprehend that the program must be created by educators/ professors/ teachers and must be backed by some business house, it means by the responsible adults. It highlights the fact that education has been commercialised to such an extent that the only motive is profit earning. Secondly, as it is being bombarded to every parent’s wall, there will be parents who will be excited to be part of it. The creators of ‘Teenage MBA’ are definitely aware that there’s a market to be tapped thus, after much research this course has been created.

I want to ask every parent & teacher including myself:

What do we want our children to be?

How do we want our children to achieve that?

Does the child has any say in it?

Are we imposing our dreams upon him/her?

In our quest to help him/her succeed are we losing their uniqueness in the world?

Are we nurturing a leader, thinker, empath or a mindless follower?

What is better: navigating the child according to his/her interest or succumbing to latest trends in the market & thus, following the herd?  

Let’s contemplate for the responsibility is yours & mine. As Pablo Casals said, “A child must know that he is a miracle, that since the beginning of the world there hasn’t been, and until the end of the world there will not be, another child like him.” In raising the future generation there are more important things than the formal education & the certificates that need our attention for “It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken adults (F. Douglas).”

#unfollowthemadness #revampeducation #redefineeducation #RIEDU

References:

https://www.topmba.com/why-mba/ceo-interviews/how-many-top-ceos-have-mba

https://hbr.org/2016/12/mbas-are-more-self-serving-than-other-ceos

https://hbr.org/2019/11/the-best-performing-ceos-in-the-world-2019