The presence of an education system from the early vestiges of
time, chronicled in the oldest of Indian literature is proof, that Indian
society has been the torchbearer of advocating formal education much before the rest of the world awakened to the need for the same. Our modern day gurukuls or in other words, schools, are the primary basis of rearing a literate generation. They have, are and will be the building blocks of any dynamic society and to say that they are of no relevance is taking a stagnating step towards the development of a nation. Good morning ladies and gentlemen. The motion for todays debate is that, In this age of IT, school has no relevance and I <Name>, will speak against the motion. With the advent of the twenty first century, Information Technology has brought the world closer and at the same time has driven it apart as well. While it is available to those with sufficient economic resources, it remains extremely out of reach of those who do not share the joys of living in the urban fast paced life. With greater information at our disposal and minimal regulations to control the same, this deluge of information more often than not proves to be detrimental to societys growth. At this juncture, it becomes even more important to ensure that schools remain as the temples of learning and I shall illustrate the need for the same through the course of my speech. Firstly, the concept of schooling exists to allow as many members of the world community, irrespective of social status, caste, creed and economic background to have access to gaining knowledge. Seeing how the internet and most of the IT associated learning resources are out of reach of almost every single child in the rural or developing regions of the world, elimination of schools will plunge the nations towards an era where the urban and interconnected parts of the world have access to literary advancement whereas the rural population remains ignorant and illiterate due to lack of internet connectivity, or in other words, for no fault of their own. Next, while adults have the necessary ability to make the judgment call in terms of accepting what content on the internet is accurate or what is not, when it comes to children, it is their school education that helps them develop these skills to choose between right and wrong. With websites like Wikipedia, where students are easily exposed to content that has proven to be inaccurate many a times, elimination of schools and sole dependency on IT resources will rear a population that will be extremely misinformed.
Moreover, one very important aspect of schooling is the idea of
syllabus. Teachers, or qualified instructors, determine what content is appropriate for a student of which class based on their level of understanding. If we were to do away with schooling, irrespective of age, students would be exposed to a plethora of content, which may not always be relevant or right for them. Furthermore to believe that parental control will ensure that children are being kept away from information not pertinent to them is not logical. We are moving towards an era where families are nuclear, parents are working and the child is often left at the mercy of a nanny. It becomes all the more important at this stage for the child to attend school so that at least the teacher is one capable individual who can monitor the progress and if need be also serve as a confidant and pillar of strength to the student. Lastly and most importantly, schooling allows students to be in the care of a real human being, the teacher. She is the moral compass of the child, the guardian and the educator. While it may be easy to take facts of the internet, some that the teacher also may not be aware of, we are still nowhere close to replicating the individual attention that each teacher devotes to every single student to contribute to his or her all round development. Schooling allows for children with different personalities to be groomed under a common roof due to the versatile nature of the teacher. The Internet can provide the content but not the emotion needed to imbibe the content in the childs impressionable mind forever. Thus to conclude, I believe that the relevance of schools, especially in light of IT, is not diminished, but rather, it is enhanced like never before. A school is not just a building, it an experience that governs how a child perceives life from his formative years. The words Tamso Ma Jyotirgamay summarise the role of a school better than anything else can. Schools after all, Lead us from darkness to light.