Rahul Gandhi: Education system should be open

We need a smart phone type of education — open and connected,” AICC vice-president Rahul Gandhi’s opening remark at an interaction with 600 students here on Saturday. Using social networking platforms such as twitter, webcasting and video-conferencing, Rahul shared his vision on education and nation building with the students including those invited from eight cities at the Central College grounds. We have to transform the education system by making it open and connected and centred around the students,” he told them. The theme of his interaction was: agenda for the future: education and nation building. Making the students comfortable, he told them : Call me Rahul, not sir.” Encouraged by this, students gathered around him clicking away photographs on their mobile phones. Holding an old black telephone in front of the audience, Rahul illustrated how the telecom revolution led by his father, former PM Rajiv Gandhi and expert Sam Pitroda opened the system and brought the world at our finger tips. “The revolution that opened up the communication sector, took power out of the hands of 500 MPs and put it into the hands of people. This revolution decentralized the phone. We need to do the same for the education sector. We need a smart phone type of education system – open and connected,” he maintained as the students cheered him. He added that India’s education system was more certification oriented rather than knowledge oriented. “The education system should develop your dream. We need to create an ecosystem that is student centric and an eco system where teachers are supported through extensive training,” he added For close to two hours, Rahul in his interaction said multiple institutions coming up was not the solution, but important was how these would transform the education system. Brain drain is a symptom of a problem that people are not getting the kind of opportunities they want,” he maintained. As his interaction started trending on twitter, an IIT student told Rahul that children are more stressed because of the coaching -based system. We need law to make education stress free,” he added National Students Union of India secretary, Karnataka in-charge Aamer Javeed said: It was an exhaustive and one of the most interesting interactions as Rahul took interest in solutions to the questions raised.” Congress MP Ramya, who attended the session tweeted: The session went off really well, the students didn’t want to it to end. Rahul extended it by an hour.” Source: Education News