READING LESS WONDERS

If the world were to be declared a What’sApp University, the maximum number of graduates would have come from India. What’sApp University has the biggest experiment in the Open University concept, making the whole world one open university. No courses, no curriculums, content unknown, no testing, no evaluations, no authentication, no validation and the education is complete. This is the comical version of what we expect out of our educational system, install education as an app and the rest would happen automatically. Unfortunately, life doesn’t run that way, however much we try to operate in that manner.

Till the school and college level, without an iota of doubt there are textbooks, reading lists and reading materials which are referred to profusely even in the most conventional of the systems. Whether that is sufficient or otherwise is a different story. That the only way to do well in exams is reading, reading and more reading is a well established fact. It is distressing to note that in lots of areas inclusive of engineering PowerPoint presentations have taken over the well established system of knowledge assimilation. Undoubtedly, it is mortal blow on our educational system. Educational unemployables are a product of the same ecosystem.

Recently, when a management professor was asked to give a list of books of recent management thought for the disruptive technology age, the most recent of the books listed was over fifteen years old. Frozen in time. Schools and colleges are still fine, but once in a profession, reading does not deserve the status of even an enemy, to be given attention at times, actually it does not exist at all. The irony of the situation is that it is not required. These are the same characters who at least use rote to clear his exams. In the fast changing world, a pace which the world has never experienced earlier, it is a pathetic situation. How can you keep abreast without reading the latest in academics, research & practice and then assimilating and using it?

It seems to be a tall order. In the corridors of power and it’s highest echelons, it’s the note and briefing which reigns supreme, supposedly having provided the purest form of knowledge, sufficient enough to make any decision, affecting the lives of whatever number of people. The natural corollary of not reading, is a mindset of lack of debate, of discussion and worse still, it is the end of an open mind, so crucial for decision making. The unfolding COVID-19 saga has been a clear manifestation of this thought process. Then is the challenge of explaining your decision and making in happen. You fail because you have not gone through the well established process of learning and practice. Intrigued is an understatement.

YOU CAN FAIL EVEN WITH BEST OF READING / LEARNING, WITHOUT IT YOU ARE OUT OF THE GAME, WHILE PHYSICALLY BEING THERE.
Sanjay Sahay

Indoors is life!