India’s education system must adapt better to the real world out there

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Almost every field of work needs three kinds of capacities: technical, social-human and operational. Their mix required in any field is determined by the nature of the work in that field, which becomes clear when we examine the role of the person at the frontline of work.

In education, teachers form the frontline, and their role requires all three capacities. Software coders, who are at the frontline of the IT world, mostly require technical capacities and a few social-human capacities. The frontline politician’s role is also complex, as it requires social-human and operational capacities in ample measure, though the typical political leader does not need technical capacities to match a teacher’s.

This inherent nature of each field has profound implications. People, both individually and in groups, are unpredictable and have varying behaviour. They are often inconsistent, and change, not only across long periods of time, but even in short intervals.

All this has direct implications for operational requirements because operations are often about getting things done with people, including managing your own self. Even aside from this people-driven complexity, all operations are context- and environment-dependent. So, while most technical matters can be codified into knowledge that can be taught and used, it is very hard to do that for any of the social-human and operational stuff.

It is also equally impossible to do it for that part of technical knowledge which is about ‘know-how’ and not ‘know-what.’ For example, which vaccine is to be injected, why and when, vis-à-vis how it must be done. This underlying reality led to a near comical standoff in a recent meeting. In a group of 30