Education is the external manifestation of the internal perfection already present in an individual, as suggested by Swami Vivekananda. But unfortunately, our education system in India has been improperly stalled by an unhealthy rat race for achieving purely materialistic career goals such as getting fat salaries, achieving high positions within an organization for co-trial of power, or simply for the purpose of social prestige. Our education system across the nation is equipped with a collection of vast sources of information, data, records, and reports. The examination system is simply the reflection of mugging and vomiting that information collected in the classrooms and libraries. The greatest failure of our education system has been carrying ahead the legacy of British colonial rule.
The British education system in India was designed to produce well-trained and educated, English-speaking native clerks that can help run the British administration in India smoothly at a cheaper price. Almost seven-plus decades post-independence, we are still stuck with this sane colonial idea of producing upper and lower-division clerks only; and not producing true educators, thinkers, philosophers, innovators, scientists, composers, writers, or statesmen in the very true sense of the term. Hence, any attempt to break such stereotypes in our education system and encourage young students to look for developing and presenting innovative ideas is greatly appreciable.
A student should have an all-around aptitude for multiple disciplines during their formative years. The cross-pollination of different theorems, scriptures, schools of thought, scientific models, classroom based experiments and interaction with the teachers all have a positive impact in shaping the young minds. On November 19th this year a fabulous Science and Art Exhibition 2022 was held by the students of Indian Public School-Howrah at Sarat Sadan, Howrah, West Bengal. It was attended by Dr. Subhabrata Roy Chaudhury, the Secretary, The Science Association of Bengal, Kolkata and other dignitaries like school directors Mr Barun Kunkri and Ms. Krishna Nadani and renowned academics like Prof Ashok Shaw (Budge budge Institute of Technology), Prof. Saikat Kumar Basu (PFS/SAB/ECHO) and Dr. Sudipto Ranjan Bhaduri (St Thomas School, Howrah). It has been outstanding exhibition made hugely successful by the students guided by a group of dedicated teachers ornamented with several innovative scientific models, smart phone based networking and other innovative technologies together with a spectacular display of a wide range of art objects such as paintings including beautiful sketches, landscapes, ethnic cultures and various sculptures to mention only a handful. Decorative art objects designed from our daily used waste products deserve a special mention.
The participating classes UKG to Class 12 for the Arts and Craft Exhibition and classes 6 to 12 for the Science Exhibition. The teacher coordinators who participated in the exhibition to supervise and mentor the students were Ms. Madhusree Pal Choudhary and Ms. Chameli Roy (Arts and Craft), Mr. Samarjit Mullick for Science along with Ms. Sreejita Charkarborty for classes 6-8 and Ms. Shreecheta Sarkar Bera and Ms. Antara Biswas for History and Geography. Some of the highly innovative exhibition themes displayed were LIFI (class 9), Automatic Home Solutions (Class 11), Wifi Jammer (class 12) to Kidney Model (Class 6), Plant and Animal Cell models (class 8) and production of bioplastics under the guidance of Mr. Samarjit Mullick (Class 11). An outstanding History model on ancient coins, and a geography models like volcanic eruption and Global Warming received much attention from the audience.
The science models highlighted not only include good innovations; but, the students were meticulous in making these technologies available at a cheaper price to make it accessible and affordable to the ordinary citizens. The explanations and demonstrations by the students in various projects related to Arts & Humanities, Social Sciences as well as Science & Technology have been truly inspirational. A prize giving ceremony was followed with students at various levels and disciplines being recognized for their outstanding efforts and sincere hard work. A truly inspirational event that would encourage students motivated towards further higher studies and national building. The school management did an excellent job by making this initiative an integrated approach by including students from both lower and higher classes to participate in this exhibition. They deserve further praise for including not only scientific models; but also incorporating social studies (disciplines like history and geography) in making models and presentations.
Arts and handicrafts are also neglected in our school educational system due to various socio-cultural and socio-economic reasons. The organizers deserve special credit for making this into a holistic arts and science exhibition; where both branches are given equal importance. The active participation of both students and teachers in various activities like model building, circuit designs, preparing power point presentations, hands on display and scientific explanations, designing various types of posters and pamphlets, demonstrating simple classroom experiments with innovative future applications, in addition to preparation and displays of various sketches, portraits, landscape, drawings based different cultural and social issues, mythology, abstract art works and numerous handicrafts using recycled daily used products has been hallmark of this outstanding exhibition. The students demonstrated how simple materials available around us could be used ingeniously to produce numerous simply outstanding works of art, crafts and scientifically useful products and models at a comparative cheaper and affordable pricing.
The enthusiasm and cooperation between the school administration, teachers and students have been exemplary. Different groups of teachers took turns in encouraging and guiding students in developing innovative scientific, geography and history models as well as producing unique arts and crafts material that has been awe inspiring. Overall, the exhibition has been a grand success and attended by students and their siblings, friends, neighbours, and guardians. Several senior teachers and academics from other reputed local institutions were also invited to encourage and evaluate the students. Eminent academics and science communicators like Dr. Subhobroto Roy Chowdhury, Secretary, The Science Association of Bengal, Kolkata; Saikat Kumar Basu, Research Director, PFS, Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada; and Prof Ashok Kumar Shaw from Budge Budge Institute of Technology, Kolkata graced the occasion. Honorable Principal, Ms. Shampa Pal delivered the welcome address and introduced all the dignitaries. Dr. Roy Chowdhury in his keynote address encouraged students to actively participate in such activities and come up with new innovative ideas to help the nation to grow scientifically and industrially.
Prof. Shaw highlighted the importance of innovative designs for success in our future industries and appreciated the initiative greatly. Dr. Basu emphasized on the need to develop a healthy mind through our education instead of participating in a rat race for simply materialistic gains. He provided numerous case studies and examples from India and abroad to encourage students with the biographies of eminent scientists, innovators, explorers, and philosophers. The program was a big success abs should be a boost for promoting such initiatives in our school curriculum. Such initiatives can definitely help in building a platform for students with an interest to further explore their scientific and artistic talents and contribute to the well-being of the nation and our society. The program ended with the declaration of the results of the arts and science competition, and the names of the successful students were read out after being judged by a panel of academic experts.
