Teachers should fight for change in syllabus: Murthy

“Technology has an extraordinary potential to bring the power of education from the entire world to your desktop,” said Infosys co-founder N R Narayana Murthy.

Speaking in an interaction with students at Regional Institute of Education, here, on Friday, he said that technology has reduced the cost and time consumption and the vast information from across the world is now available at one’s fingertips.

Narayana Murthy said, “The kind of classroom teaching we have today is completely wrong, because teachers are giving a monologue without any interaction, where every student just listens. The students should be allowed to interact and discuss. When a student asks a question and raise doubts, all other students will start learning and there will be scope for development of ideas.”

When Sahana, a student, asked him to share his experience and memories on preparing for IIT exams atop the Chamundi Hill, Narayana Murthy said, “Those days, there were no coaching classes. For me, the main attraction of appearing for IIT exam in 1962 was going to Bengaluru. I had never seen Bengaluru, but my sister stayed there.”

To a question by Shakti Shravan on the principles and values to be imbibed in life, Narayana Murthy said, “Values are a set of norms, that every member of the society is expected to follow. The norms enhance the confidence of every member of the society in the conduct of every other member of the society.”

To a question by Harshvardhan on students aspiring to be teachers, he said, “They should fight the authorities concerned to change our syllabus, include attributes so that it will enhance the curiosity, observation intensity and problem-solving mindset of our children.”

Narayana Murthy said, “Our forefathers have plotted the movement of planets and stars, several hundreds of years ago, when there was no extraordinary technology. This was possible for them through the problem-solving mindset. This country will have a great future if our youngsters fight the authorities to implement attributes like curiosity, observation intensity and problem-solving in the syllabus.”

In reply to a question by Narayana Murthy, principal of RIE Y Sreekanth said, “Problem-solving and critical thinking are the areas that we are focusing across the subject areas. Curiosity is the new area the institution will plan. We are planning to come out with unconventional materials which can be widely used.”