Presi’s past and present debate today’s edu system
Times of India | 26 February 2026
Kolkata: Formal education today throttles learning, as it sees curiosity and experiments as distractions, formal education often rewards rote-learning and creates a workforce that is expected to bow to the status quo and fit into set "standards". Yet, this same formal education develops a sense of discipline and encourages people to question things, the very foundation that makes one understand what one is destined to do and what one cannot achieve: This was the crux of the two-hour-long interaction at the Udayan Mukherjee Memorial Debate, in which current Presidency University students were pitted against their seniors—former Presidency College students—on Wednesday.
Organised by Presidency University Debating Society (PUDS) at the PC Mahalanobis Auditorium, the debate, ‘Formal education today throttles learning', took off with present student Deboshruti Banerjee asserting that the system at present treated achievements only in the form of results, which, in turn, supported standardised formats and thus, compromised merit.
Speaking against the motion, Zaad Mahmood, now a professor of the political science department at Presidency, felt formal education was a marker of quality.
Present student Samriddha Nandi pointed out that learning now had little to do with the keenness to know the new and more to do with avoiding failure and that the education system was shaped to suit the ideology of the ruling class, and academic freedom was being curbed at every opportunity by branding them ‘anti-establishment'. Retired Justice Subrata Talukdar, who took to the stage next, felt formal education brought judgement, an essential base for the future, it brought order to a highly competitive environment, and unless someone was a genius, there was no escaping it, as this very process prepared the debaters of today.
Speaking next, present student Meghma Mukherjee, president of PUDS, argued the system was uni-dimensional, which highlighted the public-private divide that made learning unequal.
Pradip Gooptu, who runs a survey firm and is a senior journalist, said as the learning paradigm was undergoing a shift in the AI regime, it was only formal education, a classroom environment,that provoked questioning and hand-holding by mentors.
PUDS secretary Sampurnaa Sanyal asserted how surviving the formal education system itself did not take away the right to critique it. She argued that the voiceless was not being provided options but asked to conform to set patterns.
Former IAS officer and former Rajya Sabha member Jawhar Sircar claimed that formal education was just a portion of the entire education system, a "necessary pill required to be swallowed each morning", stating even the field of formal education was a "contested" one, where questions were raised and a classroom extended beyond books. The motion was carried through by a thin majority. The moderator of the debate was Kausik Ghosh.