The Role of Economics
Economics! When was the first time that I ever heard this word?.. It dates back a long way…All the way up to 1994 when I was in Class VIII. The “news” doing the rounds in school was that we were heading for a syllabus change! And to make matters worse, it wasn’t just the new syllabus that we had to confront; what compounded the problem was that we would be introduced to a new subject called “Economics”. Economics would get a mere weightage of 30 marks and would be combined with geography. And for 30 marks we were supposed to read the entire text book! All hell was about to break loose….I remember having participated in a signature campaign; the purpose of which was to oppose the introduction of the new syllabus and this new sounding subject called Economics.

The reason why I touched upon this story that occurred sometime in the mid 90s was to contrast it with my “current state” where I absolutely love Economics. Being exposed to it “in the right way” during my PG days coupled with some active reading (newspapers) and watching select TV channels have ensured that the seeds of interest sown during my PG days is slowly blossoming.

Wonder what I would have done had these seeds of interest in Economics been sown during the school days – when the subject was being introduced. Why was I so averse to it during that phase of my life? The reasons are manifold:-

(a) The entire purpose of Class X was to (maximize marks) and the introduction of a new subject was a massive hindrance in achieving that above stated objective. Imagine – No previous year’s question papers, no important questions to refer to..All the extra effort and just for 30 marks.
(b) A new subject means that I had to allocate time from my already packed study time-table to Economics why meant that I could devote lesser amount of time for other subjects.
(c) Again with the objective of marks maximization I studied/mugged up only those questions that were mentioned at the end of each chapter. (I think we were given an assurance that being the first year – questions would be asked only from this section or something). So here I was – mugged up those questions – never bothered to understand the subject in detail or ask probing questions. And ya – I ended up doing a bloody good job of studying those questions – Proof: I ended up scoring 146/150 in my Boards!

In a nut shell – after reading Economics for 2 years – I had no clue what it was or how vitally important it was for our Nation. For me it was another set of questions to be rammed up in order to (maximize marks).

Today I look back and wonder
(a) What if I was introduced to the subject in a very different way in schools?
(b) What if my teacher would have taught me the subject with examples from the real world?
(c) What if we were asked to read the Economic Times and a couple of business magazines to supplement/strengthen the concepts taught in class?
(d) What if we were given projects that would require us to do some additional reading?
(e) What if we were told about how closely linked Mathematics and Economics were?
(f) What if we were made aware of the career options in this amazing field?

All this was never done. I don’t blame anyone. Am happy that atleast now I can reflect back on these points. Having realized that a whole of lot stuff could be done – hopefully I’l get an opportunity to share this wisdom with a few schools…sooner rather than later…..