"All the knowledge in this world" is at present termed as General Knowledge. Or is it "the information collected by the General Knowledge textbook writer" or "the information sought by the person who sets the questions"
How can anybody, let alone a child, study every knowledge 'under the Sun' and above the Sun and be prepared for the questions to come? The child who has learned the questions that the questioning person asks (most probably the person asks information contained in some GK textbook) wins a GK test.
It is simply stupid.
Why should a school child know the capitals of all the countries in this world? There is only a tiny probability that he would ever use it or need it. Of course, he may need to know the important capitals, say, 20 or 30 countries... but not more...definitely not. But the GK test and textbooks would contain a list of all the countries in this world and their capitals.
Likewise, most of the questions asked to a child in the General Knowledge tests are irrelevant and unwanted. This trend creates a situation where the urban child and the middle class child faces heavy pressure from its parents to learn GK and face the sorrow of failing in the tests. General Knowledge is included in many tests for recruitment and also admission to higher education.
The educational administrators of the state and centre must realise that even General Knowledge must have a definite contents. It is cruel to expect the candidates to learn every knowledge in this universe. It is practically impossible for any human to do that and neither is it necessary. Pressure on individuals to learn excess of information will lead to wastage of huge quantity of man hours spent on learning all these irrelevant things.
We should define essential and non-essential things. The textbook makers and curriculum makers must act responsibly. It is time that they realise the practical aspects of education
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