TRANSGENERATIONAL FLAWED PEDAGOGY : LINKING A DEFECTIVE EDUCATIONAL MODEL TO NATIONAL DEVELOPMENTAL STAGNATION AND CIVIC DECAY IN INDIA

This paper encapsulates an integrated socio-economic framework connecting foundational pedagogical failures in the classroom to national developmental stagnation, strategic vulnerabilities, socio-cultural problems, and fiscal strain in India. We identify transgenerational flawed pedagogy—a self-perpetuating loop where educators who were themselves products of verbatim memorization and passive recall treat books as burdens lacking practical applicability due to their own lack of understanding, viewing them merely as tools to acquire employment. Using information from a cross-sectional qualitative field study (n=25 across secondary schooling, higher education, and the early-career workforce; n=5 practicing educators) and historical paradigms of curiosity-driven education such as Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam and C.V. Raman, we demonstrate how this flawed model extinguishes scientific inquisitiveness. By analyzing participants across various academic and employment stages, we show how this model creates an "Illusion of Qualification"—exemplified by students scoring 85% marks while lacking basic conceptual clarity—which ultimately locks graduates into low-value routine employment. This human capital structural problem has adverse impacts on various facets of our nation, VIZ., structural unemployment, concentration of wealth driven by asymmetric knowledge, fiscal strain on the economy, reduced research and development expenditure, persistent social dogmas, acute examination despair (e.g., UPSC and NEET), destitution affecting social cohesion, continuing dependency and marginalization of women, and the systemic diversion of state capital expenditure into short-term populist consumption subsidies rather than structural reform.