Essence of Education:
Volumes of books have been written on the significance of education in life. The crux of all those writings and perspectives is that education means the fostering of a liberated mental disposition through unhindered development, of innate qualities of a human being. There is a fine line of difference between literacy and education. UN defines literacy as the capacity to read, speak and write whereas education is defined as the wisdom of what to read, speak and write. Education also accounts for the awakening of the intellectual capacity and development of a desegregated and a happy life. This acclimatisation requires strengthening of character and development of a mental fabric of the moral fibre. Today education in India seems to be at variance with these standards.
The environment in school, colleges or universities is pretty unsettling with different forces competing with one another in polluting the academic ambience. Due to substantial demands of the modern consumer based market driven civilisation, even toddlers are being pushed off the dependability and amiability of their homes into the strange world of the classrooms.
Over the years, the demand for child’s education has grown by leaps and bounds. But this has more to do with the consumerism than with innovation. All and sundry from the poorest of the poor to the opulent, concedes the value of education in the overall sprouting of children. Fundamentally, the purpose of education is three fold development-Physical, Mental and spiritual. An ideal educational system must do justice to all these three dimensions.
The importance of education and learning is to allow the individual to put his potentials to the best use for the greater good. Education is an essential requirement for brain storming. Additionally it constructs a man into a right thinker and a correct decision-maker. A person can pull off miracles for the society by extracting knowledge from the outside world. Any person who wants to have a lasting impact on society needs to harness rationality which is obtained through education. Proper education helps a person to break a larger problem into smaller chunks which can be solved easily. A properly educated person acquaints himself with past history, so that he can have understanding of the presentand can arrive at better conclusions. With learning he finds himself in a room with all the windows open to the external world. A well learned man is a more reliable worker, with a well-developed thought process, a better citizen, a centre piece of influence, repository of knowledge, an immense pleasure to his community and honour to his country. A nation is pre-eminent only in proportion of its breakthrough in education.
Pre-Independence to Post-Independence Evolution of education in India
If we take in view the structure of Indian education policy, we will find that post-independence, the swiftness of educational evolution has been unprecedented by any standards. The GOI has been devoted in ensuring universal elementary education (primary & upper primary) education for all the children aged 6-14 years of age through its flagship programme viz. Sarva Shikha Abhiyan. It is the foundational structure behind imparting of large scale education in India. In 19th century history of the subcontinent, Charles wood’s despatch of 1854 exerted an influence on education in British India as it endorsed vernacular languages in the primary education. It was a landmark arrangement which formed a type of guide for the evolution of education policy in India and implemented the Macaulayan idea of Anglicised education. The despatch was sent to the then governor general Dalhousie and it proposed the use of Anglo-Vernacular for high school and English to be the medium for college-level Education. It is often known as the “MAGNA-CARTA” of English education in India. The suggestions and recommendations in the Wood’s despatch had an impact on primary & higher education, women’s education, systemisation of educational hierarchy, English education for Indians, Vernacular education, teacher’s training, secular education and grants-in-aid.
Constitutionality behind the RTE
Education is one of the fastest growing domains in the service sector of the Indian economy. Post-independence, the authority for the extension, evolution and development has been largely rested on the state. Education was recently given the status of a Fundamental Right. On April 1 2010, India had outstretched a historic milestone in the country’s fight for children’s Right to Education. The constitution (86th amendment) act 2002 made primary education an enforceable fundamental right. Consequently, the right of children to free and compulsory education (RTE) act 2009 and the added article 21A came into force in 2010.
Paradigm shift in the New Education Policies (1986-2020):
India’s first education minister anticipated a resolute control by the central government over education throughout the length and breadth of our country. The union government entrenched a unified educational system via University education commission, university Grants commission, and secondary grants commission.Conscious of their responsibilities and the ever looming threat associated with ignorance and illiteracy, the leaders in the newly freed country got together and pledged to free citizenry from the ravages of uncouthness of an uneducated mind. National Education commission, popularly known as Kothari commission, was an ad hoc commission laid out by the government of India in 1964-66 to evaluate all facets of educational sector in India. It made headway towards framing of general guidelines and policies for the development of education in India. The recommendations of this commission formed the guidelines for the education policy framed by Rajiv Gandhi in 1986.
Changing times need changing ways to educate the children who would become part of the new age workforce. This idea had been addressed by numerous committees formed on education by the Indian government in 1990s till 2010s. The New Education Policy of 2020 seems to have a rootedness and certain amount of pride in Indian ethos. It aims to transform India’s education system. The basis of this policy emphasizes on an integrated development of human beings adept of coherent thoughts and actions, owning compassion and empathy, gallantry, resilience & scientific temper. It focuses on productive and contributing well-formed citizens for building an unprejudiced, inclusive and plural society as envisaged by the nation builders. The elementary ideas and principles that will lead the way towards the overall success of the education system at large and individual institutions within it are:
1: Acknowledging, segregating and fostering the remarkable capabilities of each student.
2: Significance of conceptual understanding
3: Ethics and human values
4: Creativity and critical thinking
5:“Light but tight” statutory structure to ensure integrity, transparency and resource efficiency.
Has education become a rat race-where would be the breakthrough
Parents on many occasions are participating parties to the throbbing experiences of their children. But, they mostly fall prey to the herd behaviour of the immediate society which has certain pre-set earmarks of a successful student which has to be lived up to. This creates a ferocious rat race among the students who are supposed to enjoy and immerse themselves in the education. Education is supposed to be augmenting, constructive, innovative and a learning process, but it mostly becomes monotonous. The satisfaction of learning seems to be a thing of the past due to the rat race specifically brought into the system after the ‘dot com’ bubble and the proverbial rise of the sunshine IT sector, which is ironically yet to harness its full potential in India. The education system should inculcate the most progressive pedagogy and drive innovation instead of churning out cubicle culture appreciators.
Remedial standards should be brought that can make children and youth education more creative and absorbing. These can provide fun-filled distressing learning experience for children. Vocational training which brings out such facets should be laid emphasis on. Atishi Marlena has done something similar in education sector in New Delhi that is being appreciated not only by the parents but also by the observers around the world.
Shadows of the education system-demerits and connection to Voting Behaviour:
Today, the main concern that plagues education is our failure to treat it as a comprehensive all-encompassing system in its own rights. It is regarded merely as a ticket for university education. Single evaluation system, a syllabus which is not only unwieldy but often redundant are some of the prominent demerits of our current educational structure. It is a well-nigh unfeasible to judge a student’s proficiency through a single examination of three hours. Afresh, it is a sadirony that the best teachers are expected to be employed in government schools, while parents tend to send their children to the private schools. Most people will complain about the abysmal quality of the teachers in the government schools while paying sky-high fees for private schools. This is because unfortunately educational structures have become the clean slate over which tonnes of black money can be funnelled through as white without ruffling too many feathers. This is a sector where real estate, construction, local political heavy weights come together to convert their ill-gotten wealth into projects and large scale long term assets. Many doubtful projects of colleges, institutes and schools have lion share of funding from dubious sources. How these people easily get away while carrying out such moral crimes? It has to do with the image of the local political leader who markets his image as provider of education. This connects the education sector to the gullible masses of voters.
The act of voting is one of the salient contributions every single voter can make to ensure a functioning democracy. Yet perennially, a depressing number of qualified voters choose not pull the levers of power. There are perils of having non participant eligible voters and more dangerously ill-informed voters. Many citizens choose not to vote, in an electoral ‘no-show’.They represent the most dangerous block in healthy politics. Voter education is essential for participation of the voters in the electoral polity. Such type of education implies imparting citizens with knowledge on democracy with rudimentary information about engaging in the electoral process. Education policy must bring in some devices which inculcate such education at the school level itself when the mind is soft
enough to embed the idea of participatory democracy. There are various institutions that focus on voter education and their goal is to consolidate democratic values by spiking the education level among the voters. The universal adult franchise also makes the young voters empowered. It is through a sound education that this right can be fully made functional.
Mindless commercialisation of education should be ceased. There should be a limit of financial involvement of private players in education. Too much involvement of such profit driven private parties drives the education mafia. It guides the flow of the black money into the education sector which ultimately plays out against the essence of the RTE. The government must address the threshold of involvement of private corporations in the education field which is actually not an avenue for business and profit. India cannot continue its existence while basking in the success and glory of just the IIMs, IITs and AIIMS without addressing these issues.
Biswarup Mukhopadhyay has made important contributions in this write up.