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Magazine
EDUCATION
Agenda for change
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In an era of late capitalism, which has exacerbated the idealisticpragmatic divide in education, there is an urgent need to work out an effective philosophy that is at once dynamic and forward looking, matching the needs of technology with the cultivation of the heart, writes SACHIDANANDA MOHANTY.
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THERE is an urgent need today for thinking through a new system of national education, commensurate with a globalised world. In most quarters, this is seen in terms of newly available job markets and rising economic opportunities for a mobile work force. It has logically meant the devaluation of traditional systems of knowledge such as the liberal arts, humanities, and social sciences in favour of disciplines seen to drive the newer engines of techno-economic change.
Such a course, attractive but short-sighted, will be a colossal error. There is a gross inadequacy in today's thinking regarding the current trend in globalisation. The right education for the global citizen, I argue, could come by eschewing the so-called "global" models, uniform in approach. Rather, we need methods and tools that are pluralistic, sensitive to the needs of regions, societies, and cultures. The traditional systems of education in the East or the West had generally seen merit in creating a context for learning that was free from the pressures of immediate social or political exigencies. Although largely class bound, catering to the elite of different kinds, the best systems always prided themselves in being idealistic. Actually, they served pragmatic as well as idealistic goals. This idealistic-pragmatic balance in education worked fairly well in the West till the onset of the Industrial Revolution in the early 19th Century. The invention of the steam engine, the development of railroads and mercantile activity aided by an overseas colonial empire, led to the rise of laissez-faire capitalism and the concept of social Darwinism. Aided by a fortuitous set of circumstances including the right to produce and inherit private property, the upper-class European male fashioned a system of education, guaranteed to promote inequity at home and abroad.
In this light, it is amazing that some of the leading Victorian intellectuals propounded a system of education that was avowedly universal and democratic, exemplified in the writings of James and John Stuart Mill, Cardinal Newman, Charles Dickens, Thomas Carlyle as well as Utilitarians like Jeremy Bentham and others. While F.R. Leavis, T.S. Eliot and other humanists decried the techno-Benthanite civilisation, there was precious little in the West that offered a radical challenge to the dominant paradigm.
What then are our options in an era of late capitalism, which has exacerbated the idealistic-pragmatic divide and effectively witnessed the dethronement of all socialistic experiments? What system shall we in India fashion out that could effectively challenge the neo-colonial and hegemonic West? The optimists believe that today Indian intellectuals straddle across the globe in influential departments of study, that the Indian IT industry has outpaced the Chinese. The sooner Indian education gears itself to match the international expectations it is said, the better it is for our children!
But is this true? Aren't we at the risk of being part of the service industry of the advanced West, which has begun to block outsourcing from the so-called Third World even while singing the free market tune? Merely opposing the West in all fields including education is clearly not going to take us far. We need to work out an effective philosophy of education that is dynamic, forward looking, matching the needs of technology with the cultivation of the heart. In this sense, the UGC's newly introduced concept paper regarding the model University act appears to be flawed. It is partial in thinking and lacks conceptual clarity and an integral vision. A massive overhaul of the system is not possible without a corresponding rise in budgetary resources for education. This can be achieved by vigorously pursuing peace with our hostile neighbours. We could then cut our defence spending and manpower, reorient the defence to suit the newer requirements of our security environment and threat perception.
Secondly, we must involve the corporate sector for public philanthropy and welfare. Today such philanthropy is largely in the domain of religion. Indian business and industry, through the CII or FICCI must be made aware of their social responsibilities. Ultimately this could come through political pressure generated by citizen groups. Today organisations campaigning for better governance like the Lok Satta are in their infancy. What we need are more such groups and their ability to influence the political and business class for national education. The new policy of National Education should steer clear of all doctrinaire approaches: religious or spiritual. It shall affirm freedom, flexibility, and creativity in embracing the totality of the human self as the pivot of the new system of education. It shall eschew all artificial binaries like the sacred-secular and would seek to prevent the politicisation of religion by promoting the spiritual view of life, enunciated by visionaries like Sri Aurobindo that is non-divisive, non-sectarian and transcends the barriers of human ego.
In practical pedagogic terms, what would be the contours of such a system? Here are some:
In all spheres, the new system should attempt to bridge the gap between the elite and common schools, the State supported institutes vis-à-vis the elite private universities. The idea is not to pull down everything to a common level of mediocrity but to prepare vision documents, prioritise institutional goals within a reasonable time frame, fix rewards and disincentives and link the entire educational system to a national grid, while making adequate provision for regional/local variations. This means, for instance, that while syllabus could be local; national level tests in various disciplines, commonly administered, could determine students' skill and aptitude for higher studies.
The new system should focus on the local, the regional, the national, and the international/global in that order. Currently the process unfortunately is the reverse to the detriment of all.
At the school level, both in the State and private sector, the new policy shall suggest the strict use of the three language formula for all children from primary section onwards so that the elite is rooted to the ground realities constantly.
In the same manner, the school curriculum shall attempt a balance between the arts, aesthetics, music, and the sciences.
At the College and University level for all the science, technology and business schools, it will be mandatory for students to register for courses in the humanities and social sciences.
Value education will occupy an important part in the new system. This will avoid instructions through sermons or doctrines both secular and religious. Instead, through imaginative modules, taught in a creative manner through student participation, children should be exposed to the nobility of human action, the virtue of selfless works, development of a national spirit free from jingoism or fanaticism, the importance of a decolonised mind, the growth of a national temper free from insularity and revivalism. They will also learn the value of dialogue and the significance of cooperative action. They will learn the importance of competitive spirit for the sake of all round excellence. But they will relate this spirit to cooperative endeavours through the performance of many group tasks and social campaigns such as the spread of literary programmes in the neighbourhood and districts. This will free the present dominant mindset from greed for individual success anchored to a self-centred parasitical behaviour. The children will, in this sense, learn of India's rich pluralistic traditions, the Indic, the Islamic, the Buddhist, the Jain, the Sufi and the many orthodox and heterodox approaches, so that the achievement of the meritorious young is tempered by their sense of privilege, their responsibility towards the dispossessed many and their participation in nation building.
The new system should actively promote physical culture as a co-curricular activity at the school and college education. The government and the corporate sector should be called upon to participate in the promotion of sports. Currently sports seem to be confined to the TV screen. This has to change if India is to have a trained manpower backed by all round physical fitness. In this sense, Swami Vivekananda's message to the Indian youth has not lost its relevance in today's context.
Quality education has always been perceived as the preserve of the few. We can ill afford this approach any longer. Promotion of islands of excellence in a sea of mediocrity and ignorance will surely be an invitation for disaster. Only an education, truly national in spirit, and wider in reach, a spiritualised education, bold in vision and far reaching in sweep, can avert this. It is time we put this into action for building a new India.
The writer is a Professor of English Literature at the University of Hyderabad.
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