Shaping
youth for tomorrow.
Rajesh
Gill
EDUCATION is the backbone of any society, since it
performs the vital functions of informing, socializing and civilizing the young
minds that are gradually getting into the spaces, both private and public,
where significant decisions are going to be made. In other words, it is this
youth, the target group of any education system in a society, which shall be
giving a shape to the future social system, including the economic, political
and cultural. But as a matter of fact, the educational system comprising
schools, colleges, universities and other technical institutions happens to be
just one segment of the broader system that educates the young minds.
The other segments include family, neighbourhood, media, market, religion,
polity and so on. It is generally assumed that the spaces where our youth are
imparted education are only in classrooms, with teachers at the
steering, lading the process.
A few decades ago, these spaces no doubt comprised
the most important segment out of all the others, the family and neighbourhood
coming next, since the youth had little exposure to either market or media.
Their interface with religion and polity was by and large mediated through the
family. One the other hand, today’s young brigade has a direct, uninterrupted
and continuous interface with market, media and polity, while the family and
the school have been pushed to the background. Both education and market/media
have youth as the most important target group but with a subtle
difference.
So far as our country is concerned, it is liable to
universalize education which is a national goal and for that the numbers matter
the most. Having woked on school enrolment figures, the global pressures
through quality control measures have forced India to enhance its enrolment
ratio in higher education. This endeavour is being pursued by the country increasing
the number of higher educational institutions all over the country, resulting
into higher enrolment.
Going back to the issue, while the stakeholders in
educational institutions, teachers being most pertinent, have no personal
interest in educating the students, beyond completing (or not) the
syllabi in the privacy of classrooms, the stakeholders in market and media
successfully and aggressively reach out to the target youth. The inputs as well
as incentives in both the ventures therefore are quite varied, differently
motivated and ignited. The results are bound to be different too. Education in
this sense thus is lackluster, frivolous, dispensable and uninteresting. What
these institutions in fact are imparting is not education but mere
information, without any context, value frame or relevance. Under these
circumstances, the zeal with which the stakeholders in the corporate sector
work, with commercial stakes lying high, has no match with their counterparts
in the educational sector.
The consequence is a complete trivialization of
education not only in its content but even its essentiality. If education is
just information, one can have it through online programmes or open
schools/universities, as per one’s own convenience. In fact, going to a
particular school or college or university has primarily become a matte of
status symbol. With a huge premium placed on the brands, that too the
international ones, thanks to globalisation, one opts for a school or
university, mainly for the tag that it carries. In such a system, one can very
well understand the plight of a school or college situated in a remote rural
area, attended by all those (including teachers as well) not having access to
the better ones. How can one expect them to deliver quality education, when
they too are restlessly waiting for an opportunity to move to the core, in an
earnestness to join the bandwagon?
The most important question is, does education really
imply dissemination of information only? What about the live experience of
having a teacher in flesh and blood, who does not just pass on information but
is ideally supposed to guide and direct the students not only towards their
goals but even the means they should adopt. Has the teaching community
completely surrendered before the market and media choosing the most convenient
option? This is the reason why a teacher has lost the glory s/he had
been enjoying through the ages. In order to actually educate the highly
exposed, intelligent and difficult students, teachers have to be ahead of them
in knowledge(not in information), communication, interpersonal skills and
self-confidence. In the name of democracy and individualism, it has been
foolish for teachers, especially in higher educational institutions, to throw
away the authority that naturally goes with their profession. Yes, a teacher is
supposed to be the greatest friend of his/her students, most trustworthy of
all, but does that mean only gossiping, smoking and drinking with them, with a
non-interfering attitude at a time when they need an advice? Respecting others’
privacy in no way implies a lack of empathy and concern, especially when the
other (student in this case) desperately needs it. Even a robot can impart
information, but only a human teacher is competent enough to contextualize the
knowledge and deliver it to the young minds in an absolutely objective manner.
(Ab)using the classroom for poisoning the young minds with a particular
political ideology is no less than a crime,
for which not only the teachers but the whole society has to pay a huge price.
Therefore, in the process of education, both means and ends are equally
important. Not only what is being taught, but how it is taught
makes all the difference.
It is imperative thus that education is not any kind
of business; it is no business in fact. It is the most significant segment of a
society, which makes or breaks the future of a society. With the
commercialization taking the front seat through both the media and market, it
is all the more important that the education system is revitalized, with the
most competent(in knowledge and wisdom) minds being entrusted in educating the
young boys and girls just not towards making more and more money but developing
critical abilities to shape a future society that is actually civilized. And
for that, we certainly cannot afford to trivialize education!
____________________________________________
The write is Chairperson,
Department of Sociology and Women’s Studies, Punjab University, Chandigarh (India)
Source: The Tribune, Jalandhar Tuesday February 21, 2012.
