Idea of Development and our Education System

History of human civilization records that almost all civilization were obsessed with notions of one kind or the other. Each society revolves around a central idea. An idea that gains dominance in the brains of the majority of individuals. All their activities worked to promote the strength of physical manifestation of that single notion. Examples of the ideas which had hijacked the imaginations of the people of different societies in history include liberty in America, notion of egaleta in France, dharma in ancient India and idea of nationalism or racial supremacy in Germany.

People always justified their decisions and behaviour in the light of those ideas. If somebody was able to prove that his or her decision was just to promote the prevailing social notion, then he or she could justify his or her decision quite easily. No matter how ridiculous that decision might be.

In all societies, some individuals from different walk of life have done crazy things in the name of the dominant notion. Germans had done so many destructive things and propagated vandalism under the obsession of nationalism and racial supremacy. Obsession with some kind of idea is like a double-edged sword, and can inspire people to do unbelievably good things as well as motivate them to perpetuate the worst kind of vandalism.

Obsession with ideas brings enormous power with it, and it can takeover rationality. Romantic attachment with any idea can transform a rational individual into an emotional person. In modern days, as a society, we too are obsessed with the idea of development. The notion of so-called development shape each step of our public policy and individual practices. It has changed our family life, civic standards, market places, healthcare and most dangerously, our value system and educational standards.  ‘Development’ has become a God for modern man. We find the liberty to do a number of barbaric things under the desire to become more developed and progressive.

Our obsession with development is unprecedented because no obsession in the past was global in nature but ours is global in its reach. And space for other objectives and ends is shrinking. Now, the onus is on us to strive hard to make seeking goals other than physical development both possible and easy.

Today, the individual who takes education in institutions is no longer a seeker of values and wisdom, but just a part of future skilled labour force.

Our system of education is under enormous pressure and facing a strong threat from societies with a so-called pro-development attitude.  By development, I don’t mean development of conscience, intellect, values, virtue, rationality, creativity and sensitivity, but the modern philosophy of growth of physical resources.

Under the modern developmental attitude, the whole system of education is reduced to a human resource development mechanism.  Today, the individual who takes education in institutions is no longer a seeker of values and wisdom, but just a part of future skilled labour force. It’s the market utility which determines the worth of both education and student. Education and educated person is not an end in themselves but both are the means for other material gains.

Our so called developmental practices have taken away the valuable curiosity, which is the soul of human spark. Today education has nothing to do with pleasing the true human desire to know the new things of the natural world. The process of learning is not the joyful experience it once used to be. Commoditization of education has broken the whole area of knowledge into a number of watertight compartments. It’s very arbitrary to restrict human brain from going into another field. The art of questioning knows no boundaries. Human mind can and always ask different and unrelated questions at once. It can posses curiosity for history, physics, literature, and geography at the same time. A free knowledge-seeker like a human child doesn’t want either compulsions or prohibitions. But our education system has been broken up into narrow fragments, with several compulsions. Learners’ freedom to learn different subjects is restricted by the pressure to become a productive part of a highly productive industry.

Uneven growth of education is responsible for the weakening of social and intellectual checks and balances which structurally have knowledge in it.

In the era of extreme unification of ideals and dreams as a society, we have been sending our best minds to selected fields of education which we think will pay economic dividends in an unpredictable future. This irrational practice of ours leads to a unique phenomenon of uneven growth of knowledge. Subjects like humanities and social sciences remain far behind science and technology. Uneven growth of education is responsible for the weakening of social and intellectual checks and balances which structurally have knowledge in it. Nowadays, science moves faster than the moral understanding of society.  Success has become the crown of virtue. Desire to make physical development has subverted all values and parameters. Development has taken the driving seat and justice, fair play, rule of law and many more high ideals have been pushed to the back seats . It has changed the very purpose of education as well as those taking education.Students today are consumers in training.

The time has come to take back education and high-sounding words about education which have been hijacked by selfish promoters of crony capitalism. Then, and only then, will we be justified in considering education as a legacy of our forefathers like Mahatma and Gurudev.