“School is the advertising agency which makes you believe that you need
the society as it is,” said Ivan Illich in his book, Deschooling Society. He went on to accuse the teaching-learning
system of confusing “process and substance”. “Once these [process and
substance] become blurred, a new logic is assumed: the more treatment there is,
the better are the results… The pupil is thereby ‘schooled’ to confuse teaching
with learning, grade advancement with education, a diploma with competence, and
fluency with the ability to say something new. His imagination is ‘schooled’ to
accept service in place of value.”
Half a century after Illich wrote those words, the academic situation
has only worsened. It is producing robots with specialised expertise but
without certain desirable values. This has happened largely because we live in
a global system that has given undue importance to wealth and wealth creation.
Wealth is the ultimate determiner of success in the globalised world. Wealth is
the final goal of life.
There is nothing wrong with creating wealth. On the contrary, wealth is
good and let there be more of it. But the services offered by the expert should
have other objectives than mere creation of wealth for himself. The medical
expert should place the wholesome health of the patient above all other
considerations. The engineer should seek perfection in his work, and so on.
We have coaching institutes that fill the brains of our students with
more and more knowledge or information that will help them pass the entrance
exams which are becoming increasingly tougher. Those who can’t pass those
gruesome tests may buy admissions to the institutions of higher learning by
bribing. Either way, the admission is quite ‘costly’ and once the learning is
over the person is naturally driven to making up for the costs.
Perhaps, the solution lies in altering the global system itself. Instead
of wealth, certain basic human values should become the focus of the entire
system itself. Even our religions have degenerated into money-minting
institutions.
The latest In[di]spire theme
#EducationSystem prompted me to write this. Blogger Vartika Goyal suggested the theme
wondering whether the present system is encouraging only bookish learning to
the detriment of practical skills. At school level, perhaps, the concern is
valid because little stress is laid on practical skills at school. However, the
higher education levels produce excellent doctors, engineers and other
professionals. What it fails to create are good human beings.
Education is a process.
ReplyDeleteIn Education some concentrate on acquiring simpler to measure concepts.
Yet education is less about special measurements taken at a set date.
Real education is about acquiring sense of enjoyment, self-satisfaction, with confidence can eventually resolve almost anything difficult.
Rewards can, often do flow, to those who solve difficult problems.
The impossible just take a little longer...
: - )
.
Ideally education should create masters, not mere students who pass exams. The ideal is seldom achievable as I learnt from long experience.
DeleteI think the balance between left brain and right brain are being lost. Either we become too brain driven without considering softer aspect, or we become too soft and do not want to look at data. Evaluating system in such a diverse country has to be objective otherwise we shall be engaged in lifelong legal battles, because subjective evaluation will vary. Unless we have good man making education, where we impart human values, no education, subjective or objective, practical or theory oriented is going to succeed.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what you have said,sir.We want a change in our education system so that children can become good human beings rather than ROBOTS.
ReplyDelete