EDUCATION is not a mere source of information. It is more than attaining a degree in lieu. Education has evolved since ages, say the main lower palaeolithic culture in Europe. The invention of “acheulian axes” proves that the people of early stone age in Europe had knowledge about weapons and engineering of stone weapons, and that they earned a living through it. Then came the “Mousterian period” when people used their knowledge about ‘flints’ to earn a living. Though these ancient human beings didn’t possess a degree, but their knowledge about various things in their surroundings not only earned them a living, rather it helped their further generations to evolve.
Not only the Europeans, but we should laud the way education has evolved in India. Let’s not forget ‘zero’ was officially discovered by an Indian astronomer ‘Aryabhatta’, and that he certainly counted the number of days in a year to be 365, which eventually led to Albert Einstein saying, “We owe a lot to the Indians, who taught us how to count, without which no worthwhile scientific discovery could have been made.”
In fact, the Indian astronomers were so accurate about the motion of planets that they marked the movement of sun to northern hemisphere of earth, wrt to the earth itself, as what has now become the largest gathering on earth, “Kumbh Mela”. Not only in science, but ancient indians were quite conscious about health also, which led to the discovery of ‘yoga’. The second ancient civilisation on earth, “Harappan Civilisation” in Indus Valley astonished us with their mesmerizing management of cities and water management system. And in south India, the water management system certainly persisted in “Chola Dynasty”. I believe that a thorough study of water management system of Chola Dynasty could solve a number of problems of water management in south india at least. The architects of Mughals created some best monuments of India and their special attention to water architecture has been lauded by many historians.It is imperative to acknowledge that sex education also prevailed in india in its crude form which led to the coining of the word ‘kamasutra’, and the erotic knowledge art of India imprinted in the mesmerizing architechture of ‘Khajuraho’. Lord Jagannath’s temple in the holy land of Puri, Odisha from where I hail, is constructed in a way that it can easily resist thunderbolts because its apex is filled with gold coins. Its architecture is such that it can resist very severe cyclones.
So, from weapons,industries,stones,science,mathematics,management to engineering, one can predict how liberal education cum knowledge has evolved since 1.5 million years. These are the rudiments of today’s education system to a little extent. Hopefully in the 21st century, liberal education has become a topic of hot discussion in Indian subcontinent. Since I have completed my school education a couple of years back, it is quite easy fore me to criticize the current education system for not being enough liberal. But at the same time, I hail the fact that the draft new education policy of 2019 throws light back on liberalising the indian education system. But how liberal is the current education system in india? In this context, we owe thanks to the father of our nation, M.K. Gandhi for formulating a roadmap for basic education, which was quite liberal in terms of the all round development of a child. Known as “Wardha Scheme of Basic Education”, it dates back in 1937, but never really came into existence on ground level .
Some of its highlights were:
- Basic education should be taught in the child’s mother tongue.
- Students should learn additional skills like gardening,pottery,fishery,etc.
- Free education for all.
- Improvement of marketing skills by selling those products in the market.
I would not list all points, rather I would suggest he readers to search about the “Dr. Zakir Hussain Committee report” for more information about this very scheme of education.
Though it was introduced with the commencement of “the government of india act” but sadly, it never came into existence in real terms, except for some regions like Tibet and some other parts of india, where many of its suggestions were well implemented, but it never existed precising what Gandhiji proposed.
I wouldn’t emphasise more upon skill development, let’s just concentrate on books, not knowledge as a whole, because nowadays books seem to be the sole driving factors of all round development of a child, which is a harsh truth. In fact, we are eager to teach a child the alphabet, regarding it as ‘play’,ironically mitigating the spontaneity of a child to empirically ‘play’ at the same time. Recently the CBSE and NCERT decided to delete three chapters relating to caste from their class 9th history textbook, in the name of easing the burden of syllabus that cause “severe anxiety”. Now the question remains unanswered that why is the burned eased from social science and literature textbooks, why can’t we compromise with “high status” subjects - mathematics and science?
I can unhesitantly say that the chapters that have been deleted were satisfactorily liberal due to their content being logical enough for a child to grasp more information with ample reasoning of concepts. They help the child to understand the political history of cricket in the era of colonisation, the dissemination of class, caste, and gender dynamics through the history of clothing and encourage them to live the lives of wheat farmers of USA and opium farmers of Bengal by visualising history through their own eyes. By this way, history becomes conceptual history for a 13 or 14 year old child to understand more rather than mugging random chronicles of empires. Furthermore, it gravitates the child to indulge more with the subject with more zeal.
As I have said earlier, that knowledge is not just a mere source of information, it's an act of creative engagement with the world instead. Hence, we should aim to conflate information with an experience of creative engagement, so that it doesn’t kill the child’s joy of learning. By putting unnecessary burden on a child to learn everything - mathematics, science(physics,chemistry,biology), history, geography, computer, yoga, we are reaching nowhere in the pursuit of a better and liberal education system.
I wouldn’t hesitate to say that with unnecessary focus on examination and evaluation, a child instils the habit to read and forget. Hence, neither the mesmerizing poems of Robert Frost, nor the importance of Dandi March leaves a lasting impact in the child’s mind. Everything becomes a mere source of information, which is meant to be eventually forgotten.
I believe we should debate for every possibility of a logical and creative education system, which engages children with creative imagination overtly, rather than focusing on content of education unnecessarily. It is absolutely fine if a juvenile below the age of 12 or 13 years doesn’t know about Shivaji, Savarkar, Ambedkar, Savitribai Phule, because gradually, her creative imagination would encourage her urge to question and eventually, she would discover about Nizamuddins, Aurangzeb, Shivaji, and Birsa Munda.
Let’s talk about higher education some other day, since it is more important to build a firm base first.
I recall what Rutger Hauer once said,
“By not going to school, I learned that the world is a beautiful place and need to be discovered”
Let’s make schools, the beautiful place for a child to grow with imprints of a goldilocks education, till then let’s not just inform ourselves through the act of consumption in the pursuit of marks and grades, but engage ourselves through the act of enchantment in the pursuit of knowledge.
- Ritik P. Nayak
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