Part I

Reformation of education and rebulding the society through education

Dr.M.Govindarajan,

jananamthapas@gmail.com

               

Plato believed that children would never learn unless they wanted to learn. In ‘The Republic’, he said, "...compulsory learning never sticks in the mind." An important educational debate in the time of the Roman Empire arose after Christianity had achieved broad acceptance. In the modern world, economic growth and the spread of democracy have raised the value of education and increased the importance of ensuring that all children and adults have access to high quality and effective education. Modern education reforms are increasingly driven by a growing understanding of what works in education and how to go about successfully improving teaching and learning in schools.

Western classical taught from the 18th to the 19th century has weaknesses that inspired reformers. Classical education is most concerned with answering the who, what, where, when and why? questions that concern a majority of students. Unless carefully taught, group instruction naturally neglects the theoretical "why" and "which" questions that strongly concern a minority of students. Classical education in this period also depreciated local languages and cultures in favor of ancient languages (Greek and Latin) and their cultures. This produced odd social effects in which an intellectual class might be more loyal to ancient cultures and institutions than to their native vernacular languages and their actual governing authorities.

The basic program was to develop "grammar" schools. These taught only grammar and bookkeeping. This program permits people to start businesses to make money, and gives them the skills to continue their education inexpensively from books. "Grammar" was the first third of the then-prevalent system of Classical education.

India has a rich tradition of learning and education right from the antiquity. These were handed over generations to generations either through oral or written medium. The highly esteemed Vedas have come down. They existed for nearly 2000 years before they were known in India. It was the knowledge of acoustics that enabled ancient Indians to orally transmit the Vedas from generation to generation. Institutional form of imparting learning came into existence in the early centuries of the Christian era. The approach to learning was to study logic and epistemology. The study of logic was followed by Hindus, Buddhists and Jains, one of the most important topics of Indian thoughts was pramana or means of reliable knowledge. The Nyaya schools upheld four pramanas - perceptions of are liable by analogy or comparison, word (Sabda), and pronunciation of a reliable authority such as the Vedas. The Vedanta school added one more to it i.e. intuition. It is probably while studying the process of inference that the schools of true logic arose. Ancient Indian postulated syllogism though not as accurate as that of Aristotle. Yet, they recognize some of the major fallacies of logic like reduction and absurdum, circular argument, infinite regression, dilemma, and ignorance. In the field epistemology, Jains contributed the most. There were not only two possibilities of existence and non-existence but seven more. Although the modern logicians might laugh at this pedantic system of ontological and epistemological reality they concede that the world is more complex and subtle than we think it to be. Regarding institutional form of education the first was the guru-sishya system. According to sacred texts, the training of the Brahmin pupil took place at the home of a Brahmin. The thinking principle, Manana Shakti was reckoned higher than the subject of thinking. So the primary subject of education was the mind itself. According to the ancient Indian theory of education, the training of the mind and the process of thinking, are essential for the acquisition of knowledge. The chase counts more than the game. So the pupil had mainly to educate himself and achieves his own mental growth. Education was reduced to the three simple processes of Sravana, Manana and Niddhyaasana. Sravana was listening to the truths as they fell from the lips of the teacher. Knowledge was technically called Sruti or what was heard by the ear and not what was seen in writing. The second process of knowledge called Manana implies that the pupil has to think out for himself the meaning of the lessons imparted to him orally by his teacher so that they may be assimilate fully. The third step known as Nidhyasana means complete comprehension by the pupil of the truth that is taught so that he may live the truth and not merely explain it by word. Knowledge must result in realization. The admission was made by the formal ceremony Upanayana or initiation by which the pupil left the home of his natural parents for that of the preceptor. In this new home he had a second birth and was called Dvijya or twice-born. Besides these regular schools of instructions, there were special institutions for the promotion of advance study and research. Obviously, in those days women were admitted to the highest knowledge and did not suffer from any education disabilities. There was equality between the sexes in the filed of knowledge. The Rig Veda mentions women Rais called Brahmanavadinis. To begin with, in ancient India; the main subject was the Veda. The teacher would instruct handful of students seated on ground. For many hours daily they would repeat verses after verses of the Vedas till they attain mastery of at least one of them. To ensure correctness of memory, the hymns were taught in more than one way. Soon the curriculum was expanded. The limbs of the Veda or the six Vedangas were taught - the performance of sacrifice, correct pronunciation, knowledge of prosody, etymology, grammer, and jyotisha or the science of calendar.

India had several great minds at work, which contributed in every aspect of life. The concept of zero, decimal and Pythagoras Theorem were all developed here.
As India progressed from ancient to medieval its education system deteriorated. Various factors were responsible for the degradation of this most efficient and most ancient education system of the world.

Present System

         The present educational system of India is an implantation of British rulers. Wood's Dispatch of 1854 laid the foundation of present system of education in India. Before the advent of British in India, education system was private one. With the introduction of Wood's Dispatch known as Magna Carta of Indian education, the whole scenario changed. The main purpose of it was to prepare Indian Clerks for running local administration. Under it the means of school educations were the vernacular languages while the higher education was granted in English only. British government started giving funds to indigenous schools in need of help and thus slowly some of the schools became government-aided.

                 Contemplating on the new system which was introduced by the British Government in india, Mahatma Gandhi expressed his anguish in following words, "I say without fear of my figures being challenged successfully, that today India is more illiterate than it was fifty or a hundred years ago, and so is Burma, because the British administrators, when they came to India, instead of taking hold of things as they were, began to root them out. They scratched the soil and began to look at the root, and left the root like that, and the beautiful tree perished.

            The system should not only bring a means for survival but also the system should concentrate on man making who love and care themselves and the society around.

Reformation

             Acharya Rajneesh in the book entitled “Towards the unknown” in his scholarly discourse in the year 1969, has rightly quoted, ‘ The movement from unknown to known is evolution. The step of evolution is the real education. Unkown has two directions:

(i)     Subjective

(ii)    Objective

Objective means science and subjective means religion. Education of science alone is incomplete and the same also applies to religion .Unity of both makes totality. Education is the bridge for meeting both.

            A country has many resources and education is one such resource. A country needs to develop science and technology with highest intellect. Here, I stress upon one aspect which is particularly missing now a days in education. Education/knowledge without love is dangerous. Loving doctors, caring officials, engineers with vision, responsible teachers, lawyers who stands for dharma, honest auditors and all professional with love in general is missing nowadays. How this trend developed?.And  Why? What is missing ? How can we rebuild our society? Our youths are being sold in present day market for a good price. All competitive examinations focus only on testing the memory power, intelligence and presence of mind, they never have any tool for testing their heart, they never test their inherent nature;only the brain is being tested and not the heart. The honesty, sincerity are not at all measured, then how can we built a corruption free environment. Truth speaking is foremost quality of a right person. One expresses himself in three ways: (i) by words (ii) By words (iii) by heart(mind). If  these three lie on the same line then  the person is said to be truthful. If a person lies he is ready to open doors for all evils.

            Human beings are intoxicated with a high degree of ambition. Thi s is first blunder that is made in school. Every individual would like to be something what he is not and what he cannot. This is being developed in to a child’s mind by looking at the society out of passion or it is being induced by the parents or teacher or society. In this competition of ‘to be’ he forgets the fact about what he is?. To do something more than what he is not is an impossible task because what is not in the in the seed, how can be a tree. But every individual is in search of what he is not. This very cause gives birth to a sick society which essentially brings violence and anarchy. Destruction being definite if religion does not snatch away  the ambition from the minds of people. The science has immense powers in the hands of ambitious  people. The development of known to unknown is religious evolution and the development of unknown to known is science evolution. Unanimity of both science and religion can only bring new dimension of growth to the society.

            Religion does not mean organized religion. To be religious is different from being a Hindu, Christian or a Muslim etc. To be traditional is to be non religious, on the contrary it is great barrier in being religious. Injustice, violence and blood shed have been done more in the name of Hindu, Muslim and Christian than any other thing. More than 15000 wars have been fought in three thousand years. Religion is not in objectivity. So any form of objective formality is a non religious act. To understand the truth means radical transformation of life. Is there any provision in the law to declare a citizen  as non-religious and does not belong to any religion ? Because this is also secularism.

            The education which does not discover the inner truth or God is incomplete or dangerous. This incompletion is the root cause of failure of today’s education. Inner education of man is the true education/ religion. Wisdom is only that comes from self understanding. Science is blind without religiousness and religion is lame without science.

            A simple statistical approach may reveal several facts. In a state say, Tamilnadu there are around 8 lac students appeared for the SSLC examination. Out of them around 70% passes out every year. (Formally around 25 years back this was only 30-40 %, 50 years back it could been only 20-30 % because of high standard of valuation). The education department is trying to prove by increasing the number. Is that can we take it for granted  that standard of education has improved?. Dilution of standard of evaluation has only yielded substantial improvement in the number. After passing out from school,  the students find it difficult even to write in their own language. The numbers simply helps to fill the Diploma institutions because of the diluted category of selection criteria. After passing out from SSLC around 6 lac students appear for HSc examination. Again around 70% passes out (~ 3-4 lacs) or it is only 50 % of the total 8 lacs. Out of 4 lacs say around 50 % successfully complete their  education 1 lac complete their professional degrees. So from the total it is only around 20% of the total of 8 lacs. How about the remaining 80 %, ` 6 lac? Are they starving? No? And only out of these 20 % ,they claim they are unemployed.

Whether the country should provide schemes for 20% or 80%.? Moreover if these 20% professionals are of high standard with religiousness          in their mind they can shoulder the responsibility of the remaining 80% youths. Otherwise if they are selfish and without love to the society they would corrupt and ruin the whole country. How are we going to incorporate love and caring nature into our educational system?. Formerly may around 40-50 years back the robbers make money were mostly illiterates or not much educated and they too rob money for their bread living, where as only well educated youths are involved huge money swindling plots. Why? Any commodity that is manufactured with substandard quality is highly corruptive. And so also a substandard human resource also ruins the country.

The All India MD/MS Doctors association (AIMDDA) noted with deep agony the fall in medical and dental education standards which has crept into our British legacy education system due to forcible transition of brick fresh institutions into deemed universities and many such universities are looting the public with government (politician) approval.

Kaushik Basu Professor of economics, Cornell University spent two months in India and came across repeated warnings from prominent personalities associated with Indian academe.  With over 300 universities and 15,600 colleges spewing out 2.5 million graduates each year, in terms of the volume of production India trails behind only the US and recently China. Each year India produces 350,000 engineers, twice the number produced by the US.

            Another distinction is to be clearly understood is about literacy and education. Literacy is required to lead the life in this modern society. Education is a one of the means for survival. Remember it is not the only way for survival. Kerala is reporting 100% literacy. The passed percentage in other states  are slowly increasing and sure soon they are going to be 100%. You can declare 100 % pass; Can you declare 100 % employment? If a student is declared that he is unfit for education he make his survival by his own way. If the society rejects him at his 20’s or 30’s that educational status is unfit; they lack communication skill etc.; after attaining a Degree or Diploma? What circus we are doing. He simply finishes his life for want of survival. A boy or a girl should be made aware of his or her true educational status at his 15 or 18 years not in his 25^th year. A country not only needs doctors and engineers but also  needs poets, artists and  musicians. No poet is corruptive and no musicians are corruptive and no artist are corruptive.

Declaration of results:

            Failed students need not be declared as fail; because the system is not able to identify or bring out the skill of the students. Let there be a teacher for arts, crafts and skill development, music and sports to bring out the talents of children. Every child has some potentials. What we require is that we need a system to identify the talents. Passing out school children  can be classified in three ways:

(i)  Eligible for higher       education    (arts /science/ technical)

(ii)   ,,      ,,    (arts / science)

(iii)  ,,      ,,     (arts)

(iv) Skill oriented education

Orientation of  these programs have to be introduced in the system/curriculum in the school itself. All these four system should have higher education system. New system is to be formulated   for the last category. The students should have freedom to   choose their choice of study. The field of music, dance, craft work, arts (free hand drawing and painting) need sufficient recruitment of teachers. Physical education is being given least importance in many private schools. Yoga and morals should have importance at school level. This would help them for physical and mental well being.

            A passionate look around the world should not be the choice of education. Ambitious mind should be developed out of the skills and ability. Parents should have sufficient awareness about their ward career. Parents Teachers Association should be made compulsory and should have enough role and responsibility.

Higher education and administration:

            Every university should have system for all the four category of studies. If   so they can adopt 50 to 100 schools or proportionally with respect to the number of schools.

Every University should have sufficient PRO  system to link the schools. The PRO system should link the various industries of all kinds. The PRO system should be proving and record manipulating. And every district  require a educational secretary who is linked with the PRO system. At this juncture I should also comment the administrative part of our system. The public administrators need not have educational qualification where as the subordinate services need such qualifications. Why? What justification we have for our system.

            The public money is being swindled in so many ways and now rightly through education. Dilution of standard has gone to the core and corruption in education and corruptive education is explicit.

            A poor standard of education will ruin the country at last after all we are annihilating the human resource. What standard we have when compared with the international standard. Actually we need not compare. Even from ancient times we have very high quality of education and our ancestors knowledge was very deep. And we should accept the fact that we don’t respect them. We dis  honour our own religious findings. We keep all the  formalities and we ignore the treasures behind.

 Integeration of science and religion: Science is in words and religion is in stillness, because  the circumference is expression and centre is and invisible. They are like seed and tree. Science is a tree and religion is its seed. Science can be known and religion cannot be known. Science is knowledge and religion is living. There the science can be taught and religion cannot be the subject to be taught. Science is to teach the known and the religion, the unknown cannot be taught. And what could be the subject of religion.

Religious seed is in every human being. Create an environment for the evolution of that seed to sprout. The environment should have three fundamentals. First element is courage and fearlessness. The courage is to deny the false. Second one is self understanding. Third one is stillness.  Wisdom is only that which comes out self understanding.  Knowledge acquired from others is not wisdom but only an illusion of wisdom. Unanimity of science and religion can give birth entirely to a new dimension. This unity is long awaited. Should every man be the media which can bring such a unity and integrity? Man has to be the media and everybody has to be the media. Such a cause only can bring the glorious period of earth. The period which in fact has not passed  but it is the womb of future and still to come.

                                                    With responsibility,

Dr.M.Govindarajan,

jananamthapas@gmail.com