By Apurba K Baruah
The pessimism expressed by certain academics about the state of education, particularly about higher education, needs to be contextualised in terms the contemporary discourse in the country. Government of India is repeatedly telling every one that we need to improve the quality of higher education. The patrons of big companies trying to recruit young Indians to the private sector emphasise that the future of Indian youth is in doing well in higher education, compatible to the market, because that can ensure jobs. The purpose of education now is to enable young people to earn a living. It was not so till the 80s of last century. Education was supposed to help one realise one’s own potential. It was a means of becoming a virtuous being. Socratic proclamation that excellence is virtue or Plato’s discourses on education where the state itself was founded virtually around his scheme of educating people continued to be valued. It is not that only western ancient tradition had this view of education. In classical Indian tradition too, that which liberates is education (“Sa vidya ya vimuktaye”). In all these approaches and whatever followed from those, education was supposed to serve an ethical purpose. It was connected to something noble, concerning not only one’s own self but others. It referred to common good! But it is no longer so! Education now has become virtually vocational. Higher education or for that matter education itself, is no longer being seen as pursuit of knowledge. It has come to be defined as information or skill that enables us to find a vocation, that too in a limited sense of earning a livelihood. . Vocationalization of education implies that education must enable us to be able to learn something useful in a more practical sense of the term. It has rendered the study of fundamental aspects of various disciplines virtually irrelevant. Education in this sense has to serve short term purposes the long term goals are relegated to the background. But why is this hype about vocational higher education? The answer probably lies in the change in our perspective about society.
Changing Social perspectives
Social perspectives of our times are changing very fast, particularly, in the context of what is being called Globalization. Till the middle of the Seventh decade of the twentieth century the social perspectives of our country was governed to a great extent by an ideology that propagated egalitarianism. Indian republic itself was born in a political climate that was inspired by the hopes of a socialist world, a world in which equality, social justice and liberation of exploited people were the most important values. It is this hope that had enthused the large masses and there leaders, to launch what we call the freedom struggle. The speeches of our most popular leaders of that period like Gandhi and Nehru continuously dealt with the issue of social justice. Nehru became a darling of the masses because he continuously talked of the socialist dream of equality and justice.
In this conception of society the individual was expected to contribute creatively to the society and common good. Nehru’s ideas on socialistic pattern of society and the emphasis on social justice that we notice in the Constitution of India reflected this in a highly visible manner. The socialist revolution in Russia and the establishment of so called communist regimes in the Soviet Union and China and host of other countries that underwent similar revolutionary changes, promised to bring an end to exploitation and to establish a new social order which would create a new human being that believed in co-operation instead of competition, social good instead of individual good. The speed at which the Soviet economy eliminated, poverty, illiteracy, disease and helped the country (considered in 1917 to be socio-economically one of the worst in the world) to be able to beat the strongest capitalist country the United States by sending the first sputnik to the space convinced many that socialism showed the path of development and also happiness. Ideals of a large number of intellectuals inspired by the egalitarian ideas, generated by the smartly flying flag of socialist ideology, swept the nation.
A belief emerged that market should be socially controlled and that societies should adopt policies that aimed at collective efforts more than individual initiatives. People had great faith in governments and planned economy. Government was supposed to direct social, economic and all other activities including education. In that environment higher education was supposed to serve a social goal. It was expected to create educated human beings who would serve society and in the process would realize their own potentialities. Higher education itself was a social cause. Profit and loss in the sector of higher education was not a major concern for those who took initiatives to run higher educational institutions. Even private schools and colleges were established more as charity than business. Higher education activists were people with Missionary Zeal, be it Christian Missionaries, public organizations or business houses. In our own area famous schools and colleges were established through public initiatives and without the motive of profit. Venture schools were established with private initiative without seeking to make profits. We know that missionaries of various religions have been playing a great role in establishing educational institutions. But all this underwent a change in the last couple of decades. Higher education, and for that matter all education, has become a profit making business. There have been regular news reports as to how a politician-bureaucrat-entrepreneur nexus has come to control professional education in many parts of this country. Those who enter this field are entering it not out of missionary zeal but as pursuers of profit. Those who are involved in it began to lose commitment to serving society through education. Or, to put it in the other way, people who wanted to serve society stopped being in educational ventures. (I am deliberately using the word ‘venture’ instead of now more popular ‘enterprise’ because the latter is associated with profit motive!) In the new perspective commitment is replaced by professionalism. The contemporary discourse on higher education in India can not be understood if it is not placed in the above context. Another important issue is the process of corporatization of Universities. It is common knowledge that the culture of the Universities in this country are being rapidly converted to a corporate from the conventional collegial. Even a lay man would understand that corporatization means more control and less of freedom. The lack of freedom kills creativity and therefore the ability to challenge the staus-quo. Therefore it is clear that the rapacious dominant forces are trying their best to commercialise education and those who hold on to the ideals of the yester years are becoming a minority. But all hope need not be lost because even the market will need efficiency and creative knowledge and therefore the cloud that cover education will have to be cleared. All over the world there are voices that are asking for regulation of market and spreading of the message of egalitarianism and common good. The movements like the occupy Wall Street are a reflection of this trend. Good sense may eventually prevail and even Indian higher education may enter a phase of reform..