By Barnes Mawrie
In my previous article on this same topic I have already discussed the importance of culture in education. The absence of a cultural emphasis can create an educational system that is purely academic and intellectual. Someone has rightly asked me a pertinent question: what is the relationship between culture and education? This is not an easy question to answer and it requires a lot of reflection before I can articulate it on paper. However, let me attempt an introductory answer to this. We use an analogy of the body and the soul. If education is the soul then culture is the body. The body without the soul is lifeless while the soul without the body cannot articulate itself and it loses its identity and concreteness. Therefore we speak of education as the animating agent in culture. It is education that shapes culture to a great extent. Let me put this in the following manner:
Education refines human culture. It enlightens the mind, informs the intellect and shapes our reason so that we are able to understand things in the right perspective. Education helps us to do away with many superstitions which our cultures have been harbouring for long. Through the knowledge of the sciences we are able to understand the various natural phenomena which once upon a time were passed off as magic. Through the knowledge of Psychology for example, we are able to understand the behaviours of people under different circumstances. Psychic cases were considered as influences of the evil spirits in the past. In fact, education has liberated us from the burden of superstitions and magic. In this sense we may say that education “forms” and “informs” human culture. Primitive cultures are always uncouth and unrefined. For that matter no human culture can claim to be perfect and immaculate. There will be always some limitations and defects in culture precisely because it is a human product and not a divine institution. When education comes in, it acts as leaven inside that culture and refines it. The European tribes were once upon a time barbaric and uncouth, but with the advent of education brought in by the Christian monasteries, these barbaric cultures have been chiseled and shaped and made smooth. Our tribal cultures in North-east India were in a similar condition before the coming of education.
Education, while shaping culture, also preserves and promotes culture. Had it not been for education, many ancient cultures would have slipped into oblivion. It is through reading and writing and through school instruction that cultures have been preserved and passed on from one generation to the next. The best example of this is the Greek or Hellenistic culture which has survived to a great extent after millennia. Today we still read Greek literature, study Greek language, we still study Greek philosophy, we still hold the Olympics etc, all elements of Greek culture. The ancient Greeks were highly educated and were great philosophers, thinkers and writers of the time. The quality of their education shaped their culture into the finest culture of the ancient world, so much so that it dominated the world for hundreds of years. Thus there is the famous saying: “Rome conquered Greece militarily, but Greece conquered Rome culturally”.
Let me now turn my focus to the role of culture in education. We have said that culture is like the body. Just as the soul expresses itself through the body so too education needs culture as the substratum for realizing its lofty goals. The concrete outcome of education can only be seen in the expressions of culture. This is the reason why education should manifest itself differently in different cultures. This explains why American or Chinese educational system and approach will be basically different from our Indian education. Thus culture in its turn shapes education in order to crystallize its identity. It is therefore wrong to think in terms of a universal system or uniformity in education. Such an attempt would kill the identity of each culture. Perhaps one of the reasons of paucity of our education is senseless adherence to the colonial system. It is time now that our State formulates an educational system that is closely linked to our cultures. In this regard, some systemic reorganization needs to be done in the department.
The most urgent reorganization perhaps is in the primary education. Today there is a craze among parents (Khasis and Garos alike) to send their children to “English medium” schools. In the long run we are reaping the adverse effects of this. We have Khasi or Garo primary school children today who cannot read or speak the mother tongues. Many of these when they reach high school tend to take Alternative English in place of vernaculars. This is highly destructive to the cultural development of the students. They will end up being uprooted from their culture and thereby losing their identity altogether. Therefore, keeping in mind that our District Councils are the constitutional bodies formed for the purpose of safeguarding and promoting tribal cultures, it stands to reason that primary education be entrusted to their care. The District Councils could create a department of primary education which will formulate policies, draw up curricula and supervise the whole primary education.
Primary education should be compulsorily made in vernacular. To say that English medium primary schools will help children to master the English language, is an unfounded myth. The author himself is the product of Khasi medium primary education. On the contrary many educationists today agree that education in mother tongue at primary level is the best approach to education. How can a child learn a foreign language so alien to him/her if he has not first learned the rudiments of language through his/her vernacular? Having a sound foundation in one’s own mother tongue in fact will only help a child to learn and understand other languages better or more easily.
Let me conclude by turning the attention again to culture in general other than the language. By doing the primary education in mother tongue there will be a double advantage for the child by which he/she will be able to read books about one’s own culture. Those who have studied in Khasi medium will realize that many aspects of their culture (history, folklore, traditions, festivals etc) have been learned during their school days. Today, instead, because of the rampant English medium primary education, our children have been deprived of such opportunities to know more about their cultures. The way our education is going on now, it is going to spell doom for our future. We may soon have a generation of Khasis and Garos who may not be able to communicate in their own mother tongues or know the basics of their cultural traditions. I hope that good sense will prevail upon our responsible authorities and upon our parents in general so that we can arrest the dangerous trend in our education. Let us not sacrifice our culture nay our very own identity for the sake of being “English gentlemen or ladies”.
(The author holds a master’s degree in education and is professor of theology. He can be contacted at barnesmawrie @gmail.com)