By Toki Blah
From the very onset it would be in order to ask ourselves as to what do we really want and mean when we speak of ‘Educating our children’. In all honesty, for most of us it means the schooling of our children; the type of school they are admitted to and the medium of instruction they receive. In vogue is also a strong belief that it is the duty of parents to further burden their children with a ‘Good Tuition’ after normal school hours. The need to ascertain a pass and to keep the child ‘out of mischief’ after school dominates the loving and concerned parent’s mind. ‘Educating our children’ for most modern parents simply means, locking up their kids for 7 hours in a classroom; another 2 hours in tuition; another 3 for homework and that’s it for the day. The Education Department, parents and teachers conspire together to rob children of their most precious natural asset – the time to develop social skills to emerge as mature human beings. Instead precious hours of childhood are deliberately invested in turning OUR children into robots. Is this the education we want for them?
With no intention to apportion any blame on the Education system and the institutions that is supports, it would appear that by today’s standards the vision of education, is strictly limited to a student’s ability to read and write. To be able to read and write, to calculate and ultimately to get an academic certificate to that effect, appears to be the end purpose of our system of education. Ensuring a regular annual mass production of certified literates appears to be the adopted education policy of the State. Of a political vision on education, the less said the better. Even if there is one it is more focused towards addressing grievances of agitating teachers than in imparting knowledge. That’s it! In fairness to all concerned it appears we are speaking more about the process of becoming literate than about being seriously educated! If that is so, then we have singularly failed to distinguish aspects of Education from those of Literacy.
Most of us hold various academic degrees and certificates that officially confirm our literary qualifications. These are our passports to jobs and careers that support livelihoods; they uphold our social prestige and standing in society. Shockingly we then come across graduates who are incapable of putting in two concurrent thoughts together, not if their lives depended on it. We encounter master degree holders whose world view is horrifyingly restricted and confined to the Shnong they live in and the local vernacular paper they subscribe to. We increasingly interact with PhD holders walking around with a chip on their shoulders in the arrogant belief that they have learnt everything there is to learn. Suddenly the tragic truth dawns upon us that we have certified literates who have nothing further to contribute to the welfare and development of our society.
This in no way negates the fact that literacy is part and parcel of education and contributes to overall education. Literacy contributes to our encyclopaedic knowledge and general understanding of the world around us. Books are the fountainhead of knowledge and the ability to read makes it easier to acquire this knowledge. It makes it easier to access data and in this digital age, the grasp of technology is the doorway to unlimited opportunities, especially employment opportunities. However it must be understood that a policy where the goal of education is simply to assist secure employment is an oxymoron. It is unfortunately a view that the Education department of Meghalaya seems to encourage. Nothing can be further from the truth. So what exactly is the education we need ?
A write-up in a daily is hardly the space to dwell in detail on the intricacies of viable education. But if we agree that education lies beyond the mere ability to read and write and that the real goal of learning is the knack of becoming a universal human being; to fit in, to integrate and assimilate oneself into the ocean of humanity, then we can say we are on the right track. There are various types of education available to us today. There is religious education, secular education, higher education, technical education and what have you. This paper will however limit itself to an oft neglected aspect of school education – Liberal education. Liberal education prepares the student’s mind for a wide angled view of the world around him. In no way does it foreclose the pursuit of specialisation. On the other hand it provides specialisation with a broad-based understanding of the world around us. An understanding that makes us patient with those we call peculiar, who are different from us. An understanding that develops tolerance. Tolerance in turn instructs us on how to behave with others; it instils manners and decorum in our social behaviour. Education, in the ultimate analysis, is all about being able to live a decent harmonious life with others. In a world increasingly polarised by creed, faith and ideology, secularism that comes from education that promotes universal understanding, is emerging as the only cementing factor capable of binding humanity together, where others, their belief systems and their faith are respected and tolerated. It’s an education paradigm worth chasing after.
A question pops up. How on earth do we fit in a curriculum for universal understanding in an already overburdened school syllabus? We have already spoken of secularism that can bond. For people of the Orient, secularism is an aspect that accepts the existence of a multitude of Gods and belief systems yet of man’s ability to coexist in a social environment where one respects and appreciates the faith and creed of others. Our forefathers were ardent practitioners of such a system. For Meghalaya it springs from our indigenous traditions, cultural value systems and respective faiths we follow. It is reflected in the tenets and principles of the indigenous practices of U Hynniewtrep and Achik people and Christianity too saw no reason to discard these indigenous value systems followed by the people of these hills. It provided the seekers of knowledge with the moral moorings required to stay afloat in a rapidly changing World. Of concern is that, for reasons best known to our policy makers, this moral anchor has been discarded. Time to seriously review if we need to bring back this critical component to our education system.
While on the topic of education I need to ask myself an embarrassing question – am I educated? The higher the academic qualification the better educated, we tell ourselves. Hate to do this, but some of the greatest morons amongst us are gold medallists and doctorates in the subject they specialised in. The answer to the question is the paradox of our times. The moment you acknowledge that you know nothing – that is when you can say you are educated. Education stimulates, rouses and encourages curiosity; of the need to learn and know; to search and explore. The moment you say there is nothing more to learn then you are either dead, intellectually comatose or a complete fool and neither fits in with the profile of being educated. The uneducated are those, literate or otherwise, who believe they know all that needs to be known. Education comes with the humility and the willingness to admit that what we know is nothing when compared to the enormity of what we don’t know. The benefit from such a belief is the willingness to listen and to learn. It brings in Hope, Anticipation and Optimism for the future.
An education system for the 21st century should seek ways and means on how to stimulate the student’s intellect. A major flaw in the present education system is that it discourages a child’s curiosity and his tendency to ask questions. In a class of 40 or more, a child who asks too many questions is dubbed a trouble maker. He makes the teacher uncomfortable. He/she is then consigned to the back benches. We forget that the aim of education is to facilitate learning through questions; to stimulate curiosity; to kindle the thirst to know what lies beyond the next hill. It definitely is not about cramming and the ability to reproduce verbatim whatever the teacher taught. Unfortunately that is exactly what our education system encourages. An educated mind is an analytic mind; prejudice, superstition and unfounded bias are always replaced by logic and reason. It will always seek to replace bigotry with rationality; unfairness with justice; chauvinism with tolerance; inequality with the inclusiveness of liberal democracy. The educated will always challenge mediocrity, boredom and convention. When this happens in Meghalaya we can then truly say “education has finally taken root in the Abode of the Clouds”.