Dhirendra Newar
(The writer can be reached at dhiren.newar@gmail.com)
“Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world.”
— Nelson Mandela
Education is the most powerful tool to produce a desired change in society. This is the only way that leads to civilization, harmony and cohesion. It is an ever-accepted principle that the investment in education will produce a good result in future. Therefore, every parent, no matter what their monthly income is, what their social position is, and what their own educational qualifications are, should try to admit their children in the best of the educational institutions in their respective localities. All know that it is only education has the potential to change the social status of a family, provide a better lifestyle, make someone civilized and above all make a positive impact in society.
Ancient Greeks allowed education and dissemination of knowledge only among the higher classes of their society. They had enough leisure time; and therefore they could pursue education as a leisure-time activity to harness their efficiency in art, culture, literature etc. This was similar to the Indian society also. In the ancient Indian period, education was meant only for the upper class of society. There were social demarcation of various works, of which education and imparting knowledge was allowed to the Brahmins, who were regarded as the uppermost class of the social stratification. The lower classes, especially the sudras were not allowed education and schooling. However, these social differentiations slowly got submerged in the changing social scenario; and today education has been made a fundamental right for every child below a certain age. This was done realizing the greatness of education and the dividend that the citizens can earn for their country, if they are educated.
Today, all of us unanimously acknowledge the fact that education is the only means towards greater social change. This change is towards the uplift of society from the age-old superstitions, harmful belief systems, and social inequalities as well as to make the society adaptable towards newer ideas and innovations. Education, therefore, aims towards the inclusive development of an individual. It makes an individual feel adequate and makes him/her an agent of social change. While talking about the particular aim of education, many tend to assume that it has nothing to do with the social aim of education. However, education has lots to do through its social aims. The social aim of education is basically to bring out the social efficiency of an individual rather than focusing on their personal growth. However, society is a sum of individuals with collective ideas and enormous possibilities through individual efforts. If each and every individual of a society is educated and makes his or her worthwhile contribution to society, the social aim of education as a change-maker of society is automatically achieved. Realizing this, the Education Commission of 1964-’66 had remarked, “Education can’t be considered in isolation or planned in a vacuum. It has to be used as a powerful instrument of social, economic and political change and will, therefore, have to be related to the long-term national aspirations, the programme of national development in which the country is engaged and the difficult short-term problem is called upon to face.”
Nevertheless, the States should try to invest as much as it can in the development in the educational scenario of our country. Despite having a long history of an ancient educational system which were known to the world and world famous universities like Nalanda and Taxila, India today can’t fare well in the overall ranking of educational development in comparison to many other developed countries. Today crime rates are rising rampantly in India, people are seen becoming less civilized, we are not interested in preserving our cultures and moreover the reading habits among people are seen to be declining.
At this critical juncture, we must look within and try to find out the solutions from our educational systems. Despite acknowledging the immense potential of education in the social development and uplift, today the educational spirits have been declining. This can be corroborated by the fact that our spending on education in terms of GDP is very less compared to other developed countries, our education systems have become outdated and we are not able to produce enough world-class students who can compete with any other student from around the world.
We often feel proud for our large number of demographic dividend with more than 50% of our population below the 30 years of age, but what are we going to do with this dividend if they are not skilled enough to compete with other world tomorrow? Several national as well as international reports time and again have been warning us that India is lagging far behind in the skill development and also that our global competitiveness is very less. In spite of all these, no one seems to be serious about improving our educational input as well as output considerations.
Not only global competitiveness, we face a major challenge to give basic education even to our very own marginalized and weaker sections of society. With less than 75% of total literacy rate of India in the last 2011 census, millions are entirely denied their fundamental right to education. This is still a major challenge to the government to provide better educational facilities to the weaker sections, SCs, STs, several backward class population as well as minorities. Till today they are living under the shade of darkness and ignorance, facing discrimination and inequality in society. Without a doubt, it should not be an irony that many of the social crimes are committed against them or they commit it, owing to their poor educational backgrounds. Any illiterate society is bound to face the wrath of social disharmonies in the form of crimes and other illegal activities. This is where the need of education comes into play.
While talking about education as a tool to social change, we must admit the fact that focus should not only be on the quantity of education but also on its quality. The ability to read and write a language suffices to be christened as ‘literate’. But does that suffice the need of social efficiency as a fuller individual? Certainly not! We must adopt newer practices of educating our children, install the facilities of science and technology in schools, and the audio-visual media must be adopted for spreading education better, simpler and interesting. Owing to poor infrastructural conditions of our educational institutions, many children are dropping out before completing their primary education. Single-teacher schools and lack of properly trained teachers are the other challenges in the way of universalization of primary education in India. Also, lack of vocational education to our children is depriving them the most. Today the necessity should not be only on giving universal education to all, but it should also be able to generate sources of livelihood for them. Proper training, providing skills, making them equipped with science and technologies etc should be the prime focus of present-day education. Then only the true nature of social cohesion and social change can be achieved by way of education.