Education is often first seen in terms of literacy and then preparing for a prosperous, stable livelihood , also referred to commonly as good career. There is however also a much wider, more important role of education( which increasingly gets less attention), and this is to contribute to creating a society based on justice, equality, peace and environment protection. Ultimately this is the most important aim of human life and of education.
Let me make my point clearer by comparing two situations. The first situation relates to times when people lived by gathering fruits and other wild growing edibles. In this situation there is no literacy at all in the modern sense, no formal schools and colleges. However there is a strong oral tradition and other methods of ensuring that members of this society grow up with strongly embedded values that they will intentionally not cause any distress to any human being and any form of life and respect the equality and dignity of all people without any discrimination.
The second situation is of a modern mega city advertised as a centre of excellence in education. Name any advanced technology of education and it is available here. All the modern facilities are available as billions of Rs. have been invested. However there is no emphasis on basic values. Students are highly focused on lucrative jobs, even though this may involve work involving exploitation and destruction of environment. In this race for the most profitable jobs, using unfair means to get ahead of others, creating problems for others and discriminating against some is accepted as normal.
Now comparing these two systems, I have absolutely no hesitation in saying that there is a much better educational system in the former situation, even though even basic literacy does not exist there .
What is the essence of human life? This is to strive as much as possible to create a life based on justice, equality, peace, harmony of all forms of life and environment protection. What is the essence of education? The essence of education is to help to create the base for this by nurturing supportive value systems in various creative and interesting ways, with special emphasis on more formative years of childhood and youth but continuing later as well.
Let us consider just two basic human values. Firstly, we should not intentionally cause distress to any other human being and any other form of life. We should train ourselves and restrain ourselves in various ways to try to ensure this all our life. Now this appears to be a very simple statement but look at its dimensions. If we see this only in the context of daily life, so much distress will be avoided. If many people follow this and we look at wider possibilities of support for better policy, then even more, much more will be achieved.
Let us look at another basic value—no discrimination on the basis of race, caste, religion, class , color, region, nation etc. and a deeply-felt respect for the equal rights, welfare and dignity of all people. How many problems of our deeply troubled world will be resolved if only a very large number of people can imbibe this human value at a deeper and very sincere level. But lately the problem has been that despite rapid expansion of education many of these discriminations have increased, and that too among youth.
Now imagine the annual result of two schools. In one school there are all the big toppers but no emphasis has been given on these two or similar values. In the second school narrow academic result is mediocre at best but very sustained and sincere efforts have been made to impart these two human values ( and other related values). I have absolutely no hesitation in saying that the second school imparts much better education. It is extremely important that wide consensus should be reached on secular value systems which are very important for a world based on equality, justice, peace and environment protection. The most important role of education should be to strengthen these values, whether in formal educational institutions ( schools, colleges,universities), in communities or families.
While this was always very important, now that our planet is faced with a survival crisis, this has more urgency than ever before.
Bharat Dogra is a freelance journalist who has been involved with several social movements and initiatives. His recent book on survival issues and people’s response titled Planet in Peril has been published by Vitasta, Delhi.
