Guest Column Baidyanath Misra

“A Poor Player

That struts and frets up his hour upon the stage

And then is heard no more”

Education is no longer confined to stereotyped ideas. It is expanding beyond comprehension. There is so much explosion of knowledge that the major driving force in the world today is knowledge. Modern societies are not only based on knowledge but are also driven by knowledge. If one confines himself to only one discipline, all our knowledge brings us nearer to, as T.S. Eliot says ‘Our Ignorance’. In fact, the areas of learning and knowledge cannot be compartmentalised. Goethe in his monumental work, Faust says, “I have studied now philosophy, and jurisprudence, medicine and even, alas, theology. From end to end with labour keen; and here, poor fool, with all my lore I stand no wiser than before.” This implies that the knowledge of economics alone cannot broaden one’s vision.

Even economics has become so comprehensive that one has to struggle hard to understand and appreciate some of the intricate issues. Specialisation in one branch may improve one’s knowledge (or information) on the subject but not wisdom. An enlightened view will only be obtained when it is realised that an educated man must know something of the thoughts of those great minds enshrined in the great books of history, philosophy, and literature, imperishable and surviving through all ages. Learning is the rowing upstream. If you do not advance, you fall back.

Again, education should not mean accumulation of facts since it is both a training of minds and souls. It should give both knowledge and wisdom. Plato distinguishes between factual information and understanding. Radhakrishnan Commission points out that no amount of factual information would make ordinary men into educated or virtuous men unless is awakened in them, an innate ability to live the life of the soul. This implies that universities should train intellectuals who become the sanctuaries of the inner life of the nation.

But what we see in universities today is outdated content and dubious quality of education. As stated by the deputy director general of Unesco: “The learning techniques remain the same: the rote method, the technique of cramming and, once the menace is passed, of forgetting of all these useless impediments. The examination system is not an evaluation of a student’s personality and intellectual equipment, his powers of thinking for himself, reflection and reasoning…we find in education antediluvian technology which would not survive for an instant in any other economic sector. The teaching methods...are rusty, cranky and antiquated.” In the words of T.S Eliot, “Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?”

All this implies that accumulation of facts cannot increase knowledge or wisdom. What is more, the acquisition of college certificates and higher degrees may not necessarily be associated with students’ improved ability to undertake productive work. Higher education is supposed to provide with provide competent men and women trained in different disciplines which may provide them with technical knowhow for changing the economic system and social environment. Which means, the educational system should be more relevant to meet the social and economic needs of modern age. We may cite one interesting incident how modern education is divorced from actual situation. This is what a medical graduate writes:

“I spent years in medical college, studying the basic medical sciences. I developed my clinical skills, had a first rate hospital, and acquired all the conceivable medical, technical, diagnostic, and therapeutic abilities. I graduated with absolute confidence in my ability to undertake patient care. What my education did not prepare me for was how to deal with my first patient, an elderly widow with 5 children lying ill at home in a room without light, running water or sanitary facilities.”

This shows that a degree is not the end of education, because examination cannot end the trials of life. Arnold Toynbee has rightly said: “It is both absurd and unjust to classify a person once for all, as being first class or third class when he is only twenty two years old. There are slow growers who blossom late in life and conversely there are brilliant starters who fail to fulfil their early promise.”

Even Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru once said that the association of degrees with service conditions has deteriorated the quality of students who come out from the universities. He, therefore, suggested to separate the two and properly train the students to acquire knowledge and technical knowhow to mould the economic and social system so as to overcome the traditional boundaries. This implies that syllabi have to be put to the severest scrutiny and perhaps, drastically changed. The university should not play the role of a Wallmart chain store which exhibits for sale cheap and finished articles suited to the needs and capacities of it variegated customers. It should enable the rising generation how to think instead of instructing them what to think. The whole approach to the universities to prepare the students to forgo indoctrination but to enable them to form sound judgements and meet the exigencies of different situations.

It may be mentioned here that though our educational system can produce some good doctors, engineers, scientists, economics etc, there is no curriculum by which one can produce good human beings. The meaning and criterion for some one to be a good human being is that he will suffer and sacrifice for the happiness and prosperity of mankind as a whole. People in the past have suffered to make the future generation happy and prosperous. Unfortunately, in the present day society, most of the people are so self-centred that they never bother to undergo any sacrifice to ensure a better world for the future. Our greed and wants have increased so much that we may exploit all the natural resources within our lifetime. If we realise the damage which we are causing now, it may help us to restrict our consumption and make the world a better place to live today as well as tomorrow.

The process of separating vision from narrowness is full of ‘agony and ecstasy’. If we want to prevent agony, we should light lanterns of hope in homes that have long endured the darkness of despair and sloth. As John Kennedy remarked, “We should rediscover the frontier of knowledge and delicate ourselves to the service of mankind so as to become torch bearer of change that will improve the latent capabilities of each and every citizen. This should be our motto in future programme of activities.

(The author, an economist, is also a former deputy chairman of the State Planning Board)