Our Present Education System and Social Demands

From Kashmir to Kanyakumari every corner of our country is going with the same thought process about the education standard, which is on decline every where. Just think, our present education system was designed and developed by the British rulers more than 200 years back with a specific aim of producing literate class and humble servants for the British government. The social status and atmosphere has changed a lot since than and specially after the independence we are facing new social demands, but still we are willing to fight the new war, and prefer go into betel field with out dated weapons at least no change in the education system is suggesting that. I have spent almost 25 years of life in field of education as Science Teacher and I personally know that many of even convent educated H.S.C. [12th standard] passed students are unable to write an application for the improper cleaning by the local city authorities or they doesn’t know whom this application should be addressed.

Background and Need of Change

The First and most importance thing is, changing our attitude that one who is educated through or knows English is really educated. The days of British rules are history of decade back. We are citizen of Democratic India and not the British India. During the British rule more stress was given on learning English because easiness of conversation of rulers and to keep Indians in the status of mental slaves they [British rulers] have related government jobs with the degrees as during that period Hindu dignity [Here by word Hindu I mean the Indian life style and not any religion] was at its lowest point due to rule of non Hindus for several centuries so no one was there to protest this way of education. Unfortunately the situations after the independence to country were not conducive for any change in the education system or our political leadership failed to look in the future social demands of education.

Education is instrument of social change and social change creates new demands that should be fulfilled by the education. It means Education, Social Change and Social demands are co-related. What we are observing in our present socio environment that our society has changed a lot, we are facing new social demands but our education is still following the system set by the British rulers some centuries back. It is fact that our technological advancement, our natural resources and our human power is leading our country towards the verge of being world leaders but if we fail to change our education system not only this chance will go bagging but also it will leave us in waiting for many centuries to come.

Why the present system is not coping with Social Demands

Our present Education system was developed by the Europeans and naturally they have considered only their way of living. Point about which we are going to talk is cause of failure only in Bharat but also in many other countries where boundaries of life are not limited from birth to death.

There are two thought streams about the life in practice among the most human societies, one fallowing the Hindu [Indian] way and other that stress on achievements of physical comforts. We are Hindus but our education system is not based on the Hindu thought stream of life.

The present education system was designed with aim of achieving the physical comforts and creating desire for it. When our thought process is trained in this manner we become habituate to accept that we are only body and our aim of life become restricted up to achievements of happiness of the body. We also accept that not only our all relations with our parents, wife, children and friends are on the basis of our body but also physical happiness is the thread which tides us with each other. Natural result of this life style and thought process is that our vision become limited to self only, we can’t expand our thought and vision beyond and above self to see and think about the true social life. Our all actions become centered and concentrated only towards the aim of achievement of self physical comforts. This is the root cause and basis which makes the present education system, unable to cope with our changing our demands.

Standard of Living: A reality or mirage

Everybody in the world is seems to much conscious about the standard of living especially the working and high salary paid class is investing precious time in the discussing and maintaining it. With the changing time standard of living has also changed many faces, many materialistic articles from the list of luxurious category are today included in the list of commonly needed article category. Car [four wheeler vehicle] is no more status symbol but is indicative of Standard of living. Refrigerator an appliances of elites is become the essential household appliances.

Let we think what we do mean by the standard of living, my interpretation of the phrase is not the one that commonly considered by the masses. The usual meaning of the phrase for the masses is a life style loaded fully with the articles of physical comforts. Just think physical comforts are endless and demand for them is intended to grow with the monetary inflow in the life. In the life of a common person income is bound to face ups and downs hence judging the standard of living on this basis is not the proper one. Consider a person using car for traveling the distance of residence and work place; due to certain economic crises he forced to use public transport system for the purpose will you say that it has lowered his standard of living? Certainly most of the people will answer it affirmatively because to most of us standard of living and physical comforts are the synonym. In fact this will generate unhappiness and discomfort and from here the mirage of living standard starts. As we are used to rate our living standard on the availability of comforts and our present education system, instead of rectifying our mistake, is adding more fuel for the endless race of earning for physical comforts and this false interpretation is making our life filled with stress and tensions.

The true measuring scale of standard of living must be counted on the basis of speaking truth, character and obeying the law of the land [My interpretation of the phrase] by a person. As we are become habituate of calculating the height of living standard on the basis of availability of physical comforts hence we are running towards the continuously widening valley of sorrow and distress and our life is in filled with the greedy social and political leadership. Sooner we change our norms for standard of living, sooner we will on the path of coming out of the mirage of living standard and realize the reality of the phrase. Remember it was the not physical comforts but the simple living and high thinking that have made Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, father of nation for a country with over 100 carores of human population.