Education

Whither Education – An Apathy

Even after half a century of Indian Independence, the fate of education, educators, and students has hardly improved. The apathy of the power, including a large section of society, has not changed regarding human resource development and education. Even now, there are more than four crore educated unemployed youths in India.

India boasts of being the world’s third knowledge power, but effectively, this is the lowest when judged against the per thousand population base. Societal degradation, inflicted by political might, is reflected in educational institutions across India. Aberrations have become the rule on campuses infested with self-seekers and politicians.

The democratization of higher educational institutions, though a noble concept, has, in the past 20 years, turned campuses into a cauldron of stinking filth. These are managed by affiliations charged with little regard for excellence, honesty, and intellectual integrity. Unethical and politically-motivated decisions serve a few and are reflections of societal catharsis.

Geographic India consolidated into a polity by the British has muted into conglomerations of politically charged, disjointed entities and facsimiles of democratic degradation. The classic conservative yearning for an ordered state and commensurate pursuit of knowledge on the campuses are missing. Whichever brand rules the country, this section of society commands no respect now. Maybe students or teachers who don’t have a voice don’t constitute an essential service, and education is not a national necessity. Being a state subject, educational policies suffer from innumerable deformities.

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Though it is a constitutional obligation, the non-availability of funds and vested administrative setup have led to the mushrooming of universities, fake campuses, private enterprises, and numerous makeshift education centers fly-by-air foreign campuses. It has proved to be a great financial endeavor with hardly any risk because it does not come under VAT or other financial constraints. By now, India has more institutions of such type than colleges, an excellent opportunity to rope in knowledge-seeking youth and those who desire to fly off to greener pastures.

I Traveled Across 14 States and Every Student Told Me the Same Story About  Why They're Not Motivated in the ClassroomI Traveled Across 14 States and Every Student Told Me the Same Story About  Why They're Not Motivated in the Classroom

When it comes to formulating policies about higher education, structuring the system, financial assistance, grants, and salary, the statutory body-University Grants Commission, is mentioned as a sacred cow worshipped and butchered in the streets. How far the UGC is autonomous is common knowledge. It has become a post office, a government organization, disbursing petty grants sanctioned by the Central Government among universities or institutions with several tags attached to them depending upon the recipient institutions’ status, state, Central, autonomous, or deemed universities. There is a perpetual complaint about the non-availability of funds. The administration should appreciate that the jumbo cabinet and legislatures’ expenditure could be reduced to feed and educate a few villages. The teacher wants to be a ladder upon which students can climb and scale new heights.

The Central and state governments invoke ESMA to curb agitating people’s voices, but it takes no time to give benefits to politicians and bureaucrats. It is essential to please them so that a symbiotic balance is maintained and obliges a few of them. The government has failed to take effective steps to curb the industrialization of education. Within hours, the doles given in Parliament and honorarium were doubled. Still, the 6 percent expenditure of the GDP on education has proved to be dogma persisting right from the Kothari Commission recommendations for over four decades now.

Students of various educational institutes go on strike almost yearly, demanding the withdrawal of excessive fee hikes. The tuition fees comprise only about 13 percent of annual expenditure in university education. It is now a formidable industry, and the aim is to make money. However intelligent they may be, poor students cannot afford to join colleges, professional institutions, or courses. They may join such practices by putting their families under heavy debt from banks or financial institutions. Even in the USA, tuition fees contribute to about 15 percent of higher education’s total annual expenditure. Nehru said: “If all is well with universities, it will be well with the nation.” Rabindranath Tagore once compared educated classes in India to “The second story in an old building that was added in, but unfortunately, the architect forgot to build a staircase between them.”

The teaching profession is devalued because the teachers can’t compete in our society, have no muscle power, are educated, and behave differently. Neither do they have the guts of creamy bureaucrats nor institutional support. A teacher can entertain you with a pale smile on hearing that this is the profession of nation builders, society’s cream, and a noble profession. The next moment, teachers will be branded as cancers in societal marrow, getting a salary for no work, craving power, equality in pay, and status with the Class A government servants. The teacher was the consultant and conscience keeper of society till mid-century. One could identify him by his tattered clothes, emaciated, pale face, soft voice, and meek behavior. He was the guru. That guru, comparatively having a better outfit now, has metamorphosed into a present teacher.

Newspaper reports are replete with his shortcomings; his misconduct in preaching indiscipline is paid to him for no work, as he has to teach only 181 days a year. How could he dream of parity with his bosses in the secretariat, his class dropouts in Parliament, and the government? To save our hard-earned “democracy,” which is being strengthened by a few hooligans, politicians, and administrators, the government has to suppress the genuine demands so that education does not progress to the detriment of “illiterate democrats.” A handful of teachers adopt unethical means to become rich, just like any other segments that are designated scamsters today. Exceptions, however, do not make the rule.

Most of our Presidents and bureaucrats, including ministers, parliamentarians, and others, had been in this profession. Did they not do any good work to better society before their elevation to these posts of governance and reverence? Can’t the authorities assess the strength of the demand vis-à-vis the qualification, age at the time of being recruited as a teacher, lack of promotional avenues, stagnation, and competency in terms of hiatus in the inflated societal values, urge, and the necessity to improve qualification and experience to remain in the fray? Education for teachers is a continuous process, unlike “one-time-degree-obtaining-education” for others. Evaluation is paramount in this profession for every promotion. Classroom education has become drudgery, afflicted by societal unrest, absolute lack of infrastructure, fear psychosis gripping the powerless parents, and administration absences.

I think politicians take less interest in improving the standard of education and living because they know that they would neither listen nor elect them once people with low incomes come to know about their corrupt practice. Political parties make promises in their election manifestos to reduce employment, poverty, and corruption. But this can’t be achieved without education. To me, education comes as a discipline that is all-pervasive. Enshrined in our directive principles and ensuring our countrymen, “right-to-education” makes me feel that we possess the right to educate.”

Even when we have ushered in the new millennium, education remains a password to those who make an arrogant assertion that they know best and serve the public interest, which they determine. By the perception entrenched with our people’s British subjugation, elitist education occupied the center stage to produce Macaulay’s clones, who were Indians muted to be “English in taste, in opinion, in morals and intellect.” “Educated slaves became strong props to sustain the British rule.” Lord Curzon favored the bureaucratization of education since he opined that educational institutions had become factors for producing political revolutionaries. By the Act of 1919, education was transferred to the province.

When we educate, we are involved in politics. Educators often think of education as being disjointed from politics. Education is perhaps the most political activity in the community. The state has always influenced what is taught in educational institutions. The socio-political (and sometimes religious) ideology colors the content of learning and the emphasis on various aspects. Based on where the child was educated whether it was a large city or a village, whether the school used English or a regional language as a medium of education, among other factors- the child will have a different worldview. However, based on the syllabus, education in India has largely strived towards imparting a temperament of religious, political, and social tolerance. The social mores and hierarchies often seep into learning and color education.

Given the political potential of education, there have been numerous attempts to use education as a way of indoctrination. Sometimes, it is covert; at other times, it is over. Sometimes, it is subliminal; other times, it is deliberate. However, political forces have always used education to further certain world views. Today, numerous educationists and political thinkers in India are afraid that a deliberate attempt to use education as a way of social-religious indoctrination might be the new education policy’s agenda.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said: “Not gold, but only teachers can make people great and strong persons who, for truth and honor; sake, stand fast and suffer long. They build a nation’s pillar deep and lift them to the sky”. The teaching profession is a bed of roses. A good teacher is always their student’s guide, friend, and philosopher. A boy looked at the sticker on a car, which said, “Trees are friends.” He challenged this statement and started cutting trees, saying, “Trees are not our friends, but our enemies.” When asked why, he thought so., He said in his science textbooks, it was stated “trees bring rain.” Since his village gets flooded in every rainy season, he felt that “all trees must be cut down.” Confucius wrote, “If you plan for a year, plant a seed. If for ten years, plant a tree. If 100 years, teach the people.” Literacy is not enough. It is good to have a population that can read, but it is infinitely better to have people able to distinguish what is worth reading. With overcrowded classrooms and ill-paid teachers, coaching classes are the commercial fallout of a system bursting out of the seams. How can idealism be expected from someone as concerned about the quality of life as you and me?

We have grown up with cherished memories of special teachers who made us love a subject we could actually have been frightened of and whom we respected unconditionally. I have encountered many people whose mediocrity is reflected when they project themselves as the best. In contrast, the fact speaks otherwise, and those who criticize their alma mater forget that they passed out from the same from which they graduated. Education can have a great role in decreasing social disparities between groups and promoting social mobility. For instance, the tremendous expansion of the middle class in India can confidently be attributed to education investment, especially in higher education.

About author

I work for WideInfo and I love writing on my blog every day with huge new information to help my readers. Fashion is my hobby and eating food is my life. Social Media is my blood to connect my family and friends.
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