“Everyone is a born genius but modern education spoils us.”
The rising unemployment among highly educated youths across the globe puts a big question mark on the utility of modern education. However, the majority of people see it as growing competition in the job market and blame their respective governments for a lack of job creation rather than pondering on the root cause of the problem.
Wrong Expectations –
First of all, in modern times there are wrong expectations from Education per se. The education system is nothing new to society, and it is as old as the history of civilisation. Traditionally, across all civilisations, the purpose of education has been to solve the problems of society and address curiosity. For example, Agriculture, Animal Husbandry, Shipping, Astronomy, Trade, Construction of buildings, Metallurgy, and Art of Warfare etc. were part of the ancient education system only. All these branches of Education were actually meant to serve social needs by solving socio-economic problems rather than creating employment avenues for making high-profile careers.
“वृक्ष कबहुँ नहिं फल भखै, नदी न संचै नीर।
परमारथ के कारने, साधुन धरा शरीर।।”
But in modern times, we are unmindful of contemporary social needs like safety, security and support for old, feeble and disabled people; emotional support for everyone; due care for young children; affordable healthcare for everyone; poor urban planning, environment protection; family stability; quick and effective justice, etc. Now we are obsessively focused on individual CAREER, that too on a very narrow socio-economic spectrum, particularly in the STEM domain. We don’t understand a basic fact that no society will ever progress only with Engineers, or Doctors, or Managers, CEOs or even Scientists. Science deals with Matter and Energy only, not with Human Behaviour or Spiritual Quest. _Spirituality begins where Science ends. Whatever is discovered or known is Science, and every unknown beyond that is Spirituality._ The former is important for Materialism, and the latter is very important for developing the core social values such as Morality, Honesty, Thinking, Discipline, Compassion, and Character, etc. In this context, we have actually been chasing a mirage of Materialism with insatiable greed in the form of Abusive Consumerism.
Prior to the colonial era, the word unemployment was unheard. It’s a gift of colonisation to the world. The problem of education started when the Age of Discovery was followed by the era of Enlightenment and Industrialisation; education was wrongly mapped to employment. For around 4 centuries, expanding markets, rapid industrialisation, colonisation, and expanding governance, etc. created exponentially growing employment opportunities that were directly linked to formal education with a knowledge base compartmentalised into watertight compartments called SUBJECTS. A high-level understanding of Language, Grammar, Geography, Science, and Maths started giving not only basic employment opportunities but an express path to a high-profile career. Interestingly, this level of understanding of the above subjects had nothing to do with solving the real problem of society; rather, this education helped people to become virtual rulers of the masses, in the form of Administrators or commercialization of knowledge.
This model of Education was designed by European Enlightenment and Humanist Thinkers, to counter the then Theological schools run by the Church. Eventually, the influence of Enlightenment and Humanist thinking in tandem with colonial interests made the following adverse impact on both Education and Society.
- Formal education shrank the learning space by restricting it to classrooms and libraries, whereas earlier education (traditional learning) was an everywhere and every time (24×7) activity.
- Certificates replaced the performance-based recognition.
Deep market penetration covering almost the entire population and a robust governance structure have almost saturated the employment landscape. Rampant innovations outperform the adoption, making the skill gap and rendering the earlier skilled workers irrelevant, became a permanent socio-economic problem. Of course, it helps the market economy by artificially suppressing wages and adding the same workforce as compulsive consumers. But overall society is a big loser.
Additionally, the political craving of scoring brownie points with rapid expansion of formal academic education far exceeds the actual market demand and implicit needs. The rapid expansion of educational institutions has also severely dented the quality of education as entry and clearing barriers have been significantly lowered.
Structural Flaws in Education System –
The above-mentioned scenario is systematically created to benefit both the market and State, by making Society confused and chasing a carrot on a stick. Youths have been racing from one degree to another, in the hope of better career prospects without realising that it’s a mirage. The educational system is designed to make people good consumers of information, but unable to process it to convert it into wisdom. Thus, well-educated people are good enough to understand the technical terms and their context, but unable to use the same knowledge to solve real-life problems or foresee the long-term implications.
To take full advantage of the above educational model, the following are ensured as an integral part of the modern Education system.
- No Focus on developing Observation capability
- Discourage Deep Thinking
- No ability to decipher Objective view with concise Abstraction
- Compartmentalise traditional subjects without encouraging the development of new subjects covering all aspects of life
- Sponsor and promote only those Research Programs which can be quickly commercialised.
The above structure of the Education Model is ideal for creating the Slaves of Texts who can be easily controlled by feeding a specific narrative through texts, Media, and other Propaganda mediums and other external influences.
This model helped in the creation of a vast pool of working class (labours) cum consumer class. Since producers themselves became consumers, the real capital formation remains a mirage for the middle class. Thus, those who are being deceived by the Market Economy remain loyal to the same, notwithstanding the unfair treatment meted out. They are unable to analyse the scenario as the modern education model has wired their brain for the same. Deep Thinking is completely missing in modern society.
Role of Society –
The younger generation has grown up with the vision and hopes based on the script of the success stories of our generation, and that is the major part of the problem. This approach did not factor in the evolution of the socio-economic landscape and geopolitical dynamics over time.
There is a general psychological inertia among the masses. Everyone thinks that only their or their family’s state is dynamic and the world around us will remain in a fixed state where the resources, market demand pattern and consumption will remain the same for the next two to three decades. This is a classic cognitive bias leading to faulty future planning. Erroneous assumptions are the foundation of faulty planning.
The general public tendency is to squarely blame Market Conditions and Government Policies. However, higher academic learning fails to recognise the true character of Market and State. The main objective of Market is to maximise profit without any social obligation. Charitable initiatives and CSR, etc., are just eyewash and meant to cater to hidden objectives, whereas State needs revenue from trade to sustain. All over the world, the push for employment creation by government is just political propaganda, largely to win elections or contain social resentment.
Market intentionally creates cyclic unemployment through structured layoffs to check rising wages and contain labour cost. Market also creates volatility through innovation, forcing the same working class as new consumers for new products, leveraging the psychological trait of FOMO. Thus, Market leverages self created volatality and uncertainty, leaving Society in the lurch.
The fragmented society, rather an individualistic society, is already in flux and hardly has any inertia to resist even a knee-jerk change. On the other hand, State machinery has a big inertia and cannot outsmart the Market dynamics, thus unable to extend protective wings to Society, yet wants to retain control of Social Welfare with itself. This ghastly situation makes a confused society, swaying between individualistic, compulsive, abusive consumerism and the need of collectivism for existence. The needs should drive consumption rather than addiction to consumption by artificially creating needs. This is Abusive Consumerism. Nutrition supplements, Fair & Lovely Cream type cosmetics, Frozen food, cryptocurrency, and AI-type technology are classic examples of Abusive Consumerism.
The irony is that the modern society in such a state dreams of hollow ideals like Freedom and Liberty while itself helpless in the captivating clutches of both State and Market. Both preach the same ideals yet exploit society.
Old traditional Social Institutions that could have acted as beacons of light showing the way while reinforcing the stability and strength in society have decayed in the race of modernity and the cosmetic label of advancement and being progressive.
Every major social transformation has some key drivers, like emerging Social Needs, Economic Forces, and political dynamics. Now the time has come when we must revamp the entire social structure, leveraging the above transformation drivers. For that, we need to revive traditional social institutions, restore emotional bonding, stabilise the family and strengthen kinship, needs-driven consumption and expand the base of social development along with economic development. Let Sociology drive Economics and Politics, not the other way round.
What needs to change –
It’s never too late to mend. The following are essential changes that society needs to embrace.
- Society must reclaim its power by restoring traditional social institutions rather than being subjected to exploitation by Market and State. There must be a balance of power among Market, State and Society.
- Education must be liberated from prescribed watertight compartments of Subjects, Syllabus, Prescribed Texts, and 3-hour exams.
- Education must be imparted based on Aptitude, Potential and Commitment. Learning must be a serious business and only for serious learners. No need to make everyone an Engineer, Doctor, Manager and CEO.
- Observation, Thinking and Analysis must be an integral part of learning.
- Deep Thinking and solving unknown, unseen problems should be the evaluation criteria.
- STEM is not any panacea to all human problems. Study of human behaviour and humanity are very important for everyone and must be taught to everyone.
- Life does not depend on any success or failure in any particular exam. Do whatever one can do best.
- Never keep individual interests (selfishness) above the interests of society.
(Concluded)
