EDUCATION

Idea of a University: John Henry Newman: Knowledge should be

pursued for its own sake
Humboldt: Humboldtian ideal of education combining teaching
with research; first institutionalised in the University of Berlin,
later USA emulated
Bombay University 1857: Motto: Silastataphala Vidya: "The
Fruit of Learning is Character and Righteous Conduct"
Tagore: The primary function of University should be the
constructive work of knowledge

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new

landscapes but having new eyes

Margaret Atwood- poem Spelling: A word after a word/after

a word is power

The Philosophy of the

school room in one
generation will be the
philosophy of government
in the next. Abraham
Lincoln
The decisions I made after that moment were not the ones she
would have made. They were the choices of a changed person,
a new self.
You could call this selfhood many things. Transformation.
Metamorphosis. Falsity. Betrayal.
I call it an education”
― Tara Westover, Educated
TARA WESTOVER
“An education is not so much about making a living as making a
person.”
― Tara Westover, Educated

Tara Westover, born to a fundamentalist Mormon family in rural

Idaho, USA was haphazardly homeschooled by her parents in
crfts, religious texts and devotional literature. At 16 she moved
out to gain an education for herself and studied at Harvard and
Cambridge moving away from her family.
She realises education is an exercise in achieving a "will to
change", to accomodate and adapt and break down rigid
barriers with new perspectives gained from novel
experiences.
For Tara Westover: learning is a passion not for making a
living but a way of making a person, capable of taking in her
words "custody of my own mind"
The fact is that given the challenges we face, education doesn't
need to be reformed -- it needs to be transformed. The key to
this transformation is not to standardize education, but to
personalize it, to build achievement on discovering the
individual talents of each child, to put students in an
environment where they want to learn and where they can
naturally discover their true passions.”
― Ken Robinson, The Element: How Finding Your Passion
Changes Everything
“Our task is to educate their (our students) whole being so they
can face the future. We may not see the future, but they will and
our job is to help them make something of it.”
― Ken Robinson, The Element: How Finding Your Passion
Changes Everything
“Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler did not solve an old problem,
they asked a new question, and in doing so they changed the
whole basis on which the old questions had been framed.”
― Ken Robinson

“I believe our only hope for the future is to adopt a new

conception of human ecology, one in which we start to
reconstitute our concept of the richness in human capacity.”
― Ken Robinson
We don't receive wisdom we must discover it for ourselves after
a journey that no one can take or spare for us
If little dreaming is dangerous the cure is not to dream less, it is
to dream more, to dream all the time
Pavamana Mantra: Brihadranyaka Upanishad:
असतो मा सद्गमय । Asatō mā sadgamaya
तमसो मा ज्योतिर्गमय । tamasō mā jyōtirgamaya
Education is the collective movement
from untruth to truth
darkness to light
saa vidya yaa vimuktaye
HISTORY In Ancient Athens, the father of Political Philosophy Plato wrote
The Republic. While his underlying concern was a just and
stable Athens, his means was a radically imaginative model of
education.
It was holistic and multidimensional. It incorporated the arts,
sciences, sports and music. Learning was both within the
precincts of the academy as well as the world beyond.
Hundreds of years later Jean Jacques Rousseau called Plato's
work the finest treatise on education and proposed his own in
his work Emile (On Education). Rousseau argued man was born
weak, foolish and savage. Like a tree planted on the highway
with no care. It may come into existence, live a lesser life and
wither away. If not for education. Which freed humans from the
blunt and brutal forces of human nature: selfishness and cruelty.
If one looks deeply, these are not merely designs to ensure how
best to educate our children. These are designs that
incorporate what is to be valued as humans, what sort of
humans are we to become.
Plato wanted we have the sensitivity towards nature,
appreciation of art and physical strength to endure hardship.
And above all critical thinking to make sense of the world.
Rousseau valued the higher ideals of being human: being
compassionate, empathetic, rational and live for a cause greater
than ourselves.
India also beholds within it a rich tradition of education.
Whether its the institutions of higher learning: Nalanda
established by Kumargupta, Vikramshila by Dharampala or
Taxila that lying on the Uttar Patha became the space where
men of Ideas interacted and created a cosmos of learning.
It is imperative however to attempt to define what education
really means at the very beginning of the essay. In essence it is
the fulfillment of the Pavamana Mantra of the Brihadranyaka
Upanishad: it is the movement of the human mind from untruth
to truth, from darkness to light. It is not merely the curriculum
designed by an NCERT and imparted by teachers in classroom.
It is the spectrum of ideas, thoughts and experiences that
inform and shape the lives of individuals.
So when one looks back at history, the Ashokan edicts that said
be empathetic to your servants and kind to your elders, was as
much a part of education as Patanjali's book of Grammar the
A ht dh i hi h i hb t th M
Education without values is Having defined what is education, we must move on to first
no education at all define what are values before understanding its centrality to
education.
Simply put, values are ideas that are important to us. If we love
our nation, we are said to have the value of patriotism. If we care
for our old parents and grandparents, we have the value of
respect and love.
But then what is the relation between values and education?
In essence, an education not driven by values is no education at
all. Such an education will merely create standardised
individuals to take their place in the economy, like goods
produced on an assembly line.
Education deprived of values also has high social costs, for it
would mean that the dominating values of a society which may
be immoral and unethical can come to define an individual's
character. This will create an existential crisis, for as a nation
and as a world we will not have ideals and visions to strive
towards.
Crisis or Bright Spot?
So where do we stand today, is our education system driven by
the values we want? Or do we stare at a crisis where an entire
generation is growing up in the vacuum of values that must
shape our future?
The answer would be a story of contradiction:
We have bright spots where children are growing with empathy
for the disadvantaged, compassion for each other, sensistivity
towards nature's needs, belief in cosmpolitanism and the
inherent equality of humankind. Children in Shantiniketan have
many classes beneath trees in their open campus, loving both
nature and books.
while children at schools of Delhi like Tagore International are
celebrating LGBTQ festivals to sensitise their friends and uphold
the spirit of Navtej Singh Johar judgment recognising LGBTQ
rights.
We have a Greta Thunberg who moves world leaders with her
empathetic words at global fora and infuses the spirit of caring
for nature.
Yet on the other other hand we have children growing up in
classrooms that are dens of violence, committed by teachers as
corporal punishment or by peers as bullying. We have an entire
ti b i h d b th l i f h t i fit bl d
game of marks and grades are valued more than knowledge and the world view education
imparts. Competitive exams have become rat races rather than medium to adequately test
individual proficiency. The skewed set of values being imparted are: success over wisdom, profit
over ecology, selfishness over compassion, traditional faultlines over fraternity.
To be able to rethink the possibility of positive nexus between values and education let us
understand the processes and stakeholders involved in shaping the values that guide education:
It is clear that education is not a rigid narrow curriculum of a classroom. What the world together
values is what is transmitted to the classroom. Ancient Athens valued wisdom so education was
all about gaining so. Post the Industrial Revolution, and riding on the wave of globalisation we
have come to value market and profits over people and sustainability. The crisis of inequality
that plagues the world is a direct outcome of the force of globalisation that remained singularly
focused on profits, wages and resource extraction.
It is no surprise then that what was relevant for the market became relevant for our schools and
colleges. India saw the engineering and management boom, much like the world. We relegated
arts, humanities, philosophy, music and sports to the backseat. They were not relevant to the
economy. so creativity, empathy and critical thinking came to be valued less.
Much like the world, what we value as a nation transmits to the classroom. In the post
independence era, teachers were valued as idols in society. They led the freedom movement
from the front and were creators of modern India. As the inadequacies of education system
became clear, private education and tutions became common. Education soon became a
commodity, teachers service providers. The value of teaching as a profession took a dip. So we
have today crimes committed by children against teachers and teachers uninterested in the
profession. Teaching recruitment scams are the most common form of corruption in our
hinterlands. Teacher absenteeism a common malaise. As a nation we stopped valuing our
teachers, and the value for respect and knowledge took a dip. Those meant to impart values are
not valued.
One of the prime forces of education and influence for a child is the family. J.S. Mill the English
Philosopher rightly noted that if the family is marred by inequalities, say of gender, it threatens
democracy. It is because democracy is based on the value of equality. A P J Abdul Kalam many
years later reiterated the idea when he said that a happy family is key to a happy nation and
world. What the family values is what the child comes to value. It its hierarchy, inequality and
patriarchy, the child's education is driven by those values.
Children do not grow up in a vacuum, they are influenced by their peers, the society they live in.
The values of society are transmitted through media, movie, news, or conversations at home,
travelling to school or playing in the park. If values of religious intolerance, caste inequality and
class hierarchies are transmitted in the community, it reaches the child one way or another. S/he
begins to value the precepts of an unequal world we do not want.
Lastly what sort of values are our classrooms transmitting? Is it objective and reasoned account
Lastly,
GLOBAL THOUGHT LEADERSHIP:
Ancient India was home to some of the famous centres of
learning like Takshashila, Nalanda and Pushpagiri which
attracted knowledge seekers and savants from across the
country and the world
Contribution of decimal system and zero
advancements in field of metallurgy
All that is ancient is not necessarily good. Nor should you think
that all that is modern is necessarily bad.Wise persons carefully
analyse and come to a conclusion.\
Universities are the homes of Intellectual adventure
Present Scenario
1. EARLY CHILDHOOD CARE AND EDUCATION
1. problem of access
2. curriculum that does meet developmental needs of student
3. lack of qualified and trained teachers
4. substandard pedagogy
5. limited to Anganwadi, private pre school
6. Hence, 2 part curriculum
1. up to 3 year old guidelines
2. educational framework for 3-8 year old
2. Primary education
1. GER at Primary level: close to 100%
2. Yawning gaps between the two genders coming to a close
3. The first frontier of a school in the neighbourhood, books and teachers fulfilled
through the landmark CASE: RTE; RTE ACT 2005
4. The next frontier is Quality; Outcomes
1. ASER Report
5. School as a space for self development
6. AMARTYA SEN: Mid Day Meal: an exercise in social inclusion and cohesion, what
bonds us more than eating together
3. School education in general
1. Improved results, pass percentages
2. Delhi Model:
1. Education as priority, as a political and developmental issue
2. involving public and parents: Mass PTMs
3. Happiness Curriculum, Entrepreneurial curriculum: giving money experiment
4. Constitution Classes
5. Remedial classes during summers
3. Key issues:
1. skills for the 21st century: soft and hard: ICT, communication, facts into
knowledge and wisdom
2. The rat race of competitive exams
3. Kota Factory; NEET: suicides
4. Navigating the humdrum of adolosence without sensitisation: violence, Bois
Locker Room; gender related crimes
5. Rural India: inaccessibility of toilets, menstrual hygiene: dropout
6. Children of migrant families: either left behind or travel with parents seasonally
1. UNESCO study: hard hit by migration
2. Gujarat, Kerala: vernacular language classes, counselling for children left
behind
7. Digital divide:
1. ASER: between boys and girls
2. Unmonitored access
Key Issues and Challenges
Your Vision of Education
EDUCATION GOVERNANCE:
1. Synergise ministries and departments
2. Create NATIONAL EDUCATION COMMISSION/ RASHTRIYA SHIKSHA AAYOG:
1. an apex body for education headed by PM
2. responsible for developing, implementing, evaluating, revising vision of
education
3. oversee NCERT, NHERA, National Research Foundation
3. Rename MHRD Ministry of Education; bring back focus on Education

FINANCING EDUCATION
Commitment of 6% of GDP
A demand consistently reiterated since FIRST EDUCATIONAL POLICY 1968 (51 years!!!!!!!)
2017-18: 2.7% OF GDP ONLY

Double Public Investment in Education

Operational problems, leakages
45% vacancies in District Institutes of Education and Training: therefore funds not
adequately utilised

TECHNOLOGY IN EDUCATION
Role
improve classroom teaching, evaluation, learning
Preparation of teacher and there continuous professional development aided
Improves access in remote areas
Improves overall planning
Hence
FOCUSED ELECTRIFICATION: Electricity is key: SDG NEXUS: ECONOMIC SURVEY
NATIONAL EDUCATION TECHNOLOGY FORUM
AUTONOMOUS BODY
decision making on use of technology
National repository: all records related to institutions, teachers, students
single online repository of copyright free educational materials
VOCATIONAL EDUCATION
This is is a crisis!! The window to reap the demographic
dividend is fast closing, lest it becomes a demographic burden.
Transitioning statement Until we focus on what needs to be done rather than what is
politically possible, there is no hope. We cannot solve a crisis
without treating it as a crisis: Greta Thunberg
Aano bhadraah krathavo yatu vishwathaha: Let noble
thoughts come to us from all sides
3000 years ago, a great poet of India, Kariyan Pungun-dra-
Cosmpolitan Model of naar, wrote in Tamil the most ancient language of the world:
education:
No Narrow Domestic Walls “Ya-dum, Oo-ray, Yaav-rum Ke-rir”
: Tagore
which means We belong to all places, and to everyone.
This sense of belonging beyond borders, is unique to India.
INDIC Strands and VISION of Kabir on the need to look within
The musk is in the deer, but it seeks it not within itself: it
Education wanders in quest of grass.

BUILD CURIOSITY: GO
BEYOND THE CLASSROOM C.V. Raman's love for nature enabled him to observe the
Mediterranean Sea and its changing hues. He thus questioned
To the natural world the existing belief that the water body is blue merely because of
the sky's reflection. It ultimately led him to propound the Raman
effect. The Nobel Prize of 1930 put India on the scientific map,
otherwise struggling for identity
Education and knowledge Space X; Try, fly, test, fail, fix
applied to solve real world ISRO's
issues.
drive: apply technology and knowledge to solve societal
problems THE ULTIMATE GOAL OF SCIENCE IS SOCIAL
Chandidas: "Shobar upor manush shotto tahar upore nai" ("Above
Realise the Preamble's all is humanity, none else"

dream of fraternity The 25% seats for EWS in a government school only half a
realisation. Unless the invisible walls of class, caste and religion
brought down in classrooms how else?
The Paradox of Plenty: the crisis of unlimited access: Bois Locker
Room, a 17 year old commits suicide due to a social media post,
students killing teachers: Classrooms as dens of unmitigated
Adapting to the times violence and unaddressed troubles of adolosence.
The idea of education as vaccine: in small doses: about gender
equality, sensitise to LGBTQ( Vasant Valley school, Tagore
International); cyber bullying, good touch, bad touch
Manuhe Manuhar Babe: If man would not think for man/ with a
little sympathy/ tell me who will-comrade?/if we repeat history/ if
Education in Compassion; we try to buy/or sell humanity/ won't we be wrong-comrade?
training in thinking for
Antyodaya Solidarity week
Outreach programmes
Students volunteer: NSS
Adult Education 96 year old Karthyayini Amma- oldest person ever to take
part in Kerala's literacy examination, getting 98 out of 100
SOLAR MAMAS/BAREFOOT COLLEGE
BAREFOOT COLLEGE, AN EXTRAORDINARY SCHOOL IN
TILONIA VILLAGE, RAJASTHAN, HELPED TURN RURAL
WISDOM INTO A FOUNTAINHEAD FOR DEVELOPMENT
BAREFOOT COLLEGE EMPOWERS MARGINALISED WOMEN BY
TRAINING THEM TO BECOME SOLAR ENGINEERS, ARTISANS,
DENTISTS, BROADCASTERS AND DOCTORS FOR THEIR OWN
VOCATIONAL TRAINING VILLAGES
SOLAR ENERGY TRAINING LATEST INITIATIVE
WORKS ON GANDHIAN PHILOSOPHY-MAKING VILLAGES SELF
RELIANT
MORE THAN 3 MILLION PEOPLE TRAINED
BUNKER ROY
Sensitised to raging issues of our times:
Global and responsible think Greta: Friday protests; small steps to action
citizens Casual racism/Casteism: the appropriateness of language
Thiruvallavur: Words should be like pearls strung on a
thread
Concrete Suggestions
ESI Traffic light approach
The Utopian Feel Good
goosebump worthy
conclusion
Education
Education is transmission of human civilisation. Education is the process of initiating the
learners into a form of life that is considered as desirable to preserve and promote
Literacy is the movement from darkness to light
three aims of education — economic, citizenship, and character/values (CEC)
Data etc
International Covenant on Economic,Social and Cultural Rights
Right to Education (RTE) Act
Education expenditure is 3-4% of gdp - 65% on primary education, 9.5%on higher
education and 11% on technical education
ASER survey findings - only an average 48.1% of Class V children across India can read a
Class II-level text.
Census 2011 data - fewer than one out of every 10 Indians is a graduate.
Issues
Education without values - creates deveil
problem with rat race is you are still a rat at the end of it
mediocrity
irrelevant to the job market.
drowning in information, while starving for wisdom.
Bihar cheating incident - Mass cheating in Vaishali with teacher being helpless. What sue
is education if ti can’t even teach you the fallacy of cheating?
Toppers in Bihar unaware of the content of the syllabus. science topper doesn’t know
electron and proton. political science topper confuses political science with cooking
Three idiots is good movie for at least one reason - question the sensible audience about
the purpose one duration - most interesting character - highly nicknamed virus - who
think education is nothin but academic excellence is proven wrong -
Overqualified - utakal express incident
Importance
He who opens a school door, closes a prison - Victor huGO
Education is the cheap defence of nations - Edmund Burke
purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows
replaces an empty mind with an open one
philosophy of school room in one generation will be the philosophy of the govt in the next
Give a man a fish and you help him for a day and teach a man how to fish and you help
him for life
Swami vivekanad found education as the answer to uplift the indian masses out of their
ignorance
Dr Sarvapall radhakrishnan - the purpose of education is not merely acquisirn of skills
and information but the initiation into higher life, into a world which transcends the world
of space and time
Suggest
Independent thinking - taught how to think, not what to think.” Margaret Mead
Read-Write-Retain to Understand-Analayze-Interpret
develop authentic self - autonomy, integrity and harmony. (HAI)
Finland’s new teaching suysytem - teaching by topic
exposure to failure
Ken robinson three step model
Every flower blooms at different pace
A student should be exposed to failures early in his/her life. it can’t be postponed to
future, for The earlier a student learns to face tough situation, the better it is for his/her
growth
TSR Subramanian committee report
NEP
Kothari commission report
economic survey has given traffic light approach to reforms:
Red light (Avoid): Increasing number of teachers, providing stationery, computers
and building. Because they create leakage and don’t improve learning outcomes.
Amber/Yellow (Promising): remedial classes, DBT for scholarship, DBT for sending
girl child to school etc.
Green light (Definitely do): merit based scholarship. Mid-Day Meal. Biometric
Attendance.
Steps taken
Quotes
“If you think in terms of a year, plant a seed; if in terms of 100 years, teach the people.”
Education is a tree whose roots are bitter but fruits are sweet