“Education as I see it, and want it to be”, it on the following outlines: Education : Two Types : Formal and Informal. Formal : Academic, with emphasis on textbooks, classroom teaching, notes, examination, degrees, etc. Informal : Co-curricular, highlighting sports and games, debates, quiz, drama, inter- school festivals, etc. Formal : Builds up academic proficiency, sharpness, intellect, awards, degrees for jobs or vocations. Informal : Develops a personality, prepares one for social living. Conclusion : Merging of two ideals for perfect education.
Education is definitely the corner-stone of a nation’s culture, economy and consciousness. In our country it has passed through various trying times. It has, somehow, emerged as a viable (= a living) phenomenon through the labour and dedication of our great educationists and reformers. But it is its glorious past.
Today, she (= education), poor thing, is a pitiful experimental quarry (= subject of experiment) of politicians and educationists.
There are two types of educations: formal and informal. No doubt, both forms have been incorporated (= included into the body) in our education-plan as a commendable scheme that far outgrows the pre-Independence Macaulay method. Today we have the NCERT or the UGC or parallel bodies that compile syllabus, write textbooks or lay down vital guidelines in higher education. But, to everyone’s dismay, their surveillance (= critical survey) of the schools or colleges – the feeding media of their ideas – is a sorry mess! The schools grow thick like algae in stagnant water; their qualities are sacrificed everyday to lust for money; teaching, in most cases and in its true sense, is subservient (serving under) to dress-culture or other non-intellectual pursuits. Barring only a few ones, in a majority of schools there is lack of a stimulating intellectual environment. An obvious trend is too visible; that the government schools are fast declining in popularity. Our higher education, on the other hand, seems to have suffered a somersault (= upside down): in the pre-Independence days education was a means to defeat, humiliate and expose the colonial fraud and its political pretensions. Today, politics makes education subserve her foul designs. It may sound unpalatable, but it is the truth. The result the foreign universities are making inroads. Imperial expansionism is yielding place to academic expansionism.
Frankly speaking, the intention of our rulers seems to be infected; the party is bigger than the nation and one’s self bigger than his party. This is the sorry mess.
Our informal/non-formal education has entered a new phase with the TV network, and now with the Internet. There is indeed sensational hurry among youth to look forward. The spectrum is too exciting and the manner in which the internet facilities would be thrown far and wide, even the poor and intelligent class would find access into it. Debates, quiz-contest, national and regional sports are all flung across the country like a sweeping searchlight. Girls, today, are firmly on the saddle, independent and forcefully assertive. The future looks bright and glorious.
But, perhaps, I anticipate. I forgot that the purse-string of the nation are with our sage politicians! That chosen spot is only or the few and the chosen! Your merit has no independent status sui generis, it must have the blessings of our political overlords.
This is how I observe the education scenario. The remedy, from my standpoint, lies in purging politics. How, is a matter of research and soul-searching for our political overlords.
The function of formal education is to train the intellect and sensibility of the boys. An in-depth study of texts ought to be combined with a taste for general reading. Mere bookish knowledge has to be discouraged and the overall objective of education ought to be to stimulate in the boys and girls an inquisitive attitude towards life. Non-formal education contributes to the building of one’s personality. It wears off the personal angularities like rank (=rotten) self-importance, meanness. Sports and games develop spirit of fellow-feeling and of harmony-in-difference. Debates, quiz develop elocution, wit, repartee (= prompt witty reply). Cultural and co-curricular activities develop one’s aesthetic sense and provides opportunity and encouragement to take decisions and act independently.
The two types have to be effectively merged. All work no play makes jack of a dull boy. A proverbial adage (= saying) an true enough. Bull, all play and no work or intellectual work, make a playboy or tramp of an ordinary boy. The intellect and understanding is as much contributory to the growth of a rounder personality as games, sports, debates and other activities. There is however, a specialization in later life. But whether it is toward sports or other non-formal types or to the formal ones, this fine blend of the two achieved at the earlier stage of life becomes source of new ideas and insights in either sphere.
Lastly, the motto of educational reform ought to be founded on this truth : ideas that float on high like the clouds fritter away (= disperse), but ideas that crystallize (= become solid like crystals into reality stay put (= stay as meant to stay).
