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This is not to say that everything is all right in our education system. Our education system
still continues to be colonial in many ways and we need to do away with the colonial legacy.
But the RSS and even Congress do not want to alter the basic structure of colonial education.
Congress governments merely altered some contents of history to instill 'sense of national
pride' without altering the historiography approach of the colonial education i.e. history
writing concerned only the rulers as if people had no contribution in creation of history
and did not matter. Some other minor policy changes were effected e.g. introduction of three
language formula. The RSS also aims to effect minor changes in contents in the name of
Indianizing education without seeking basic changes in the colonial legacy of education system.
As we have seen above the changes desirable to them are creation of new icons and heroes for
glorification from the past as well as new enemies - the Muslim rulers and Christian
missionaries.
The Colonial Legacy
We need to use education as an instrument to transform our society and take human existence
to its glory. Our present education system merely acts as an instrument to transfer existing
knowledge from the teacher to the student or as Marcuse put it, educational institutions are
mere centres of acknowledgement rather than knowledge. To do so, we should encourage the
students to learn and imbibe the spirit of critical enquiry and question the present body of
knowledge and beliefs. Knowledge has always developed by questioning the present understanding and pointing out limitations or weaknesses therein. The body of knowledge cannot grow in any intolerant environment where shackles of selective traditions are placed on free spirit of enquiry. Knowledge has to be freed from all shackles placed by status-quoist and few elite.
More people in pursuit of knowledge do not divide it but on the contrary, multiply it.
The Colonial legacy in the field of education laid more stress on producing a few handful of
bureaucrats to assist them in governance and technocrats/professionals for management of the
economy and the few industries that existed. Macaulay outlined the British Education Policy
in his famous statement that the purpose of British education was to create a class of people
who are Indians in blood and colour of the skin but British in taste and intellect.
That is, creation of a class of Indians who can speak Indian languages and can be employed
to convince the natives about the benefits of Colonial rule, and, if necessary, they should
be loyal and reliable enough to do the dirty work of using force to suppress national political
aspirations. Just as colonial education reoriented its products to British tastes, the RSS also
desires to use 'education' to re-orient its products to North Indian upper caste social values
and culture. The colonial power used English medium to achieve their objectives, RSS wishes
to use Sanskrit as a medium. As the emphasis was on creating a small class of Indians, the
imperialists were hardly interested in educating the masses and have a good network of primary
schools covering all the urban children, let alone extending upto rural areas. The structure
of education was more like an inverted pyramid. More was spent on higher education and degree
courses which very few could avail and less was spent on the primary education which was the
need of the vast majority of masses. The colonial education system was thus elitist.
In continuation of colonial legacy, unduly large proportion of the budget on education is spent
on a few institutions like IITs and IIMs, IISc, JNU, AIIMS, etc., whereas primary schools lack
enough budgetary support and are a last priority. The elite institutions turn out graduates
who are hardly expected to be interested in the problems and developmental issues of our
society,
especially the vast majority of the poor people of the country. They serve those who have the capacity to pay the highest bid in the market - the upper classes. They take care of their
health (heart surgeries of the over fed), their wealth (from Tax), design their houses, manage
their industries, profits and investments, and design consumer goods and even objects of art
to suit their tastes and needs. Creating this class of bureaucrats and technocrats continues to
be the major pre-occupation of our education system despite independence. The graduates of
elite institutions grab any better opportunities abroad, without even a moment's thought or
regard for the country's expenses on his/her education and needs of the poor within the country.
Brain drain has become a major problem.
On the other hand, like the colonial education system, we have not paid much attention to
primary education. A little less than half of India's population continues to be illiterate and
deprived of even primary education. The drop out rate is exceptionally high, especially amongst
the poorer sections of the population, including the urban and rural poor like the landless
labourers, Schedule Castes, Schedule Tribes, other Backward Castes and minorities. The number of literate amongst women across the board is even less, generally one-half of their male counterparts. About 75 to 80% of those who are lucky enough to be able to avail of primary education, soon have to drop out due to economic and other social compulsions. Secondary and Higher education is availed by just a very small percentage of the countrymen. Today we produce six times the number of graduates produced in China, even though half of our population is illiterate
whereas China has achieved nearly cent per cent literacy.
Indianization of Education
Indianization of education should be seen in the wider context of rejecting the Colonial legacy
of elitist and hierarchical education system. To de-elitize education, the most important and
basic concern of education has to be primary education. That is where most of the budget on
education should be spent rather than on a few elite institutions churning out technocrats /
professionals and bureaucrats who in any case come from the class which can afford to meet the
full cost of their courses, and they serve the market and themselves after their education.
Benefits to the society are incidental. To get every- child in the net of primary education,
making primary free and compulsory will not be sufficient though a necessary step. Schooling
will have to be taken out of classrooms. This involves innovative restructuring and redesigning
schooling to suit the urban child labourers and children of rural poor. Educationists should
invest considerable efforts in understanding as to why certain children do not come to school.
In these regards, the Charvaha Vidyalaya in Bihar is an important innovation where the school
timings and space is adjusted to suit the children who have to graze their cattle. Similarly,
in Madhya Pradesh when schools were brought under the panchayati raj, in some villages the
villagers redesigned and made school timings flexible to accommodate girl child who has to look
after her younger siblings and is allowed to even bring the siblings right in the school. The
courses were redesigned after discussions with the students as to what they want to learn. This
has improved attendance in the school tremendously. However, such attempts are far too little.
Education has to be in the mother tongue if all the children have to be given basic education.
When we say mother tongue, I do not mean only the State language but even the dialects of
Adivasis in the interiors.
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