• Specialise in the Sociology of Education and has been one of the piooneers of this disciplines in the country. Recently retired from the Directorship of the J. N. Jaya Eydowment for The higher Education of Judians. Former Vice Chancellor of the SNDT women’s University.
• Dr. Chitnis has taught and lectured abroad.
• She has written and published extensively on education. She has served in several national and in international commissions and committees on education.

At the Karve Institute for Women, in Hingne at Pune, which has grown out of the ashram established there more than a century ago by Maharishi Karve stands a life size statue of the Maharishi. The Maharishi was not big built, and therefore the statue is quite small. But the sculptor has captured the Maharishi’s spirit in the sculpture and the statue is extremely powerful.

Soon after I was appointed Vice Chancellor of the S.N.D.T. Women’s university in 1990, I decided to pay my homage to the founder of the university by visiting this statue. I had planned to spend some time in silence before the statue for the Maharishi’s blessings, and to seek from him for the challenging task that I had taken on. As I stood there with closed eyes, under his penetrating gaze I felt that the Maharishi was talking to me. “Are you giving our girls an education that will fully equip them for life?” he seemed to ask me. “I am trying to” I heard my inner voice reply to him in silence. Over the course of the six years that I spent at the S.N.D.T. University, I felt accountable to the Maharishi for what was being done for students at the university. I knew that we were doing as much as could be done within the limitations of the university system. But I was uncomfortably aware that because of these limitations of the university system in our country what was being done was not enough.

It is now more than ten years since I visited Hingne, and six years since I left the S.N.D.T. University, but the Maharishi’s question continues to haunt me as an educator. I believe that it is a question that all of us, who are responsible for education in the country, must heed and answer. “Are we giving the younger generation in the country an education that will equip them for life? Are we, as educators, serving the country in the manner that it should be served? When I face these questions, I feel deeply disturbed by the many aspects of education in our country today. In this short article, I will share some of my concerns in the hope of, among educators, the dialogue required to find answers.

The Constitution of our country promises schooling to all children up to the age of fourteen. Since children are expected to enter school at the age of six, this in effect means that the Constitution promises all children eight years of schooling, up to the completion of Std. VIII. This goal, expected to be accomplished by the end of the Second Plan period in 1961, continues to elude us. In fact, barely 40% of the children, who join school, drop out before they complete primary school, and another 20% drop out before they complete Std. VII. The highly respected Probe Report on Primary School education further reveals that barely 55% of the primary school population reaches the minimum levels of learning set by the Central Government’s Ministry of Education. In all of Europe and North America, in Australia, as well as much of East and South East Asia, the population is a least secondary school educated.

Comparisons with developed countries, which have had a massive head start in development, are odious, and seem unfair. But the point is that in today’s increasingly interactive world, our standing in the community of nations, and for that matter even in our defence from renewed dependence on them, hinges on how successfully we compete with them. Comparisons enable us to recognize our weaknesses and to identify our strengths. Taken in the right spirit, they should help us. The world is growing to be increasingly knowledge and technology driven. The economic growth, advance and power of nations now depend on their access to knowledge and on their ability to develop complex and sophisticated technology. The fact that we are now part of a Global economy makes it all the more important to ensure that education in our country is as good, if not better than, as the countries with which we must compete.

To remain in the forefront of knowledge and technology, a country requires a sizeable manpower of highly educated scientists, technologists, researchers, thinkers and professionals. This is where university education comes in. In North America, between 60% to 70%, and in Europe between 40% to 50% of the population in the relevant age group is enrolled for higher education. In Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore and Taiwan – the recently developed countries referred to as the Asian Tigers – enrollment in higher education accounts for between 33% and 55% of the population in the relevant age group. In India, just about 6% of the population in the relevant age group is enrolled in higher education. To use sophisticated technology countries need an appropriately educated workforce. In the counttries that I have mentioned, education up to the secondary school level is considered to be a basic requirement for workers. As against this, barely 40% of the children in our country complete primary school. We account for more than 50% of the illiterate population of the world.

In terms of enrolment, our situation is quite precarious. But we have an even greater problem with respect to the quality and the relevance of what is taught at school and college. School and college education is expected to transmit knowledge and skills to the younger generation. It is expected to cultivate qualities of the mind and of the intellect required to ensure that students are equipped to apply and advance knowledge. Simultaneously, school and college education are expected to inculcate the values, cherished by a society, to the younger generation, to develop their character and to nurture their formation as discerning and socially responsible adults. The values to be inculcated range from those that pertain to intimate domestic situations – for instance filial duty – to those that pertain to the occupations that students will eventually follow, and the civic and political responsibilities they will be called upon to shoulder. Finally, education is expected to equip students to earn. Over the course of the last three or four decades, the latter function has been increasingly emphasized. By serving students in the manner described, schools and colleges also serve the societies to which they belong. In fact, every service that schools and colleges perform for students has its counterpart in service to society. By transmitting knowledge, skills and values to the younger generation, schools and colleges ensure the conservation and the advance of the knowledge, and the cultural capital of the societies to which they belong. They also provide these societies with the manpower they need. By communicating appropriate values, they provide the base for smooth governance, effective functioning of the several institutions dealing with different spheres of private and public life, and meaningful interaction between persons and between communities. How well?’ we may ask ourselves. ‘Does education in our country fulfill these functions? As educators, we often talk about the importance of education. But I often wonder if we fully realize how central it is to civilized life and what a critical responsibility we carry as educators!

The tasks for education, as listed above, remain constant. But for education to be fully relevant to the society it serves, the substance of the knowledge and skills imparted as well as the values communicated must change as knowledge and skills advance, as pedagogy develops, as the economy becomes more complex, as modes of production change, as the structure and the ideology of governance and other elements of society change. For instance, today education, worldwide, is reeling under the pressure to adapt to three major changes that have occurred over the course of the last five decades. First, the post Second World War commitment to social equality. To honour this commitment, Governments in most countries have accepted the responsibility to provide full and equal opportunities for education to all children. They are now finding it difficult to provide educational facilities on the scale required. This has led to financial crises in education all over the world. Moreover, the ideal of equality has turned out to be difficult to operate in education. It has been particularly difficult to combine equality with excellence and with the principle of merit, so basic to education.
The second challenge comes from the rapid and continuous growth of knowledge and technology. This again is a post Second World War phenomenon. Schools and universities all over the world are finding it difficult to keep pace with these advances. The third challenge comes from a relatively recent happening, viz. courses on television, computer-aided self-instruction, on-line courses and educational web. National boundaries have been broken. The traditional practice of organizing education at schools and colleges, and providing personal instruction through teachers has been seriously challenged by these new phenomena.

With the rest of the world, we are struggling to deal with these three changes. But we have additional problems arising out of the fact that after acquiring independence, we continued to function with the education system left behind by the British. This system was basically designed to serve the needs of the Raj-to produce useful and loyal subjects. Towards this end, it was assigned two specific tasks. First, to produce the manpower required for British administration and commerce, and for the few professional services that were then in place. Second, to acquaint and impress Indians with European culture, thus, culturally colonize the country and strengthen the political colonization that had already been accomplished so successfully neither task called for an advanced level of education. Since the highest positions in Government were help by expatriates, or at best by Indians who qualified for the ICS with an education in Britain, the system was not expected to equip its products for anything more than middle level administration. Similarly, industrialization and monetization were discouraged. The economy was restricted to the production of raw materials for British industry and to the sale of British finished goods in India. Consequently, the technical capabilities with which schools and colleges were expected to equip their students were simple and limited. Above all, as a British colony, the country was kept dependent on Britain for its advanced skill and knowledge needs. Universities were not expected to advance knowledge. Since schools and colleges were expected to mould loyal and compliant citizens, they were not required to equip Indians to think freely, independently, critically, or creatively. Teaching methods, examinations, the ethos and the culture of educational institutions were designed accordingly.

As may be seen from the following the functions that the education system is expected to perform in independent India are almost the opposite of what it performed under the British.

Designed to produce loyal subjects for an imperial colony, education is now expected to mould responsible citizens for a democracy. To make good subjects, students had to be nurtured to be compliant, accepting and non critical. To be good citizens of a democracy, they have to learn to be alert to the actions of the government, critical of whatever seems to them to be wrong, articulate, and able to exert their pressure as citizens. Since the line between democracy and monocracy is precariously thin they need to be taught to be discerning in this matter. Since good governance in democracies depends on how effectively citizens present and pursue issues, students have to learn to be informed about the economic, social and political realities in their country, to discuss and to understand issues, and to be clear about their own position on controversial matters. Above all, they need to be made aware of the fact that citizenship is a serious responsibility that has to be actively fulfilled. They need to be made aware of the commitments made in the Constitution of the country, for instance the equality of all citizens, the obligation to help the traditionally disadvantaged sectors of society, the commitment to secularism. They need to be equipped to understand the concept of nationhood and of democracy, to be made aware of the national aspirations for social, economic and political development and equipped to understand and fulfill their responsibilities to the country in these contexts. To what extent and how do school and college education in the country fulfil these tasks?

Designed to produce middle level administrators and a small cadre of technically, professionally trained persons for an economy with simple needs, it is now expected to produce a highly variegated and sophisticated man power, to serve at different levels in the country’s increasingly complex economy. It must produce thinkers, researchers, and inventors to keep the country in the forefront of knowledge and technology, leaders, entrepreneurs, and managers with the capacity to lead and to steer the country to compete with the highly developed economies of the world. It must produce professionals to man medical, educational, transport, communication and other services of a quality fit for a country aspiring to provide services on par with the developed countries. For this, it is necessary to shift the emphasis is teaching and learning from the accumulation of knowledge to development of the ability to reach out to knowledge. It is necessary to teach students to locate sources of information, to sift and verify information found and to use it selectively and pertinently. I is necessary to encourage them to explore ideas, to contest and to critique then, to develop, articulate and discuss a point of view. In our certificate oriented and examination driven system of school and college education, there is very little room for the development of these capabilities. Institutions, such as the IITs, are exception, but they too are steadily being sucked into the examination oriented coaching class culture. What are the forces that make for the situation that we are in? How can we get out of this situation? We certainly need to find answers at the larger national level, but more immediately, we need to find solutions that are relevant at the level of the institutions at which we work.

The education system that we have inherited from the British was designed to function in a somewhat isolated, static, fairly homogenous, highly hierarchical traditional society. The opposition between traditional ideas and values, and the ideas and values that were brought by the European rulers was quite sharp. It triggered many movements for social reform. But it was not on a scale that caused any serious dislocation in the value system of Indian society. Traditional values learnt at home and reinforced at school to be relevant, within the family, the community, and the workplace. Since independence, the situation has changed phenomenally. Traditional values are in serious, and often violent, conflict with many of the values we have accepted as an independent nation. Traditionally, we have been a highly hierarchical society. As a nation, we have accepted democracy underlining the quality of all citizens. We have always been a multi-religious people. Sometimes at peace, sometimes at war, we had contained our religious plurality by compartmentalization. Now, we are expected to integrate under the principle of secularism. We are simultaneously expected to honour minority rights. We have taken a decision to industrialize and modernize. All this calls for a massive changes in view points and in established patterns of behaviour in every sphere of life. Education was expected to bring about this transformation. Meanwhile, forces such as fundamentalism, looking at the disillusionment of Western youth with their way of life, the appearance of evils such as Aids have generated new conflicts and dilemmas for youth all over the world, ours included. To steer and mould students through this situation, it is necessary that teachers understand the conflicts and the dilemmas themselves and discuss them with their students. It is necessary that teachers help students choose and define their values, and guide them towards understanding how to stand and live by the values that one has chosen in a world where many conflicting values are thrown together.

My article is already too long and I must close here. But I hope readers will understand why the Maharishi’s question keeps disturbing me. And I trust they will agree that educators in the country have a collective responsibility to ensure that the education system of the country does much better justice to its tasks.