According to a recent UNESCO report, India is 50 years behind its educational goals. The GEM (Global Education Monitoring) report director Aaron Benavot has told The Times of India: "Striving for development will mean little without a healthy planet. So, the new 2030 agenda for sustainable development unites global development and environmental goals." The report also says that for India to achieve sustainable development it has to introduce fundamental changes in the educational sector. - TOI, Sep 6 2016
There is something vital for us to learn from the report. Apart from the obvious fact that India is 50 years behind its educational goals, the other key thing for us to see is, how education and environment goals have a correlation. It may also help us do some serious introspection on the nature of education in our country.
Education in general makes students industry-ready or in other words, it hones the trait of employability in them. Although it is said that the tutelage of academic education - from schools to colleges - shapes the all-round personality of a student and knowledge is often quoted as the primary objective of education, the truth is, education eventually culminates in preparing the student to perform some form of a productive labor or the other to earn a livelihood.
Parents don't send their children to schools merely for knowledge assimilation or for molding their personality. In our country, children are sent to schools and colleges even to improve their marriage prospects. So the core objective here is livelihood and it's about time we say this candidly, even to children. It is reasonable when, as parents, we aspire to see our children becoming self-reliant. The problem arises only when we give undue importance to employability. By distinguishing the importance of knowledge and attitude from the skill to perform labor, we may have been implanting the idea in children that knowing the world we are living in (knowledge) and mentality towards fellow humans, other lives, and the environment (attitude) are less important than the skill required to secure a job. What we must understand is, all these three components are important. What we impart as education in children should be a unit of all these three components, only then, we can talk about achieving sustainable goals of development through education.
So far, we have only been pushing children to opt for graduations that will get them better paychecks. We never thought of other possible outcomes of the labor that they may do. Even industrial labor until recent years was focussing unilaterally on just increasing production and profitability. Only now countries are talking about its environmental outcome, after symptoms of climate change became too obvious to deny or ignore. Since it is a catastrophe in the making it has kindled a global debate. Nations are coming together to explore ways to cut down carbon footprint in human labor and consumption. In simple terms, they are trying to see how they could render the planet healthy once again, to begin with, how to prevent some of the imminent and serious threats the planet is facing.
Unfortunately, education in our country even till today is only contributing towards an unsustainable form of industrial development. Our education is only manufacturing labor meant for an era that the world wants to shun and move ahead. Maybe we should call it as an effort to travel back in time to an earth of pre-industrial era.
We can see this shift happening around the world. Today the old classic is the new modern. The only difference is it is now validated by science. Perhaps it has taken so long for science to sense what has been growing in its backyard. It is now branding its own inventions as dangerous. The big YES to fossil fuels is now culminating with a huge NO. Interestingly, as part of the Smart City initiative, even Coimbatore is planning for cycle bays. We will soon be back to bicycle days. And that's not a curse. We may save ourselves and the planet from pollution.
The other interesting things that are making a come back are earthen pots, unbleached hand weaved cotton and jute clothing, bamboo and cane furniture. These things are being treated as fashionable. It is a welcome attitude towards what our predecessors were using. These are just products that are sustainable, even industrial processes are slowly heading towards sustainable inventory and sustainable ways of production. Greenhouses, solar and other renewable forms of energy are receiving a lot of attention. Agriculture as an industry and even farm labor is regaining its lost glory.
With all these things happening around us, now it's for us to see how we must reform our education so that the upcoming generations grow up skilled to carry out sustainable forms of labor and bring in a transformation that will save the planet from the brink of catastrophe. That's where right knowledge and attitude towards fellow humans, other lives, and the environment will make a difference. Perhaps these are the fundamental fixes our education may require.
There is something vital for us to learn from the report. Apart from the obvious fact that India is 50 years behind its educational goals, the other key thing for us to see is, how education and environment goals have a correlation. It may also help us do some serious introspection on the nature of education in our country.
Education in general makes students industry-ready or in other words, it hones the trait of employability in them. Although it is said that the tutelage of academic education - from schools to colleges - shapes the all-round personality of a student and knowledge is often quoted as the primary objective of education, the truth is, education eventually culminates in preparing the student to perform some form of a productive labor or the other to earn a livelihood.
Parents don't send their children to schools merely for knowledge assimilation or for molding their personality. In our country, children are sent to schools and colleges even to improve their marriage prospects. So the core objective here is livelihood and it's about time we say this candidly, even to children. It is reasonable when, as parents, we aspire to see our children becoming self-reliant. The problem arises only when we give undue importance to employability. By distinguishing the importance of knowledge and attitude from the skill to perform labor, we may have been implanting the idea in children that knowing the world we are living in (knowledge) and mentality towards fellow humans, other lives, and the environment (attitude) are less important than the skill required to secure a job. What we must understand is, all these three components are important. What we impart as education in children should be a unit of all these three components, only then, we can talk about achieving sustainable goals of development through education.
So far, we have only been pushing children to opt for graduations that will get them better paychecks. We never thought of other possible outcomes of the labor that they may do. Even industrial labor until recent years was focussing unilaterally on just increasing production and profitability. Only now countries are talking about its environmental outcome, after symptoms of climate change became too obvious to deny or ignore. Since it is a catastrophe in the making it has kindled a global debate. Nations are coming together to explore ways to cut down carbon footprint in human labor and consumption. In simple terms, they are trying to see how they could render the planet healthy once again, to begin with, how to prevent some of the imminent and serious threats the planet is facing.
Unfortunately, education in our country even till today is only contributing towards an unsustainable form of industrial development. Our education is only manufacturing labor meant for an era that the world wants to shun and move ahead. Maybe we should call it as an effort to travel back in time to an earth of pre-industrial era.
We can see this shift happening around the world. Today the old classic is the new modern. The only difference is it is now validated by science. Perhaps it has taken so long for science to sense what has been growing in its backyard. It is now branding its own inventions as dangerous. The big YES to fossil fuels is now culminating with a huge NO. Interestingly, as part of the Smart City initiative, even Coimbatore is planning for cycle bays. We will soon be back to bicycle days. And that's not a curse. We may save ourselves and the planet from pollution.
The other interesting things that are making a come back are earthen pots, unbleached hand weaved cotton and jute clothing, bamboo and cane furniture. These things are being treated as fashionable. It is a welcome attitude towards what our predecessors were using. These are just products that are sustainable, even industrial processes are slowly heading towards sustainable inventory and sustainable ways of production. Greenhouses, solar and other renewable forms of energy are receiving a lot of attention. Agriculture as an industry and even farm labor is regaining its lost glory.
With all these things happening around us, now it's for us to see how we must reform our education so that the upcoming generations grow up skilled to carry out sustainable forms of labor and bring in a transformation that will save the planet from the brink of catastrophe. That's where right knowledge and attitude towards fellow humans, other lives, and the environment will make a difference. Perhaps these are the fundamental fixes our education may require.