The power of analysing

THERE WAS no culture or civilisation as we know, till the advent of humans on the earth, and not even till they learnt skills among them to talk and invented language for it for better communication. That is, till the coming of a being with a sophisticated brain and its superimposition with learning, almost like a computer installed with software.

Without learning, a man is like a computer without software and is not capable of achieving anything. While it was enough for the primitive man to learn a few skills for existence, today he requires a large amount of learning to be a good and prosperous citizen, i.e., he has to be educated and not just be literate.

This brings us to the question, what does education mean here? Education for all the people of the country, has two purposes; to make them good citizens, and to craft usefulness into them. The former can be achieved by including civics and morals as a compulsory part of school syllabus from the very start. At this tender age, the impressions created become permanent and regulate the rest of the life.

For a citizen to be a useful individual of the nation, he should be able to analyse day-to-day problems and synthesise a reasonable solution, and this is inculcated by general education, up to a basic level.

This is analogous to the insistence that a civil servant be a graduate, even though he will not be using his knowledge directly while working. Why not a matriculate? The reason is that higher the education, the greater the thinking power - the power of analysing and synthesising. Thus, certain amount of education is required, in everyone's life.

To become a useful member of society it is essential that general education is made compulsory for children throughout the country up to the higher secondary level, which is basic minimum. Without this, the existence of the people, even if they are literate, will be at the animal level, as is the case today of the majority of our countrymen.

A study of the prosperous and progressive nations shows that almost everyone has basic education. As against this, the percentage of people having basic education in the under- developed and developing countries is dismally low, and that is why they are poor and backward. The reason for this state of affairs is that these countries are poor and cannot afford to pay for universal basic education, which is false as they spend huge amounts on non-essentials.

It should be realised that progress and prosperity are almost directly proportional to the percentage of the population that is educated. A study of history will prove this. In the Middle Ages and earlier, India had more educated people than the West and we were more prosperous. The case of Australia will emphasise this even more. When India was at the height of its prosperity, Australia was discovered by Britain and was used for deporting its convicts there, and these convicts were mostly uneducated.

Today, it is a developed country and is a part of the First World; except the aborigines who are not prosperous, as education was not made compulsory for them. Meanwhile, we remained static and under-developed, and are now a country in the Third World. The reason is not difficult to see; they made sure that basic education was imparted to the entire population, and we totally ignored this aspect. Thus, only education will make a nation progressive and prosperous and there is no other way.

An in depth analysis of every problem facing our country will show that the root cause is lack of universal education. Even a cursory look into major problems will show how and why it is so.

Population

It is a fact that educated class has small families and the other, which makes up the very large majority, does not pay any attention to the size of the family. This is because, they, not being educated, are not able to analyse and comprehend how it makes the already burgeoning population increase beyond sustainable limits; how a couple of extra children, who from the very boyhood/girlhood will earn a bit to augment the family kitty in addition to helping the parents in their daily chores, can affect the well being of the whole nation; and, how these extra children will lower the already miserable living standard due to extra pressure on obtaining national resources which will not keep pace with the increasing population. It is beyond their understanding that early marriages decrease the generation intervals and thus increase the population still more. It is not possible for them to see that this unchecked population growth will make them, if not poorer, not any better either.

Further, due to ignorance, these poor uneducated are scared of birth control methods fearing its physical ill effects, and thus, are unwilling to restrict the size of their families. Not being educated and in most cases not having good lighting, they cannot indulge in intellectual relaxation in the evenings either.

Health

Once educated, the poor will know that disease is caused mostly by bacteria virus and not by gods, goddesses or voodoo hocus- pocus. As a result, they will realise the importance of hygiene and sanitation thus reducing the medical expenditure and the savings thereby can be used for education. They will also be in a position to understand that early child bearing at close intervals saps the vitality of women resulting in their sickliness and shortened longevity, in addition to weak and sickly progeny.

Poverty & employment

All the poverty alleviation and employment programmes initiated by various governments at the Centre and the States, are just expenditure with immediate marginal benefits for a very small fraction of the population, without any long term sustaining effect.

Also, most of this money gets spent on creating infrastructure, like establishment, transport, travelling, etc., leaving a very small amount for the real purpose. If the same resource were to be used for education, it may not show any immediate result, but will pay handsome dividends in the long run and will prove to be a wise investment.

This is because, education will make the next generation understand why they are poor or unemployed and create in them a will to strive for self betterment rather than passively accepting this present state due to their Karma.

Education will improve their employability and make them ambitious to better their lot. They may even start thinking of self-employment, particularly in the villages, where the farmers and farm labourers have many idle days. Thus the employment situation will improve resulting in reduction in poverty.

Corruption

Greed is an essential part of human make up and is the driving force behind corruption. Greed can be suppressed but cannot be totally eliminated, and consequently, corruption can be minimised and cannot be totally eradicated. If compulsory universal education is enforced, and if subjects like integrity, honesty and the good of the community are vigorously implanted in the young and impressionable minds of the students in the very early grades of education, the growing up generations would have a distaste for corruption, and the public life would gradually become cleaner.

It was seen earlier that with the proliferation of education, poverty reduced progressively, and renewed education to the masses would further reduce corruption. Further, with the realisation that bribes, both giving and taking, retard progress and adversely affect their own well-being and that of society, money now being paid for acquiring rightful information from the government sources and getting the due lawful work done in the offices, will stop.

Corruption at higher levels may still continue but it will not be as rampant as today, and at lower levels it will be rare.

Government

Political parties make promises in their election manifesto's to reduce unemployment and to eradicate poverty and corruption, as though these can be achieved without universal education.

Although education is enunciated as a `Directive Principle of the State Policy' in the Constitution, the politicians are not interested in it, probably because, people will then understand what is good for them and will not elect these inept and corrupt politicians.

Therefore, if education is made compulsory for all children, the future generations will get governments that will work for the good of the nation and not for that of the politicians.

The reason given for not providing education for all children is non-availability of requisite funds. The counter-productive bloated size of the government and the expenditure on each of the minister, which can feed and clothe a few villages, could be cut down drastically.

All the populist programmes about alleviation of poverty, creating employment opportunity and such, which in any case are doing no good to the poor except further increasing the size of the government and contributing to the prosperity of the politicians, should be scrapped, as also, the wasteful expenditure on political manoeuvring in the way of setting up unnecessary committees, and granting unwarranted favours to politicians and states, etc. The large sums of money thus saved will be adequate to make a good beginning towards achieving compulsory universal education.

Thus, the only way to achieve progress and prosperity is through imparting education to all the children of our nation. No amount of slogans, proliferation of IT (God alone knows how it helps poor and uneducated masses!) or populist projects will help in this direction. The only slogan, and action on it, should be `compulsory universal education upto the age of 16 years'.

G.K.K. IYENGAR

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Features
Previous : Nurturing talent
Next     : Is present seismic map correct?