Climate change, global warming, melting of glaciers are posing grave threats to not only our lives but also the environment or ecology around us. Many countries have made a study of environment essential. India\u2019s constitution was amended to make free right to education up to age 14, and also study of the environment essential in schools. Because of this right, schools were opened in remote regions of the country where the number of students could be very small \u2014 sometimes even ten or twelve.<\/p>\n
Of course education is at the school level and at College, University and research levels. Realising its importance, many countries have well known institutions that not only impart education but also bring glory to the country.\u00a0\u00a0To take some examples, USA has MIT, Harvard University; England has the reputed Cambridge and Oxford universities. France is well known for Sorbonne and\u00a0Ecole Normal Superieure\u00a0\u00a0<\/em>and other institutions. Germany also has several excellent institutions including Heidelberg, Humboldt and others. The\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0University of Amsterdam<\/em>\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0in Netherlands is also of high grade in imparting education in various disciplines. Portugal also has some fine institutions one of which is the University of Lisbon.<\/p>\n Russia also boasts of some specialised institutes \u2014 Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Moscow Aviation Institute, and others. There are\u00a0\u00a0academic institutions in other countries of Europe which are not being referred to here. There are some excellent institutions in the Eastern part of the World \u2014 Japan, China, Australia, New Zealand etc. India had two excellent institutes in prehistoric times Taxila<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Nalanda<\/em>.\u00a0The former is now in Pakistan. The latter was burnt by some bigoted invaders. Fortunately, Nalanda\u00a0has again been rebuilt by India. There are some good universities in today\u2019s India including Delhi University and IITs (Indian Institutes of Technology) and others.<\/p>\n I have referred to academic institutions that do reach and impart education in various areas and disciplines. But at the school level certain skills are also being provided. In fact, Gandhi in his book\u00a0\u00a0 Hind Swaraj<\/em>\u00a0(Home Rule) written in\u00a01909, talked about modern civilisation, why India was colonised by the British, and\u00a0Nai Talim\u00a0<\/em>(New Form of Education). The book was quickly banned by the British colonial government for being seditious.<\/p>\n In this book, Gandhi stressed on education for girls and also on skills. There was a huge gap between the numbers of girl students in comparison to those of boys receiving schooling. He had written that if you teach a boy, only he gets education. On the other hand if you teach a girl, the education is for the family including her children after she gets married.<\/p>\n For Gandhi, education should be child centred, uphold dignity of labour and common social values. He also was clear that education should not be only academic in nature but also impart various types of skills \u2014 relating to the domestic sphere or the community or farming. Skills also help a child to understand some of the academic components of what he is learning. For example, a spinning wheel \u2014\u00a0charkha<\/em>\u00a0consists mainly of a wooden wheel. It is driven not by any machine but by hands of the spinner to produce indigenous cloth called\u00a0khadi<\/em>. If something goes wrong, it will not be possible to drive the wheel. A skilled person would be able to remove the problem and make the\u00a0charkha<\/em>\u00a0 function properly again. Gandhi advocated children learning how to keep their homes as well as toilets clean.<\/p>\n Implements or tools do get damaged and need some repair. A cart wheel often needs to be looked into after some time. Similarly a leaking straw roof of village huts needs repairs. If a student has acquired some skills, he would be able to take care of some of these problems. In today\u2019s language this type is called vocational training although today the gadgets that need repairs are of a different nature \u2014 electrical, technical and more.<\/p>\n One of the main reasons that education is strongly promoted by governments is its relation to development. Most countries that have good academic institutions are developed in most areas \u2014 food and nutrition, housing, employment facilities and democracy. There is an economic and social gap between the rich and the poor but to a much lesser extent than in undeveloped nations where the conditions of the poor in all aspects of life are abysmal. Many countries of Asia, Africa, Latin America fall in the latter category, with exceptions such as Japan, China, Egypt, Brazil and partly India. So development and education are interlinked.<\/p>\n In India, many poor families send their children for schooling at least up to secondary (class X) level for education and ability to get a good job. Many students of such poor families do drop out from schooling due to various factors. Occasionally, one comes across some poor students performing excellently and going for higher education in Universities, and doing well in life.<\/p>\n So strong is the feeling of good education for a decent life among the Indian population that students overcome all odds to pursue their objective. One case recently came to light when a few girl students went on a hunger strike in a village. Why? Their school had classes only up to standard 10. For studying beyond, up to Class 12, the girls had to walk a few km to go to another school. Their protests for up gradation went in vain. Ultimately they went on a fast and their efforts to have Class 12 in their school, succeeded.<\/p>\n There is a proverb in Hindi that states \u2018If you study, you will become a rich prosperous man.\u2019 The reverse is also true.<\/p>\n Let us all strive together to have good, decent education in the world. We will then have great scholars such as Marie Curie who discovered radioactive elements, Albert Einstein who developed the brilliant equation\u00a0connecting energy with mass m and square of velocity c. We also had an Indian mathematician named Ramanujan<\/em>\u00a0whose brilliance was recognised by no person other than G H Hardy<\/em>\u00a0 of Cambridge University more than a century back.<\/p>\n Ultimately good education provides not just ability to read, write and do simple mathematics, but also skills and social values of students. In addition it generates a more humane, harmonious civilisation.<\/p>\n ______________________________________________<\/p>\n Gandhi in his book Hind Swaraj (Home Rule) written in 1909, talked about modern civilisation, why India was colonised by the British, and Nai Talim (New Form of Education). The book was quickly banned by the British colonial government for being seditious. In this book, Gandhi stressed on education for girls and also on skills.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":166069,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[258,524,759],"class_list":["post-169818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-transcend-members","tag-education","tag-gandhi","tag-india"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169818"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169818\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/166069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Ravi-P.-Bhatia-150x150-1-e1596524021103.jpg\")
<\/a><\/em>Dr Ravi P Bhatia is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment<\/a>, an<\/em> educationist, Gandhian scholar and peace researcher. Retired professor, Delhi University. His new book, <\/em>A Garland of Ideas\u2014Gandhian, Religious, Educational, Environmental was published recently in Delhi.<\/em> ravipbhatia@gmail.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"