Essence of education

Recently administrative heads of several Pakistani universities have been arrested and cases of financial and moral corruption have been filed by the country’s accountability bodies and investigative agencies, including NAB, against them. This is indeed very unfortunate as even professors are increasingly being found guilty of misuse and abuse of powers in educational institutions. The situation also explains the increasing degeneration of our societal values.

Societies and states befittingly and meaningfully manage their affairs and achieve higher standards of development and welfare of their members and citizens once majority of the people have got a fair level of knowledge through the process of education. Education is one of the most important social institutions and is instrumental in enabling members of society to have cognisance of the world, its environment, civilisation, dynamics, history and development. Education is synonymous with knowledge. Though very complex and elusive phenomenon to be fully grasped, knowledge simply is accumulation of life-long experiences, practices and observances. When these experiences, practices and observances are documented, refined and imparted the process of education takes its course. Here it is very important to understand that many people mistakenly consider that information is knowledge which is not the case. Information is only part of the education; plain information in no sense can be described as knowledge. Only information that helps in accumulation of knowledge is real education. Information, whose various layers are laden with propagandist content, is in no way education. This has been the case with the educational texts and institutions in Pakistan. Knowledge promotes virtue; no virtue is possible without knowledge. It was the widespread knowledge which resulted in the rise of great civilisations like Greek, Muslim or Western.

The libertarian philosophy, which was the outcome of the Reformation, believed in the infallible nature of individual man; it emphasised the use of education to improve faculties of individual so as to attain the ideal of infallibility. But the education in the post-Industrial Revolution era reversed that process. The libertarian philosophy was distorted in such a way to make it compatible with the selfish ends of capitalists.

The surging nationalism in the aftermath of the French Revolution of the late 18^th Century gave a blow to the essence of education. The menace of nationalism crippled the concept of education in several ways. For instance, several restrictions were imposed on the freedom of expression of intellectuals, the very force behind the caravan of education. They were now made to think subjectively in terms of their own nation. The ways of their respective nation had become the standards of goodness.

The rise of the phenomenon of commercialism in the late 19^th and early 20^th Century Europe and America, by incorporating business and trade related disciplines in the curricula, struck at the very roots of essence of education. Education no more remained a tool to improve the intellectual faculties of pupils, but rather to inculcate in their minds the novel methods of persuading the masses to the commercial interests of a few. The business-commerce related disciplines have not been without their impact on classical disciplines. Therefore, social sciences disciplines have had faced huge challenges to thrive in educational institutions with extremely negative consequences for societies. If the PTI-led Pakistan government wants to really improve social and economic conditions in the country it has to impose an educational emergency and come up with an entirely new approach to make our educational institutions repository of knowledge rather dens of corruption and immorality.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 4^th, 2018.

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