Thus Spake the Divine - Shortcomings Of Our Educational System

Thus Spake the Divine

Shortcomings Of Our Educational System

The first and foremost outcome of any education system should be to cultivate modesty in a person. Education that does not build modesty and humbleness is in the real sense no education at all. It is a reality that crime rates are on the increase wherever there are more number of high- schools and colleges and people are more literate. The irony here is that we see lesser crimes and evil qualities among tribes who are under-civilised and illiterate.

The prime objective of any education should be to facilitate the learner in identifying the Absolute Truth, which is God. But the sad state of affairs is that most of the educated people hardly have any faith or Bhakti in God. Nowadays, education has spread across the country to a great extent. Many are into schools. But humility, which should be the outcome of this education, is very much lacking among students. The same is with our girls. The innate quality of our girls and women must again be humility. They are expected to become more humble with education. But even girls have got spoilt by the system of Westernised education. We should analyse the reasons for such state of affairs in our education system.

There are quite a number of moral books, which define how an education system should be, how teachers must present themselves, how students should behave etc. Actually, as per the directives of our ancestors, education must start when a person is very young. A person should start and complete his education while he is unmarried.

We had the gurukul type of education system in ancient times. The student would seek a guru to get his education. He would become the disciple of that guru, collect alms from people, and give that as fee to guru. In turn, the guru will impart knowledge to the student. When seeking alms, the ego of the disciple gets dissolved. Since most of the time the disciple lives with the guru, a natural affinity builds between the two. On the other hand, as the guru lives all the time with his disciples, he has to necessarily abide by the rules of good conduct and be a role model for his disciples. In the process, the disciple develops a natural respect towards the guru.

If you look at today’s students, they have absolutely no respect or reverence towards teachers. They are dominating their teachers. The syllabus, which was prevalent earlier, continues to persist, but the education system has changed. Even though the methodology of teaching medicine is the same, treatment has altered. Medicine is becoming expensive and virtually poisonous for the common man. Of course, it is now difficult to have a kind of guru disciple- based education. I am sure we cannot bring such a system back in its full form. It looks almost unviable. My only point is that people should at least be aware that such a guru disciple-based education system existed in our country. Some people can still come forward to establish the old system of guru disciple type of education. Guru bhakti is the greatest medicine to cure the faulty and defective lifestyle of today’s students.

This article is a snippet from the Book Thus Spake the Divine, is available online at www.giri.in and across Giri Trading Agency Private Limited, A chain of Speciality Stores dealing in all kinds of products needed in Indian Culture and Tradition.