The Purpose of Education

“You don’t even have an ambition. You do not like to wear good clothes, aspire to wear a nice watch, or have a house and a car in the future. What is the point of your studying so much? There is no point in your reading so many books and wasting your time if you have no aim to succeed”, declared my aunt when delivering another one of her long sermons when discussing my future.

Much irritated as I was, her statement of success shook me strong and made me doubt my whole approach towards education. I suddenly realized how she had brought the purpose of learning down to being nothing more than a means to secure a bright (read- monetarily secure) future. I started to wonder if that is all what education was about- money, a comfortable life and good living.

Would we have had a C.V Raman and a Ramanujam if their approach to learning had been the same? What about all the Verghese Kurien’ and Bunker Roy’ we’ve produced? I wondered.

Why then is society today so intolerant towards people who want to pursue something different because they find it interesting. Why is success solely measured through the prism of money today?

“Education is not merely a matter of training the mind. Training makes for efficiency, but it does not bring about completeness.”  – Jiddu Krishnamurti

When after doing my Bachelors in Mass Media I chose to shift  to doing a Masters in Social Work, the whole of my extended family frowned upon my choice and even asked me mockingly, “So you aspire to become a Mahatma Gandhi now is it?”

Like wanting to become a Gandhi in life was something wrong.

Our present education is geared towards industrialization with its principal aim being to develop efficiency. With examinations and degrees being declared the prerequisite to future development, we are raising our children in a world of ruthless competition and mutual destruction which never allows them time to think on vital human issues.

Success is today measured in terms of the superior salary that you draw in comparison to thy relations/colleagues. With the meaning of a ‘comfortable life’ being defined by an excessively commodified and market-oriented society, everyone is out trying to fulfill this world view. This increasing need to satisfy the society had led to a very few of us actually pursuing what we love and are passionate about.

Is it necessarily true that a confused person without an ambition is useless and worth nothing?

Why is it that our society cannot so easily accept people who want to carve their own path by gaining their own experience?

To be confused is good. A confused mind is a thinking mind. All it needs is some genuine guidance.

Many people ask me this question, “How can we take up what we are passionate about? There are so many needs and responsibilities to be fulfilled.” Without denying the verity of these statements by any measure, it is undeniably true that people today have ever expanding needs and are never happy with as much is necessary. With them having no definition of ‘enough’, they are always unhappy and are aspiring for more. When does one limit one’s wants?

We thus have a generation of IITians and IIM graduates, who work mindlessly in offices on dull and boring assignments, which offer very little, or no scope for new and innovative ideas. With the money being the sole incentive, all of them rue over the monotony in their line of work. There are a few for whom the money factor acts as a great incentive. But for those many who seek out for interesting careers with job satisfaction, work life becomes a tedious affair. This has created a generation of depressed workers who have increasingly become dependent on cigarettes, alcohol and anti-depressants to keep their work life going.

It’s time that society stopped assuming education to be nothing more than a means to earn money. Monetizing the final output of education is a sort of mental prostitution. People should understand that an individual may sometimes simply have a passion to learn. She/He may not have the best of house or the finest of cars in the future, but they shall certainly be content. It is essential for parents to rethink their views on education and to make learning a fun and desirable activity for children so as to help them draw their own future paths.

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Social Work education in India

Studying in one of the foremost and most prestigious (or so it’s called) institutes of Social Work for Rural Development in Maharashtra for the past one year has enabled me to structure my long held thoughts on education better. Education is no more a means to apply knowledge and develop thinking capacities. Today learning has been reduced to being just a medium to ensure one a secure financial future. In the context of my college I can say thus; what is expected of the Agents of Change is very much in contradiction to what these Agents expect of themselves. Concerns of personal future monetary gains are so deep rooted that they far supersede the greater common good for which they claim to have taken up the course.

‘If the ends are satisfied, the ethics surrounding the means are often ignored.’ The following example would help elucidate this statement.

Ex: ‘A good (meaning ‘good placements offering’) college with bad lecturers and poor teaching quality faces no protests from the students. Protest is automatically suppressed in the delight of the expected future good.

I have been witness to innumerable complaints by students most of which emphasize upon the bad food offered, uncomfortable hostels, unfriendly college timings, unnecessary extra classes, etc. None seem to voice opinions regarding the more important points of bad teaching quality and lack of institutional infrastructure to help support our learning. Apart from empty talks amongst a group of friends during lunch or tea, very little initiative is taken in the direction of demanding better quality teachers, most of who happen to be former Social Workers who completed their PhDs from any random university and joined the bandwagon of incompetent university lecturers.

It isn’t difficult to figure out why students remain silent on these issues. Today’s materialistic world has made them so concerned about their future jobs that they fear to protest. The fear rises from the obvious possibility of them being rusticated in the name of ‘misconduct’. Placements have made each one of them so selfish and competitive that there is an utter lack of unity. Fears of gaining a bad impression with the professors surpass all other concerns. Thus, my esteemed Social Work institute continues to churn out students who are taught to suppress dissent in order to gain better grades. With them failing to advocate for their own rights, how is one to expect them to do anything for the people in the future.

In the first few months of our course, we were taught about how we were lucky to have got a chance to study in this college which has given the country some of its best professional social workers. ‘Professional’ of course stood for ‘expert’, ‘trained’ and ‘skilled’; but it was also emphasized (more profoundly, yet indirectly) that it stood for someone who commands a good pay-check in the job market.

“Don’t mistake Social Work with Social Service. We don’t need Gandhis and Mother Teresas. The industry needs professionals not sympathizers”, we were told coldly by our professor.

Social work education seems to stress excessively on the need to be professional as compared to the need to balance it out with being sensitive. The social work sector has been publicized as an ‘industry’ to such an extent that most social work students join with the sole intention of earning a big fat salary in the future. Very few go on to work in the grassroots except when left with no other option.

And when asks one, “What about the primary aim of SW?” prompt comes the answer, “Oh well, we certainly will be working for them. We will be using our professional skills and specialized knowledge (from our air-conditioned cabins in big cities) in order to bring a change in their lives. Of course we will.”

But in a country like ours where poverty seems rampant, how does one view a professional work attitude?

It is good to be professional in one’s work, but being professional in the approach towards one’s work, especially when that happens to be social work is shameful.

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Distress Migration in Mumbai: The concluding remarks of a small qualitative study

Till the advent of the industrial revolution, men primarily lived in pastoral communities with their ways of living in harmony with the environment. With industrialization arose the need for cities where factories could be setup for production. These factories needed a large workforce which consequently propelled the movement of people from villages to the cities. Given the lucrative prospects the cities offered, this sort of migration increased rapidly. This phenomenon has caused many social and economic problems and its impact can clearly be seen in Mumbai, where today it is seen as a threat to its very survival.

Over population and increased unemployment in the country have fostered migration to the Mumbai since the pre-independence era. Dreams of a better life make people want to move in large numbers to economically developed areas. Increased wages, better medical facilities, enhanced education standards and consolidation of other such resources enhance migration. Rural migrants are often unable to afford proper housing owing to high costs of living, and are forced to manage with living in shanties under unclean conditions. They lack provisions like proper sanitation, pure drinking water, electric supply and other elementary facilities. The existence of slums that dot the very heart of the city alongside housing complexes whose prices are sky-rocketing, is a proof of the fact that Mumbai has taken a fall due to uncontrolled migration. The glaring divide between the rich and the poor augments the crime rate. More and more people in these areas start taking to thievery, gambling, prostitution, drug peddling and other dubious means to make a living. Many sincere workers come with plans to work for a short period of time, but end up staying for a longer duration owing to healthier incomes.

 Sailesh Pandey, a worker at a dairy shop in Sion tells me, “I came 6 years back to settle a family debt. Now I've long settled the dues, but have never considered leaving. I earn Rs.5000 here which helps keep my family happy. I’ll readily leave if I got the same money back home, but I never will. I miss my village, but I’ll never leave Mumbai.”

One concrete solution to this problem would be to bring a change in the economic system of the villages to make them more profitable. Villages which are chiefly agrarian should be diversified to include other relevant small-scale industries which could provide jobs. Development programs should be taken up so as to make townships more self-sufficient and independent. Further, small cities should be developed as small economic nerve centers and facilities available in metropolitan cities should be replicated to enhance the standard of living. This could also help divert the middle class populace which finds it difficult to buy housing in Mumbai. 

Slum redevelopment programs should be carried in parallel with programs to increase the viability of life in the native towns and villages of migrants itself. Distress migration can be brought under check if and only if there is a pan India political initiative to cope with it. Slum redevelopment can only work at the destination point. Work needs to be initiated at the source points too in order to tackle distress migration.

And most importantly, political parties must abstain from instigating violence between the natives and the migrants. Anti-migrant violence contradicts the very foundation of Mumbai -A city that was built by outsiders and emigrants- and further damages its image as that of a cosmopolitan city. Our leaders should uphold our traditions which have always preached compassion, warmth and brotherhood. Never has there been a greater need to adhere to these age-old ideals of tolerance. They should lay aside all differences for the greater good and should concentrate their energies towards the progress and betterment of the city.

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The 'Common man', the 'Election mela', and the 'Development Dream'- The power of PR

The recent election campaign has once again brought to fore the importance that rhetoric plays over reason in winning elections. Despite there being enough reason, the instrument of rhetoric was successfully used to construct a vague, yet beautiful dream to win over the Common man’s mind (read: ‘his vote’).

We enter a phase where our democracy will observe an increased centralization of power. The chief manipulator shall maneuver every move of his with such meticulousness that the ‘Common man’ shall remain amused in hopes of the fulfillment of that promised dream of development. The dream shall be kept alive in the minds of the masses all through. Every small change in growth shall be portrayed disproportionately as being a progress made in the achievement of the development dream. Big capital shall continually work towards buying and controlling all sources of information media to quell any sort of discontentment that may arise in the minds of the masses. Economic growth shall continue to be considered as the sole indicator of development leaving education and health far behind.

One can only pray that in the eventuality of a failure to deliver his promises, the rhetorician shall restrain himself from widening the rift between the believers of the two major religions in our country. The possibility of this cannot, and should not be disregarded.

Finally, no matter how the 'informed' might wish to look at it, this year’s election campaign stands testimony to the utter failure of the incumbent government to come up with a capable leader to fight the fierce wave that was unleashed upon it by the opposition. Even his fiercest detractors cannot but acknowledge his brilliance as a tactician.

The need and importance of a strong Public Relations Committee has certainly been realized this elections and PR shall henceforth be utilized well by the power hungry in their fight to fool the masses with the ‘Development Dream’. Elections in the future shall continue to take place in the ambit of a corporate backed media and shall come to become a two month long 'Election mela' (festival), held once every five years in the world’s largest democracy. The crowds they attract shall far exceed those set by any Kumbh-mela ever.

Kudos to fraternity! God bless the brotherhood between the urban elites and the rural poor.

Jai Hind!

err, sorry..

Jai Ho!

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