Man-making education vs Money-making education
“Fellow citizens, why do you burn and scrape every stone to gather wealth, and take so little care of your children to whom one day must you relinquish it all.” – Socrates
The world is changing in a fast pace. Globalization has reduced distance. Challenges are increasingly becoming more and more complex. Amidst all such challenges, as a Nation, we need to ensure that we are respected and valued as a great nation in the eyes of other nationst Children are most important and critical to nation building as today’s children will be tomorrow’s citizens. Classrooms in schools where children spend most of their time, play an important role in preparing the children to become responsible citizens who will shape the nation’s image.
According to Swami Vivekananda, a nation advances when education is spread among the masses. But, what was the education that he advocated? According to him “Education is the manifestation of perfection already in man and that what a man ‘learns’ is really what he ‘discovers’ by taking the cover off his own soul, which is a mine of infinite knowledge.” Hence he said that our process of education i.e. teaching in the classrooms should be such that it helps the students to manifest their innate knowledge and power. He promoted a man-making
character-building education. He said, “We want that education by which character is formed, strength of mind is increased, the intellect is expanded, and by which one can stand on one’s own feet.”
Now how much our classrooms, the seat of learning of our education system, is delivering on these goals of education? Is our education system only focused on livelihood education or universal education all-inclusive? Many advocate that everything is in place to get a good education. Parents say I have put my child in the best school of the town. But then, why there is so much unrest with children today at the occurrence of least challenges in their lives? Marks and money are becoming the yardsticks to measure success of a learned person. Where is the gap?
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Overemphasis on material well being may be counter productive as there is no end to such desires. Unless a person feels worthy he/she may not find true happiness. Worthiness comes from our sense of self. Character alone will give a person lasting self esteem.
Character is a bundle of habits that we develop or pick up over time in our journey of life. Being Honest is a habit, and so is being jealous a habit. Better the habits, the more can a person manifest his greater potentials. However, we find a gap in our Education system which hardly focuses on training a student to develop better habits. Consequently, the child finds himself incapable and unworthy when faced with challenges. Thus the need for character building education IN ADDITION to Money making Education.
When knowledge is enforced on us , the worth of knowledge in true sense is lost so when education system gives the scope to students to manifest their innate knowledge and wisdom and relate to the external knowledge then the education system leads to man-making.
Over emphasis on making Education a Source of Business will merely produce Human Minds as Products full of Knowledge but as per Swami Vivekananda if Education is Provided and Structured in a way which will create a curiosity among Students to know more and also help them in making right choices in different situations in Life , the Purpose of Education will be Served and will lead to A Nation of Confident Citizens.
The blog writing, ends with a question, where is the gap? Simply stated gap is for those educationists who have not got the message of the quotations mentioned in the article. Colonial mind set of education as means to earn money needs to go away, and our ancient Gurukula system of education where character formation was emphasized need to be given more importance. When its done by educationists of the country, then there will be no gap is my understanding.