The Present System of Education – Mahatma Gandhi

[Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav]

Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav

Senior Gandhian Scholar, Professor, Editor and Linguist

Gandhi International Study and Research Institute, Jalgaon, Maharashtra, India

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The Present System of Education – Mahatma Gandhi

 

The word ‘education’ is on everyone’s lips these days. The Schools whether Government or private are packed with students. There is not enough accommodation in colleges. A number of students seeking admission to Gujarat College had to go back disappointed. Despite this infatuation for education, hardly anyone pauses to consider what education really is, whether the education we have so far received has done us any good, or good commensurate with the effort put in. We think as little about the meaning of education, as about its aims and objects! For most people the main aim seems to be to qualify for some kind of a job. Usually, people belonging to different trades or vocations, on receiving this education, give up their traditional modes of earning a livelihood and look instead for jobs and, when they succeed, think that they have raised a step higher. In our schools we find boys belonging to various vocational communities such as masons, blacksmiths, carpenters, tailors, cobblers, etc. But, on receiving education, instead of improving the standards of their traditional vocations, they give them up as something inherently inferior and consider it an honour to become clerks.

The parents too share this false notion. Thus, disloyal both to caste and to the functions most natural to us, we sink deeper into slavery. During my tours, I found this condition prevailing everywhere in India and it has often made my heart bleed. Education is not an end in itself but only a means and that alone can be called education which makes us men of character. No one can claim that the education being given in our schools produces this result. Rather, we shall come across many instances of young people having dissipated their character while at school. An impartial English writer has said that as long as there is no continuity between schools and homes in India, the pupils will not have the benefit of either. Our youths learn one thing from parents at home and from the general environment, and another at school. The pattern at school is often found incompatible with that in the home. The lessons in our readers are regarded as of little relevance to conduct. We cannot put the knowledge so acquired to any practical use in our daily life. The parents are indifferent to what is taught at school. The labour spent on studies is considered useless drudgery which has to be gone through that one might take the final examination, and once this is over we manage to forget as quickly as possible what we had studied. The charge levelled against us by some Englishmen that we are mere imitators is not entirely baseless. One of them, in his arrogance, has likened us to blotting-paper in relation to civilization. He believes that as blotting-paper absorbs the superfluous ink, even so we take in only the superfluities that are the evils of Western civilization. That, indeed, we must admit, is our condition to some extent.

Thinking about the causes of this condition, I have come to the conclusion that the chief fault lies in education being imparted to us through the medium of English. It takes about twelve years to get the matriculation certificate. We acquire precious little of knowledge over this long period. Our main effort is not directed towards integrating any such knowledge with our work and putting it to practical use, but towards gaining, somehow, command of the English language. It has been stated by experts that, if what has to be taught to the students up to the matriculation class was imparted to them through their own mother tongue, there would be a saving of at least five years. At this rate, on ten thousand matriculates, the people are put to a loss of fifty thousand years! This is a very grave situation. Not only that, we also impoverish our own languages in this way. When I hear people say— as they often do— that “Gujarati is a poor language”, it makes me feel indignant. If Gujarati, a beloved daughter of Sanskrit, is poor, the fault is not that of the language, but of us who its guardians are. We have neglected it and despised it. How can it then acquire the lustre and strength which it ought to have? A gulf has been created between us and our families. To our parents, to others in our families, to our women, and to our domestics with whom we live for the greater part of our time—our school education is as some hidden wealth. Its use is denied to them. It should be easy enough for us to see that where conditions are so unnatural, the people can never hope to rise. If we were not mere pieces of blotting-paper, after fifty years of this education we should have witnessed a new spirit in our masses.

But we have no bond of understanding with them. They look upon us as modernized and keep away from us and we look upon them as an uncivilized lot and despise them. Turning to higher education being imparted in colleges, we find the same state of affairs. We waste a good deal of our time there, seeking to put our knowledge on a surer foundation. We begin there to grow indifferent to our own language. Many of us even develop a feeling of contempt towards the mother tongue. We communicate with one another in English, full of errors in pronunciation and grammar. We have not yet coined in our own languages correct technical terms for various sciences, and we do not fully understand the English terms. By the time we have done with our college education, our intelligence loses all vigour and our bodies their strength. The medicine bottle becomes our life-long companion. And yet the people think, and we too, that we are their ornament, their guardians and the makers of their future. If the young men of Gujarat who pass out of various colleges seriously mean to become as guardians to the people, I should regard them as brave. Although I have drawn a very gloomy picture of our system of education, yet in this gloom lie seeds that may grow into hope. I do not mean to suggest in this article that no Indian should know English. Let us; do what they have done in Russia and what they are doing in South Africa and Japan. In Japan, a few selected people acquire a high knowledge of English, translate whatever is worth importing from European civilization into their own language and so make it accessible to all, thus saving the people from the useless labour of having to learn English themselves. Quite a large number among us are familiar with English.

They may further increase their knowledge of it. And those whose health allows it and whose mental vigour is still intact may undertake to translate into Gujarati such ideas from English and other foreign languages as are likely to do good to our masses. If we strive long enough, we can change the present trend of education and impart the knowledge of new sciences and new ideas only through the medium of Gujarati. It is not impossible to impart the knowledge of the sciences of medicine, navigation and electricity through Gujarati. It is absurd to think that one can have knowledge of anatomy or perform an operation of bone surgery only after one has acquired knowledge of English. Not less than eighty-five per cent of India’s population is engaged in agriculture. Ten per cent are engaged in various other crafts and a majority of them are weavers. The remaining five per cent belong to the various professions. If these latter really desire to serve the people, they must acquire some knowledge at least about the occupations of the ninety-five per cent of the people.

And it should be the duty of the ninety-five per cent to acquire a proper knowledge of their traditional occupations. If this view be correct, our schools must provide for the teaching of these two occupations agriculture and weaving to the pupils from childhood onwards. In order to create the right conditions for imparting a good knowledge of agriculture and weaving, all our schools should be located, not in the densely populated parts of towns or cities, but in places where big farms may be developed and where classes may be conducted in the open air. In such schools, sports for the boys will consist in ploughing the fields. The idea that, if our boys and youths do not have football, cricket and such other games, their life should become too drab is completely erroneous. The sons of our peasants never get a chance to play cricket, but there is no dearth of joy or innocent zest in their life. Thus, it is not difficult to change the present trends in education. Public opinion must be in favour of this change.

The Government then will have no option but to introduce changes. ‘Those who like the above scheme should come forward to undertake experiments on these lines while public opinion is in the making. When the people see the happy results of these experiments, they will of their own accord want to take them up. I think such experiments will not entail much expenditure. I have not, however, written this article with a commercial mentality. My chief object was to ask readers to consider the meaning of real education and I shall hold my effort to have been duly rewarded if this article is of any help to them.  

 

Reference:

Samalochak, October, 1916