Well said Modi – Our Education System Shouldn’t Produce Robots

Among the many laudable initiatives that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has taken up since he took charge at the PM office, one most important one is education. It is imperative that children and youngsters are given a meaningful education that will help them become better human beings. The present culture is a mere certificate culture. Most, if not all, students leave schools and colleges with a determination or aspiration to become rich, popular, influential and so on. They learn this during their education from school books, teachers, leaders and through other propaganda. What they don’t learn from the education system is, a desire to become a better human being.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has again underscored the importance of having good teachers and gearing education towards the overall personality development of a student. “Our education apparatus can’t be one that produces robots,” he said today during his address at the Banaras Hindu University. “In this land of the Ganga, there was education of culture. But, more importantly, there was a culture of education,” the Prime Minister said. “Good education is linked with good teachers. We need to think how we can have good teachers. We need to think about how we can create an environment where children want to become good teachers.” […] Read full at  ‘Our Education Apparatus Can’t Produce Robots,’ Says PM Modi at Banaras Hindu University

The million dollar question is, what does “good teachers” mean? If good only means degrees and reputation, then we are mistaken. No teacher can be a good teacher unless he or she has been a good student. A leader is he who has been a follower. In a society where getting a teacher’s job in government institutions costs lakhs of rupees or other favours, it is not an easy task for Mr Modi to establish what he may have in his mind. The reason is, those who have got the job by paying bribes will want to recover the money, and in doing it, they will also most likely succumb to the same bribe culture. How can they be good teachers?

Besides that, even if a teacher has practised ethics in his life, has been a good student, and has got his job based on personal merits, unless he knows what is called a good education, it will not be possible for him to produce non-robots, if he has to follow the present system of transmitting knowledge. In other words, good education does not only mean good teachers but an overhauling of our current education system.

In ancient India, Bharat, the system was such that first of all the saintly class of people would educate the administrative class as to what is considered good and not good,  desirable and undesirable, what is temporary and what is permanent. Most importantly, the rulers were taught the science of self realization first. When such well trained rulers take charge of the society or country and engage in facilitating the education system, it is easy to produce good students. But in absence of such a scenario, it remains to be seen how effective Mr Modi’s plans will be. It is high time we gradually go back to our original system of gurukula and produce first human beings first. When I say gurukula, I mean the original system of a learned person teaching a few students- not the so-called commercial gurukulas, meant for money-making, where teachers lacking even basic human qualifications are hired by the school administrators to run the show. Once this is taken care of, first class teachers and first class students will be automatically produced. Hare Krishna