CHILDREN SCHOOLING Vs. CIVILIZATION

RIGHT CHILDREN SCHOOLING : FIRST STEP TO CIVILISING SOCIETY



The demonic spirit has descended on humanity. It has succeeded in enveloping it  under the pal of decadence. Man seems to be blinded in the ubiquitous dazzle of expedient advances on hedonism and consumerism. Blinding is the first impact of the bait of temptations that the demonic spirit has planted. The second phase of the impact has brought about an across-the-board degeneration of human society. In the third phase, it has resulted into complete erosion of human value system. The final phase of the impact will be marked by razing of humanity off the face of the globe.

         It seems, under this spell, people are unable to discern things clearly. The majority of middle and upper class social segments of people have turned to be a condescending lot. Also, people in general have become so conditioned to their fetishes and biased about their banal preferences that they are not prepared to accept a truth on merits. This is the psychological hurdle why our society has not progressed in real terms.

         How was Duryodhana razed? Fortified with demonic spirit, Shakuni, his maternal uncle, had come to aid and abet his nephew with all his cunningness and villainy. He had very sincerely wanted his darling nephew to taste the ecstatic ambrosia of unparallel authority and supremacy. We know -- how Duryodhana’s choice had fallen on Krishna’s ten akshauhini ( a unit of number like ‘a thousand,etc.’ ) strongmen and not on Krishna -- which had proved to be the watershed in the turn of events to Duryodhana’s complete destruction.

         In contrast to Duryodhana’s preference for might to truth,Pandavas  preference for Krishna to His strongmen testifies to their sagacity.

         Mahabharat, thus, teaches us--Only Truth Prevails.

         Modern men, yes, the ultra-modern world is riding high on Duryodhana’s astuteness. To me, general preference for possession and decadence to human values and truth forebodes ominousness.

         Foregoing deliberations are the result of my life-long intimacy with society in the context of children schooling. Children schooling in Patna is on its fast track of erosion which cannot be attributed to hawkism on the part of the organisers of children schools alone. I think it is due predominantly to weaknesses of general people’s mindset. People in general are either prejudicial or offhand in their approach to the crux of problems infesting children education.

         First of all, people in general have so far turned inconclusive on the issue of precedence of human input to capital or capital to human input after such a vital enterprise of bottomline building of society as children schooling. They treat children schooling at par with any other business enterprise -- which is a colossal mistake.

         A children school entails the fate of every child enrolled therein. Every child rolling out of a school becomes an inseparable part of our society, in particular; and the whole country, in general. The quality-edge that  a school-rollout has acquired in terms of knowledge and wisdom as a consequence of his schooling needs an appeal of heart before being applied finally to work.

         The intrinsic spirit of the organiser of a school plays a vital role in providing quality angle to what capabilities a school-rollout has built up. An organiser of a children school armed with the astuteness of expediency and profit plays havoc in shaping the personality of school-rollouts.

         There can’t be a better mode of laying the foundation of human appeal than putting a role-model as the organiser of a school who does everything with a human touch and not with a profit motive.

         Such an organiser has his third eye open, who makes others around him also see what most others farther off  escape to take a notice of. He is a philosopher, capable of countering the downslide of society owing to man’s inherent bestial preferences. This aspect of social regeneration should be seen as an integral part of children schooling. India is the lone country on the face of the globe which can integrate this aspect of social regeneration with children schooling. The modus operandi of such an enterprise can be shaped by only an elevated philosopher-cum-organiser of such a school.

         Such an approach to children education might pose practical and tactical problems because the human input of such an enterprise lacks definitive estimation.  An organizer of a school, however dubious otherwise, might like to play a hero to the cause but may turn out to be a dud in the end. Therefore, this proposition of regenerating society through children schooling sounds a bit too optimistic in the absence  of a society or state-sponsored mechanism of check and balance.

         Though, a man’s spirit in terms of his intent to fix human values for the regeneration of society and his conviction that such values are necessarily the essential ingredients of the bottom line of a human segment is inestimable, it is so vital at the same time in shaping the destiny and quality of the human segment in the Indian context that it is impossible to humanise it (the human segment) without human values. In the absence of such an approach of thinking and practice, almost all the positive aspects of human society are eroding. The more we try to set things right objectively, the more messed-up the situation gets. Then, how to cut the Gordian knot, how to raise our head above the ocean of complexities – are rather our subjective problem than objective.

         The mire of complexities are the consequence of collective sins that each one of us are indulging in on account of ignorance, bias, cunningness, lack of understanding, etc. due to which we don’t respect the sayings of the great and enlightened. The ruling class has always confounded the mass of the marginalised with its gobbledegook or held out to them elusive packages to the advantage of their individual sectarian or group leaders. Some method has to be evolved in order to reach out to the marginalised in the real sense of the term. Instead of making a political capital out of the situation or resorting to coercive measures to suppress the desperate, the marginalised should be made capable and deserving in order to make any exercise in their help sustainably practicable. It may be insurmountable for the Indian administration to quell the ever-increasing army of desperadoes and members of scuicide-squads.

         For making the marginalised so capable and therefore sustainably deserving, the nation must guarantee them a realistic system of meaningful education in the context of globalisation. And this is what the nation, called India, cannot do anything about; given the impracticable, prohibitive and ineffectual executive style of its Human Resource Ministry.

         The pamper youth rollouts of the general universities of India are not in a position to address the challenges of children schooling which are emerging in the context of globalisation. There are some selectively small number of capable institutions in India but they are prohibitive for the multitude of commonplace children.

         The better ones from the majority of university rollouts are appointed by multinationals on hefty salaries and perks which precludes the appointment of the competent as teachers in majority of privately run children schools catering to the academic needs of common urban children let alone the private or government schools catering to rural children. This is the real predicament of the people of India in which the state establishment cannot ensure real and meaningful education to its future citizens, and the otherway round, the children in general cannot avail themselves of meaningful education either due to its unavailability in majority cases or owing to being cost-prohibitive in selectively minority cases. Are, then, all the avenues of opportunities that the globalisation has opened up open to benefit only the minuscule rightly educated and the rare genuises ? What will, then, the majority do ? How long shall they tolerate the injustice an evil human order continues to beget ?

         The solution lies in the change of people’s attitude. They should refrain from pinning their hopes on government sponsored ineffectual populist packages, reassert confidence in their own strength in terms of wisdom and resource base. When an evil order has supplanted a just human order and  a popular meaningful government, people should think to start afresh at their own. The responsible among the enlightened should segregate themselves from the conventional rut of goings-on, and use their wisdom for the emancipation of society. People’s wisdom is testified to  their understanding that

i)          They should depend only on their own strength to attain any position of profit and do not run after the populist packages of anybody, however mightily big or solemnly committed.

ii)          They should believe in what they can see, do and achieve themselves.

iii)          A businessman is professing philanthropy for his own profit and not for general people’s benefit and welfare.

iv)          Children education is more a consequence of human dedication than a product of business enterprise.

v)          They should be prepared to enshoulder their share of the investment required to set up the children school where their children will study.

vi)          The moment they have found a genuinely qualified and rightly dedicated teacher and reposed their confidence in him, they have paid up their share of investment.                    .                                                                                                              

                   Thereafter, they need to pay only the monthly tuition fee. This way, the particular teacher shall be able to build up all the requisite infrastructure in course of a reasonable time span, in search of which infrastructural facilities, a guardian runs after a big institution where          there is the precedence of investment to human dedication. Under the alternative system of children schooling, every guardian can get his child rightly educated with the aid of his own strength, the major share of which is his wisdom. If the people of Kankarbagh show signs of real wisdom and are not prone to get the wrong end of the stick, it is possible to cut the Gordian knot in the context of children schooling. People will, then, see the light of the day.

         The foregone deliberations are what Creative Cottage High School has been assiduously trying to bring home to the people of Kankarbagh for the last twenty-one years now. The unbridled slide-down of the standard of children education might have shaken the people of Kankarbagh off the stance of complacency. Now, the day, they begin to  lend their ears to the gospels of Creative Cottage, they shall muster enough gold  pieces to adorn their children with.--- F.P. Shrivastava, 2005.

         My email address is : [e-mail].