AS THE COUNTRY'S MOST committed — even if not most successful — champion of high-quality early childhood and primary-secondary education for all, I am often obliged to explain the criticality of the connection between universal elementary education and national development to individuals and larger audiences. It is often necessary for business development reasons — to ensure the financial viability and longevity of this advocacy publication — to solicit the support and cooperation of captains of industry by explaining to them that corporate and national prosperity is dependent upon the education, well-being, productivity, and purchasing power of the general population. Yet I am perpetually surprised and often amazed at how difficult it is for my usually impatient audiences to grasp this self-evident proposition.
The fault that the great majority of the population and even well-educated individuals cannot arrive at the simplest conclusions through the process of deductive logic is not of the people, but of the country’s education system, which doesn’t sufficiently promote the liberal arts. If all children and youth are given basic grounding in economics and the social sciences in school and college, they will inevitably develop critical thinking and deductive logic capabilities, appreciate the value and worth of universal primary-secondary (and skills) education, and exert pressure on politicians to invest a greater proportion of public spending on education and developing the country’s vital human resource.
Unfortunately, this hasn’t happened in the history of post-independence India. Too-early streaming in school education and societal overemphasis on science and technology, and professional (medicine, law, business management, etc) education, has resulted in neglect of the liberal arts, even in institutions of higher learning. The socio-economic consequence of the continuous devaluation of liberal arts, as narrowly educated and/or ill-educated techies take on each other in public forums, is vulgarisation and coarsening of the public discourse, most notably evident in Parliament where civil debate has become the exception rather than rule.
In the circumstances, reports of promotion of institutions of higher education with strong focus on the liberal arts, is excellent news. Quite obviously, a rising number of discerning individuals are making the connection between the neglect of arts and humanities education and post-independence India’s painfully slow national development effort. The most prominent of the new genre universities racing to rectify this national blindspot are featured in this first issue of 2015, which also presents a round-up of the education milestones of the politically momentous year gone by.
Wishing you an easier and prosperous 2015!
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