What is the destruction of education, knowledge and intellect, if it is to be seen, can be measured by the conditions from the winds of neo-liberalism of the nineties to the present day. This political action has often been propagated under the guise of development-oriented, all-encompassing, 21st century, globalization. The gap between rich and poor is widening day by day, education is shifting to avidya, folk culture is not constructive but non-constructive values are turning into prices. For the last three decades, privatization policies have eroded the constructive culture and way of life across the country. Even the most prosperous state of Punjab has not been spared.
During this time the greatest goal was to make human understanding and to bring every aspect directly or indirectly under control. There is no doubt that the biggest consequence of this was our education because we had this great tool of creating public consciousness.
The politics of the time, while implementing privatization, was the first to embrace education. Under the propaganda and dissemination of English medium, the mother tongue was crippled and the proficiency of the young student in his own language was severely damaged. At the same time, the methods of applying a foreign language have become so complicated that most of the time the student continues to study the basic grammar of that language till graduation. As a result, the majority of contemporary youth are not proficient in any language. It is a universal truth that language is an essential tool for understanding life, solving its problems and focusing it in the right direction. How will their intellect develop when the language of the students is weakened and it will not be possible for them to understand life and solve its complexities. According to Rasul Hamza , there can be no greater curse than to forget one’s mother tongue.
In the name of school education reforms, action was taken to remove constructive and pro-people knowledge from the syllabus. They were mostly drawn to the study of ideas, ideals and myths. Pro-people, revolutionary and pragmatic writings gradually began to show the way out of the syllabus. Most students only learn to write applications, with no emphasis on developing life skills. Instead of developing the qualities of analysis, review and creativity in the students, they are made into components in which they are taught only technical vocabulary in the name of language, technical conversation and how to attend corporate offices. As a result, even after graduation, students are limited to the skills of office workers.
Such an education system was promoted under the new century, new education, new way of life. Instead of the essential subjects of language, literature and social sciences, courses in technology, management, business, etc. were included in the education, leaving the human being as a part of technology and corporate away from the real education. . We do not know when our education was doomed.
Apart from education, other sources of knowledge have also come under attack in recent times, as the media has been concentrated in the hands of a few and the process of manipulating the media, politics and humanity by large corporate groups has intensified. The pamphlets and channels are shown to the public only what the ruler wants to show. The only thing that is propagated and spread is that which is in favor of the ruler, whether it is true or false. And in the civil society, the propaganda in the media has eroded the thinking power of the people and has deeply hurt the human consciousness.
With the advent of social media, where information exchange has become easier and faster, data politics has got a big boost. This has made it easier for rulers to look into people’s private lives. It has become easier to analyze people’s hobbies, likes and dislikes, actions and thoughts as they mobilize new convenient and fast resources to control the masses on a daily basis. Man does not even know how he is being used and operated.
Knowledge is limited to information only, even information that is not constructive, only days, dates or unnecessary statistics. In this way competitive examinations are conducted in which the candidates have less knowledge and intellect, how much information they have and how much information they can remember is tested. All of this encourages rattling rather than acquiring knowledge.
If we do not have a good education system, capable teachers, independent and impartial knowledge, then independent and constructive intellect is not possible. Time is needed to give priority to a constructive education system. Protect the public sector, especially in education, and stop the exploitation of teachers and students. Competent educators should make constructive contribution in the field of education. Understand the real life situation while reviewing the role of media / social media. Encourage interest in reading books through public libraries. In this way, with collective efforts, we can save our perishing education, knowledge and intellect.
There is an urgent need to preserve the education and intellectual culture of India in order to preserve its constructive lifestyle. Space must be reduced, but it is not exhausted and should not be exhausted. We must start a new people’s movement together from this remaining space. Just as a people’s movement has emerged to save the farmers and the economy of Punjab, another common movement is needed from this movement to safeguard our education, childhood, youth, employment (public and private), intellectuals and prosperity.
