How Much Education Is Enough?
Which is the most important facet of raising a child in the modern world? If I ask the average person on the street, I have little doubt most people will mention ‘education’. It is almost sacrilege to not agree to this view. Once in a while, one does come across a TED talk that argues that the present education system was devised in the early 19th century, and meant to provide manpower in the early days of the industrial revolution. It sounded interesting, but I couldn’t really relate much to what was really implied by these thought processes. I had also read an article recently about tribals in the interior of the country (India) withdrawing their daughters from school as they felt there wasn’t much value addition there.
A little unrelated incident suddenly threw some light into what all these meant, for me. We were in the grocery shop of my residential society. The shop is managed by a gentleman in his fifties and for about half of the day, his son (who appears to be around 18–20 years of age) mans the counter. Looking at him, my wife whispered to me, does the boy go to school? That comment made me wonder- the boy runs a store. That is, he able to prepare bills (i.e., write and add numbers) and handle cash and the credit card machine, manage inventories (decide stock of which item is running short, which one isn’t moving) and organise the available stuff. Obviously, he has been to school long enough for him to learn the skills required to manage a shop. What value addition will a BA or an MSc do, to help him run his store more efficiently? The answer, in all probability, is nothing. But we have somehow come to think that what they teach in school and college is useful, and the more time you spend there, the more useful it gets.
This is not to say that all formal education is useless. But one needs to understand its purpose before proceeding further for the rest of the essay to make sense.
The purpose of education, as I see it, is to make an individual useful to the society. This could be by opening or running an industry or business, or working as an employee in one of these, by studying and adding to knowledge of the many facets of a modern society (through sciences and social sciences) or by providing services or entertainment. Since these activities are vastly different, how can the indoctrination for them be the same (beyond the basics, that is)? The disconnect between formal education and the ability to be useful in the society is not specifically an Indian or a modern problem either. George Bernard Shaw’s ‘Pygmalion’ (published 1913) and W Somerset Maugham’s ‘The Verger’ (published 1937) refer somewhat to the same.
In this essay, I will try to discuss specifically the issues with the Indian formal education system (as I lack a detailed knowledge of any other).
India has a unique problem. There was a long period of subjugation by a foreign colonial power. In the later years of this period, Indians also started getting recruited towards managing the subjects. These Indians themselves became what is derisively referred to as ‘babus’ and felt they were above the rest of the population.
Independence, unfortunately, was followed by a long period of socialism and a heavy government hand in everything. Private industry was discouraged and businessmen reviled, as their intention of ‘making money’ was felt to be worthy of contempt. Under the circumstances, the most powerful people in the country were the ‘sarkari babus’ (even clerks in government departments), who could hold up an application for setting up a business for any length of time without assigning a reason. Those who had some basic education could aspire to a government job (and the attendant power and official/ unofficial perks), and therefore formal education came to be seen as something that could provide access to the good things in life. Some countrymen, with some basic education but no practical skill, could thus lord over the rest of the populace, which actually needed to work.
In the ‘mai-baap sarkar’ philosophy, businessmen and industrialists were an aberration, an embarrassment. All business was supposed be owned by the government (‘the people’ in Sovietspeak), and the management would only be salaried. Therefore, the general public only needed to prepare themselves to ‘serve’ in a job. The fact that not everyone could successfully run a business was not relevant, since the measure of success would be profit, and profit was a dirty word.
In school days, when I mentioned the name of my school to acquaintances, they’d often comment ‘children of business people go there’. I didn’t really understand the import of this comment then, beyond the realisation that families of most of my classmates were traders in something or the other. The fact that I joined the defence services, a ‘government job’, kept me insulated from the real world out there. The difference between the mindset of the ‘job’ type and the ‘business’ type, however, became apparent to me when I met my classmates about twenty five years after passing out of school. Some continued their parents’ businesses, a few expanded these (even overseas) and some had gone through two or three failed businesses before one took off. In the last category, it never occurred to them to junk the idea of running a business and take a ‘job’, with a steady income every month. Starting a business would involve having a practical knowledge of what will sell (physical product or service), some money to start it (even if from a loan), the ability to sell it (different from simply there being a market for the product), the ability to remain sane through periods of unsteady income and most importantly, a risk taking ability.
This is not everyone’s cup of tea; certainly not mine! Having left the defence services and after taking up a civil job, I realise that the promoters of my company need to do enormous planning and risk taking to make it work. In the process, they make money (of course) and generate jobs for the unimaginative like me.
This is not to say that people cannot change. I know defence officers who have chosen to leave early and are running successful businesses, and the odd businessman, who has chosen to go the mundane steady job way.
Before 1991 (when our economy was opened up), the industrialists and big businessmen were able to work their way around the procedures created specifically to ‘keep them in check’, so that they do not ‘fleece the general public’ and led a good life. The common public, at the same time, was denied many basics, because the heavily regulated economy simply didn’t take off well enough to provide for it (not to speak of the unlimited avenues for corruption created by the regulation). This is a unique fallout of the socialist thought process, where it ends up harming those it claims to protect.
In this environment, people who did physical work often yearned for their children to not live the same lives. The domestic help and the cycle repairman therefore send their children to school and college, thinking they will get a ‘good job’ (read office job, which won’t involve physical work) and insulate them from their own jobs. Remember the furore that erupted when the PM, Mr Modi spoke about the pakoda seller? That the pakoda seller earns an honest living and feeds his family was simply lost in the drama that followed (with graduates in their gowns and caps frying pakodas for a photo op).
There are few takers for vocational training, and there is a proliferation of schools and colleges teaching engineering and, of late, management, which churn out what have been referred to as unemployable graduates. This education leaves them misfits to carry on their parents’ businesses (such as they are) but does not equip them to do anything useful for a living, such as ironing, stitching clothes, driving a truck or doing electrical repair work. But people with these skills are also necessary in any society! The limited availability of office jobs coupled with the phenomenal growth rate of population in India hasn’t helped matters. The large population growth has also caused a large irregular workforce to be available, who get paid low market dictated amounts, again leading to the yearning for apparently comfortable jobs.
Another issue that needs to be understood is that in any organised industry, the management would comprise maybe 5 to 10% of the total workforce (with the IT and ITES industries being exceptions). The remaining would have to necessarily work on the shop floor or equivalent. For a small time tailor’s child, with his parents lacking formal education, to dream of landing a management job is largely foolhardy. It does happen in the odd case, but it remains an exception rather than the rule. Too many parents are not guided or incorrectly guided and simply keep spending money, time and effort after ‘educating’ their children, in effect making them more and more unemployable.
So what’s the way out?
There’s no easy way out, unfortunately. Studies till Class X expose a student to the basics of everything, and the syllabus beyond that in all streams gets into a fair amount of detail, required for specialisation. While it is true that marks do not matter much ( I am a firm believer in this, always having been in the middle of the class), a child scoring in 40s to 60s in the sciences, for example, wouldn’t stand a chance if he pursues a career in engineering. He may manage to get an engineering degree from one of the myriad engineering colleges that have sprung up across the country, but will continue to struggle in all probability. While I speak of engineering, since I had opted for ‘PCM’ after Class X, I am sure the story would be similar in the other streams as well. Maybe, therefore, students’ progress should be monitored in terms of behaviour, aptitude and of course their exam scores to an extent, with possibly mandatory counselling introduced at this stage. Some, who do not need to continue into higher education can be guided towards some vocational training, so that they can progress towards becoming self reliant. Many will flourish outside the regimented school system.
At the same time, maybe a structure needs to come up. which mandates schools to conduct counselling of students (as to whether they should continue in formal school), because schools would be loath to lose business by advising students to exit and look for options!
The New Education Policy unveiled a few months back does talk of integrating vocational training into the regular curriculum. How much it succeeds will only become apparent a few years after it is fully implemented.
In the meantime, we, the fortunate and educated, need to give more respect to the unorganised sector and appreciate how they make our lives easier. Our exposure to the world is usually more, and we must give ideas to them to improve the services they provide, wherever we can.
