We need to prioritize learning in terms of its social and moral value…..People should learn to gauge their worth in terms of their own happiness and their usefulness to society.
Qualifications and credentials do not make a person educated. They indicate knowledge, not enlightenment. They are the social stamps society requires to acknowledge a person as worthy. And in being deemed worthy, such people are often put at the helm of our civilization.
It is a crisis of our very scientifically advanced times that we have extremely learned but thoroughly uneducated people in our top leadership. Education is characterized by the rounding out of a personality. No sharp edges left to create friction with others, their ideologies and beliefs. A truly educated man is at harmony with himself and all of creation. The thrust of our prevalent educational system is to equip people to earn the highest salaries they can, not to be the best or happiest they can be. We are churning out millions of money making machines that see the world in terms of opportunities of personal advancement.
There is an imminent need to revamp the educational system. We need to prioritize learning in terms of its social and moral value. Respect, tolerance and peaceful co-existence should be taught to children from the very beginning. They should learn to gauge their worth in terms of their own happiness and their usefulness to society. A moral compass that functions independent of outside influence is of utmost importance in our times. Only the truly educated can shrug off or stem the virulent culture of hate we are living in and furthering. The impressionable are falling prey to evil influences only too readily and looking for acceptance and self worth in causes and ideologies that only lead to destruction and despair.
We need a new generation of truly educated youth, who think and reason independently and are so well assured of their own worth that they don’t need causes and ideologies to justify their existence. Such people are our only chance of surviving in peace as a global family.
Himanshu Kaushal
12977
School of Mechanical Engineering
