I am my own school
If you go to
Ujjain, the almost modern city in the present Madhya Pradesh with perhaps one
of the oldest citadel of the best education of India’s legendary past, you can find
a kaleidoscopic picture of the evolution of our education system.
Let us start
with puranas. The 5000 years old Sandipani asram, the first of our still
visible educational set-up, a totally teacher
controlled in-house one, with the saint
Sandeepani accommodating all Kshatriya princes and talented Brahmin boys, admitted
and taught everything from science to statecraft to wrestling to music to
philosophy to swimming, with general studies and then specialization in whatever
their and position and talents expect them to do when they come out of the
school. Make them efficient to perform their duties well in their ore-destined
spot in the society was the motto of Sanjeevani Asram School. The Pandavas and
Kauravas were students there and Lord Krishna and the pious and poor Brahmin Sudama
(Kuchela) got education there. Of course everybody had to help the teacher’s
wife to run the house where they all stayed together. She was a mother, strict warden
and part time teacher. The boys had long excursions to various parts of central
and western India from the hills to the sea. Even now, you can sit on the allegedly
same reddish rock stone steps of the tank adjacent to the Ashram where Sri
krishna used to sit and tell stories of his fishy episodes in Vrindavan with
Radha, his girl friend, almost the same way as the present 12 year olds pass on
their first love affair pictures to his Whatsapp friends.
Then the
next stage came. Around 2000 years back, Kalidasa, the eternal literary giant
appears. He was an illiterate, but highly talented and personally blessed by
Saraswati Devi, the Goddess of words. He had the best of education from the King
Vikranaditya’s court where the Navaratnas, the nine gems, the top intellectuals
and experts in various fields were available. And storytelling became the
conduit of education. In perhaps the
best ever literary work, fiction created in any language, Sakunthalam drama,
Kalidasa very beautifully included the political, economic, scientific and social
wisdom by subtly changing part of the story of Sakuntala from the original
Mahabharata. Even salabhanjikas, the marble statues of palanquins on the 18
steps to the throne and Vethala, a bat type animal-human started telling
stories with full of wisdom and practical knowledge. It was the real education.
Panchathantra, kathasrithsagaram and Jathaka tales were all stories with wisdom
and education passed on through generations almost orally by wandering bards
and it was a parallel learning platform for the poor. The education came out of
teacher’s iron physical control.
The British
came and lo, they changed the entire structure. They wanted English knowing
clerks and an educational set up was created with stress on study of English
language first and foremost. As an unavoidable hazard, British law and history
and basics of science and their culture were brought in. Schools, colleges and
universities appeared slowly, poor imitators of British institutions. Now, in
Ujjain, Sandeepani and Kalidasa are out and Vikram University rules the area.
About sixty years back, I was in Ujjain searching for Sandeepani and Kalidasa
and found the picturesque green semi-forest area of Vikram University, named
after King Vikramaditya. Many mounts and small hills. Three rivulets flowing to
Kshipra, the river with perennial water flow and sacred memories, and the lush colourful
surroundings. The university was affiliating dozens of colleges of almost all faculties
then available, history to physical education (the first ever sports college in
India was the Lakshmi Bai College of Physical Education, Gwalior affiliated
Vikram university situated about 400 km away), science to architecture and medical
to literature. The new Sandeepani was there, the Vice-Chancellor, but he never had
any communication with his sishyas and even the language which they used for written
communication was foreign. But still relics of the past were occasionally felt
in the atmosphere.
Now six years
back, I went to Ujjain. Almost the entire landscape changed. The fresh look was
really beautiful, the buildings had the best of Europe mimicked Indian
architecture, the air-conditioning in the class rooms were superb and teacher
student day time friendship was pretty close and the library based inputs and
changing examination styles gave a sophisticated pride to even the visitors
like me.
Of course, we
are not so great and royal as Oxford or Berkeley, but we are not far behind.
Our universities may not be in the best 100 in the world but I don’t know, but
I am sure some of them will be in the first 10000.
But I am upset.
Independence brought clarity to India’s aspirations. Rapid economic progress
with social justice. Literacy was the first priority. So a huge flow of
literate children commenced and we were forced to just duplicate the existing
system and facilities to accommodate them. The capital input necessary for the
facilities, land, building, library, laboratory and what not, the cost was
going up. The result was the cost of education spiraled up unimaginably fast
making it beyond the dreams of the poor.
My friend, Dr, A
Ramachandran, Vice-chancellor of the Fisheries University, the only one of its
kind in India, told me his experience. A Kochi man, his father spent only Rs.
5000 for his education from primary school to doctorate, but he had to shell
out Rs.50000 as fee for admission of his child to the pre-primary LKG class,
both in Kochi only.
But I am optimistic. The waves are slowly taking
shape and about to roll. I can visualize. The bard culture, the best
educational system ever, beyond written language, but based on sound and
pictures and colours, available to everybody, damn cheap when competition and
new inventions bringing fresh ideas almost every day from thousands of fertile
young brains will be the educational platform. It will revolutionize even the
concept of learning in an unimaginable manner and the day is not far off at the
present speed. The school, library, laboratory and teacher will be part of you
and it will not be even a distant cousin of the distance education, the maximum
we can visualize now.
It will be a
world where everyone, even the poorest, gets education connected with their
genetic specialties and the world will surely be happier and better than the
past generations including ours.
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