The process of addressing problems of education could possibly begin with an understanding that no education is neutral nor is the student the primary beneficiary. Micere Mugo reminds us that: “education is one of the most political institutions of the superstructure and that as such it cannot be regarded as neutral, in the sense of not having a social vision, mission and agenda.” She adds that education “is created by a political system and the latter ensures that its interests are served.” The reasoning behind her analysis has been put concisely by Everret Reimer. “True education,” he wrote, “is a basic social force. Present social structures could not survive an educated population, even if only a substantial minority were educated […] People are schooled to accept reality. They are educated to create or recreate one.”
In other words, education when truly imparted empowers free and conscious beings; rejecting all forms of status quo they take the responsibility to create a new political order that is relevant and responsive to the needs of the people. Ironically, it is the very notion of ‘change’ that causes fear in the hearts of the powerful and hence its overwhelming sense of desire to control education and subdue the voices of conscience. And as my comrade Babu would say, it is in the absence of conscience that unjust structures and systems thrive in spite of, or because of the schooling we undergo.
Indeed we were schooled to adjust and survive within existing structures and systems. If in general ‘education’ is designed to stifle our imagination, suppress free and critical spirit and numb our capacity for social change, what then is the purpose of education? Ivan Illich argued that people are schooled not only to confuse process and substance but also to “confuse teaching and learning, grade advancement with education, a diploma with competence and fluency with the ability to say something new. [Their] imagination is ‘schooled’ to accept service in place of value.” Subsequently our capacity to unravel and confront injustices and to recreate the world is efficiently neutralized. Instead we are conditioned to refine our skills to sustain ourselves in the existing status quo.
To be a vibrant and alive society that worries about things that is concerned with living it is essential for us to rediscover what Allan Smith termed “consciousness of the objective interests of one’s society.” It could start with reviving the three fundamental elements of knowledge: Truth, Morality and Technique. Contextualizing these elements to make it live in an applicable manner would have its own share of challenges, but any step towards this direction would be empowering. By rekindling with our moral imagination, we may perhaps be less dependent on self-improvement manuals.
