NEP and The Purpose of Education
By Hilal Bukhari
Our education department is all set to implement and carry forward the main features of the New Educational Policy 2020. NEP calls for revamping the purpose of education for the learners. The teachers and the parents must learn it wholeheartedly before transferring the same to the learners at the ground level.
According to NEP the purpose of the education system is to develop good human beings capable of rational thought and action, possessing compassion and empathy, courage and resilience, scientific temper and creative imagination, with sound ethical moorings and values.
It aims at producing engaged, productive, and contributing citizens for building an equitable, inclusive, and plural society as envisaged by our constitution.
This would be a great achievement if we are able to understand and then implement this aim at the basic level and act according to all the important norms which are profound for bringing the desired results.
The purpose of education system is thus, not merely the meterial benefit of the learners. It lays equal stress on cognitive, physical, mental and emotional development of the learners. It promises to develop the humanity and more humane approach among the learners. We have to understand now that education is not all about the degrees, grades and the marks only.Its main purpose is to build what we call the real human beings who will be able to lead better lives in their future. They shall approach their challenges in a rational manner.Compassion, empathy, courage and resilience shall be the basic hallmarks and the main traits of these human beings. They shall pursue knowledge with scientific temper and reflect the same with creative thinking. Thus, they shall not be mere imitators copying others and stressing thier minds with rote learning only. They shall rather use their minds for creating novel ideas or at least, the traditional ideas with novel methodologies. The purpose of this new education system is also to develop sound ethical moorings and values among the learners which shall make them more eligible for building great societies.
A poem by William Martin may help us here to understand this idea more easily. He has written;
“Do not ask your children
to strive for extraordinary lives.
Such striving may be admirable
but it is the way of foolishness.
Help them instead to find the wonder
and the marvel of an ordinary life.
Show them the joy of tasting
tomatoes, apples, and pears.
Show them how to cry
when pets and people die.
Show them the infinite pleasure
in the touch of a hand.
And make the ordinary come alive for them.
The extraordinary will take care of itself.”
The modern education system hitherto has somehow only taught us to teach our children that the world is competitive and that only winning the competitions should be their main aim. In this way we have have only pushed our tender minds into some futile mad rat races which have been disastrous and devastating for us in the long run.
Need of the hour is that our teachers and parents learn that building basic humanity among our new generation is more important than creating competative robots. If we implement the basic purpose of education at the ground level as envisaged in the NEP document wholeheartedly, we shall be able to see the real results which shall be revolutionizing and grand in the future.
Author is a Teacher in Education Department
Note: The views and opinions expressed in this article are the personal opinion of the author.