IP_ Tagore Issue - Final.indd - high commission of india mauritius

Tagore andTechnical EducationB.N. PATNAIKThere is no place for competition in education.Education must lead to an understanding of theunderlying harmony in the universe; thus it woulddiscourage a perspective that sees things in conflict – forexample, humans in conflict with nature, or in conflictwith another species.Tagore did not seeeducation as merely ameans to a career anda comfortable livelihood; hesaw it as a means to the fullunfolding of the potential –intellectual, emotional, andspiritual, and physical – ofan individual. There is, then,no place for competition ineducation. Education mustlead to an understanding ofthe underlying harmony inthe universe; thus it woulddiscourage a perspective thatsees things in conflict – forexample, humans in conflictwith nature, or in conflict withanother species. The great poetand thinker was intensely awareof the destructive potential ofknowledge, not grounded onsuch an integrative perspective.Education must not onlysharpen the aesthetic sensibilityof a person, and sensitizehim to the expressed and thehidden beauty of things, itmust also develop in him astrong sense of relatedness toothers, and of empathy for thedeprived, the disadvantaged,and the voiceless. It must notlead to dissociation betweenthe learner and the tradition ofknowledge and value system towhich he belongs. At the sametime it must equip him with acritical intelligence to evaluatethat tradition. Tagore believedthat learning is possible underconditions of joy; therefore theclassroom must not be a prisoncell, and a foreign languagecould hardly be the mediumof education. He believed thata good educational systemmust benefit all sections ofthe society; the farmer and thepotter must gain from it (in,for instance, the form of usefultechnology), as those aspiring tobe bureaucrats and doctors. Asfor exploration of knowledge,education must not ignore thelocal and the indigenous.One might suggest thatthese are too idealistic to besuccessfully translated intoreality. One might argue, forexample, that it is neitherpossible nor desirable to rejectcompetition and conflict,because these contribute tothe growth of knowledge. Thisof course is more evident incertain knowledge domains,for instance, the sciences,than in others, like the arts.But this argument loses forcein the personal context ofan individual practitioner ofscience. In any case, there canhardly be a justification fornot trying to implement ideals.Looking at this from a differentperspective, Tagore’s thoughtscan be viewed as constitutinga benchmark for education,and at the same time, a kindof measure for evaluatingeducation.What would be a Tagoreanview of technical education atthe higher level, with specificreference to our country? Hisideas on education need to betranslated into a set of goalsfor being directly relevant tothis domain. First, technicaleducation should significantlyincrease the students’ awarenessof the social, economic,Photographs in this essay show students’ acquiring skills in the early years of Sriniketanhistorical, and the larger culturalcontext in which technologydevelopment takes place, andscientific pursuits are carriedout – no pursuit of knowledge,whether purely aesthetic orscientific, takes place in avacuum. Secondly, a student ofscience and technology shouldbe broadly aware that thereexist other ways of cognizingthe world than the scientific;for instance, the imaginative,as manifest in works of art,and further that these modesof cognition are not inferiorto the scientific one. Thirdly,he must know that there aredomains of knowledge, suchINDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 110 INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 111