The Delhi University has started four-year under graduate programme, which will educate students about the practical application of their courses. Students graduating in history, for instance, will learn about archaeology and tourism. Students of Hindi will be taught scriptwriting and translation. This will help students find jobs and pursue different careers later. For a long time, many subjects, especially in the arts, had become unpopular among students because they were not very helpful in providing jobs and building careers. Besides, the knowledge gained by studying some subjects was considered to be of little use in practical life. The language streams have been quite unfashionable for a long time. History and philosophy seem to be of no practical use to many students. Geography has not been much in vogue because it does not provide enough career avenues.
It is good that the DU has decided to enhance the practical worth of its courses. Preparing students for jobs and careers is indeed an important purpose of education. But different courses of study also help students by making them improved human beings. Education makes people relate better to the varied aspects of their environment. Different streams of study develop the minds of students in their own special ways to make them more useful to society. While choosing courses, students would do well to have an understanding of not just their job or career potential but also ways in which they will help them grow as human beings.
Physics, for instance, can be not just a mechanical, dry understanding of the physical universe. It can ultimately fill students with a sense of wonder and thrill at the working of the physical universe. Physics can make a person a philosopher, as Albert Einstein sounds when an issue of physics makes him say, “God does not play dice with the universe.” God, play, universe seem to be in the realm of spirituality, but one of the best physicists of all time saw them related in the world of physics. Physics can be one joy ride of endless discoveries, all of them offering a fresh new look at not just the physical universe, but also man’s place in it. What goes for physics goes for all streams of study. And if a student really pursues a stream of study with dedication and patience, he might be lucky enough to become humble like Newton who after all his momentous discoveries, said, “I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.”
For many students the study of languages appears of little worth because it has meagre potential of providing jobs. Yes, proficiency in Hindi can make a person a scriptwriter or a translator and the new DU syllabus will prepare students for these possibilities. But I think there is a profound way in which all languages help students. They make them logical and reasonable because logical and reasoned thinking are integral to gaining expertise in any language. And languages are not just words. They convey the thoughts, emotions, insights and realisations of some of the best minds. Sanskrit may be a dead language, but the poetry of Kalidasa, the philosophy of Upanishads, the knowledge of Vedas, the deliverance offered in the Gita can best be understood only in the original Sanskrit. One reason for this is that there are concepts that are captured fully only in Sanskrit words. No translation of these words really expresses their meaning.
Philosophy is another subject considered of little use by many students. But it can be used to make people more humane and better professionals. Take police officers. Their outlook towards crime, criminals, reform of criminals and punishment has a big role in determining the kind of policing they do. Their views about social norms, faiths, creeds and sects, their overall attitude will influence their actions. A person with an unfair opinion about a gender, caste or religion, for instance, cannot be a good police officer. Every person has a philosophy about everything and it can be great if a formal study of philosophy makes the philosophy of a person more balanced, reasonable and human. Great philosopher Rene Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am” can be “I make money through any means, therefore I am”. And that can be dangerous for everyone. That can make society take a fresh, keen look at philosophy and all that it can offer.
What about historyIJ Its ability to make money for its student is just one side to it. It’s good if the new DU history course makes more jobs and careers available to students. But history can do a lot for its student even if he studies it and makes no money out of it. It can rid people of a lot of ghosts of the past, clear many cobwebs in the mind and give a much healthier outlook to people not only towards the past, but also the present and future. A person may believe, for instance, that people of a particular faith have always been violent and are responsible for the violence in today’s world too. Study of history can prove this notion wrong and give him the correct perspective. History can impart equanimity to its student as he studies the rise and fall of kings, empires and civilisations. It can make him rise above the tumult and tussles of the past and present and see how time levels everything. It will tell him how man has basically remained the same through time, for if he had not, history wouldn’t have repeated itself. And it can give him ageless stories of all possible shades of human existence. For nothing seems to have been left undone by man. A civilisation that does not hear and tell stories isn’t a civilisation at all.
Education for me isn’t just A,B,C,D ... or any form of A,B,C,D ..., however advanced. Education ultimately has to do with man and his universe. Education should make them better and all streams of knowledge provide their own unique means to man to evolve and make the world a better place. The ability of education to provide work and money is important but finally, A,B,C, D... should end with a big ZZZZ... of peaceful slumber after a day of honest work.
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