As India moves from an agrarian society to a knowledge-based economy, the resultant chaos can be confounding, if the curriculum here is imitative of post-industrial societies. learning has to correspond to local conditions. But that cannot be at the cost of classical postulates
Industrial revolution in its present incarnation is an ongoing process that began around the third quarter of 19th century. It is different from several industrial revolutions that preceded it as there has always been a break in the continuity of those other revolutions. It is this longitudinal perspective on the evolution of industrial revolutions that is necessary to appreciate what is currently happening.
However, it is a latitudinal perspective on industrial revolution that could make it is still more interesting a phenomenon to observe. A good question to ask would be how has the industrial revolution affected different parts of the worldIJ It is here that a comparative perspective is not only helpful but also critical to understanding some of the processes. The effect of the industrial revolution, say, in Brazil is different from the effect of the industrial revolution in China. Indeed each of the BRIC countries have been affected differently. The comparative study of the impact of the industrial revolution in different parts of the world throws up a very interesting paradigm which needs to be examined.
Exploring it would show that impact of industrial revolution in different parts of the globe in the primary and secondary stages have a wide range of variation. This variation tends to be smoother and made common in the tertiary or the maturity phase.
Thus it is, that, in the primary and the secondary stage of impact, the political orientations are wide and the debate on the frameworks of social interventions are large. They often convert themselves into political battles and in the tertiary situation, modes of governance become more important instrument of channelising energy.
By the same token if a given region does not experience any industrial revolution then political norms are bound to be different and the developmental trajectory would be quite unique in that region. Perhaps impact of industrial revolution is one of the largest symbolic variables in studying social unrest, turmoil or trajectory of the developmental processes. This would also affect the nature of knowledge management in each territory and the structure and the processes of educational interventions.
Illustratively, it is difficult to move directly from agrarian society to a knowledge-based economy. The chaos can be many times more confounding if the sources of curriculum and content of learning is imitative of what is taught in industrial or post-industrial societies. The sheer irrelevance of what is sought to be taught in the educational institutions of a society to what it needs will cause dissonance. It will be so in managing aspirations and creating a situation where use of such learning is forever crippling to an individual’s ability to adapt to local conditions.
There is a case, therefore, to revisit the curriculum and the method of instruction keeping in mind not only an international reference point but also the demands of the local context. Even so there are classical postulates which remain the postulates of ‘learning to learn’ and define characteristics of a good human being. These would continue to be relevant.
Also, there needs to be a recognition of the process that the objectives, while being defined in material terms, cannot overlook the objectives in rarified terms, of happiness or a sense of fulfillment.
The material and the contentment component have a third variable which gets intertwined with the rest of the processes and that demand is of security. Obviously, material well-being and emotional happiness cannot flourish in an atmosphere of insecurity. This perspective can be appreciated, but how to achieve it remains a core planning objective. Somewhere the ability to anticipate, mitigate and manage risks becomes important. However, dealing with risks as a concept, is itself a relatively new territory of exploration. To that extent the intellectual challenge and excitement of today is as large and intense as it was in the renaissance period.