The Doon Mozaic (Hypocrisy in Education System of Uttarakhand) Hypocrisy in Education System of Uttarakhand | Page 20

EDUCATED ILLITERATES
Column
By
Priyanjali Bhalla
Over years people have been counting literacy rates. The statistics state 74.4% people in
India as literates. We see people becoming more aware about educating their younger
generation but what they are looking for is just superficial knowledge .In a fact not even
knowledge what they are preparing their kids for is how to be suitable for a good
job .Every day new schools are opening, new admissions are taking place. Still we see
that the very basic ‘civic sense’, the simple common sense lacks in almost 90%of the
population. What use of sending kids to school then? What are they learning then? Our
teachers used to say that an individual’s behavior reflects his family background .That
statement is more applicable in these times. An individual for a family, a family for a
state, a state for a nation. That’s how it goes .Even one individual’s wrong behavior
reflects badly on the nation and the entire system of education prevalent in the socie-
ty .What is being taught in school is just superficial knowledge of existing facts rather
than gaining education. Knowing facts is not education. William S. Burroughs said,
“The aim of education is knowledge, not of facts but of values”. If all the education you
receive in the first fifteen years of your life can’t educate you to behave properly and act
in an appropriate manner, what is use of such education? Today’s methods of education
are making one only a literate –one who knows how to read and write (that also not
properly).Students are just made to mug up the text books and jot down on examination
sheets . And these ‘marked sheets’ serve as your educational identity in a world where
well literates are being brought up and not well educated! These literates can give a