Essays

The main aim of education is the all-round development of a student. Its purpose is to develop a student into a full, whole and integrated person, thus, the objectives to be achieved through education and training is many and very comprehensive. Education helps in achieving and developing skills, abilities, insights and scientific temper. Besides literary and aesthetic appeal of education, there are utilitarian aspects as well and they are equally important.

Education aims at developing and bringing out the best of a student's inner personality, but at the same time it cannot neglect the outer and material aspects. Education also means that a student is made capable to stand on his own feet. to earn his bread and butter.

An educated person is supposed to face the challenges of life bravely and successfully in the fields of money, material and social utility. No person can be called properly educated if he or she fails in taking a meaningful contribution to the income and economy of a society and country. An educated person is supposed to earn well for himself and his dependents. He should not be a burden on the society and family from economic point of view. Without realization of this aim young men and women can never be called properly educated and trained because they would prove unfit in the economical and utilitarian structure of the society.

The purpose of education is to strike a proper balance between inner and outer, emotional and practical aspects of one's personality and life. If it is not done, then it would prove lopsided education resulting in or imbalanced development of a personality. It should help in flowering of both the spiritual and physical potentialities.

All-round development and enfolding of innate qualities means the growth and development of mind, spirit and body. All these three are integral and interdependent aspects of a man's personality. It only means that there should be integrated development and none of these aspects be neglected. Man is both emotional and rational being and both of these should be properly developed so as to form parts of an integrated and organic whole. The development of the one at the expense of the other would result in disaster. Man is neither a thinking machine nor a heap of emotions, nor a bundle of flesh and bones.

If one is guided simply by emotions, his vision is bound to be distorted. Similarly, if one goes by reason alone then he would be a mere thinking robot. Likewise, in a weak body there cannot exist sound mind and spirit. Physical strength also reflects the inner strength of spirit and mind. Physically weak people cannot be morally strong. They would soon fall prey to all sorts of undesirable pressures and man oeuvres.

The main task of education is to produce useful, intelligent, patriotic, emotionally integrated, morally strong, cultured, scientifically tempered and healthy young men and women. In short, the aim and objective of education should be proper integration and harmony between feeling, thinking and doing. Education should produce people properly adjusted with the rhythm of life and it cannot be achieved unless and until there is the much desired adjustment between rhythms of mind and heart in the individual.

One of the primary aims of education is to develop character. Now, character is a very comprehensive term and means not only pattern of behaviour of an individual but also moral strength, mental presence, self-discipline, fortitude, reputation etc. Most of our modern problems have their origin in our lack of strong moral character.

The modem age has been suffering from the crisis of character. If the character of the people is improved any of the problems would take care of themselves. If the character of the people of a country is strong, it would be very easy to overcome any crises, however, great for that country. It is said that if character is lost, everything is lost. What makes a man, really a man in its true sense of the term, is his character. Without character a man is nothing but a beast, a mere organism just existing selfishly without any values and ethical sense.

According to a poet "Sow a habit and you reap a character. So a character, and you reap a destiny." Thus, the men of character are the men of destiny. Only those with strong moral character have capabilities to control and guide the destinies of the nations and the world. Mahatma Gandhi was such a man of character and so also a man of destiny. Sows were Gokhale, Tilak, Nehru, Rajendra Babu. Vivekananda and Subhash Bose. The aim of education should be to make our students follow in the foot-steps of these men of strong character and destiny.

The Education imparted in our schools, college and universities are such as to mould the personalities of the students to enable them to face the realities of life with courage and confidence. In this context the valuable concept of Basic Education championed by Mahatma Gandhi comes to mind.  Basic education means that it should be based on work-experience.

It should not be theoretical and isolated but intimately related with a student’s social and family background and relevant to the needs of the society. Work and training should form an integral part of education and not be an isolated activity.

It should aim at producing artisans, craftsmen, doctors, engineers, technicians, teachers and such other professionals who may set up their own workshops, factories, mills, dispensaries, schools etc. and also fill up the vacant posts advertised by the government and other agencies. It only means that education should be work and employment oriented. The essence of education and training lies in the removal of unemployment by producing skilled, talented and well trained personnel and professionals. One of the main purposes of education should be to equip the people with means to face the problem of unemployment.

If it fails to produce people with creative minds and working hands to create employment avenues and career opportunities it is a bad type of education. No education worth its name can divert itself from the responsibility of providing suitable careers to the people. This utilitarian aspect of education is as important as that of emotional and spiritual development.

Education should also aim at achieving national integration and generation of stronger sense of unity and oneness among the people. In a country such as India with all sorts of diver ties, it becomes all the more vital. Every educated man and woman in India should be imbued with the sense of pride and honour for our common heritage culture and history.

It is this oneness of culture and heritage that has always stood us in good stead in times of crises and catastrophe as a nation. Whether it was a Chinese aggression, Pakistani attack or any other crises, the whole nation rose like one man to face it successfully. The cultural and emotional integration, affected through true and purposeful education, can very easily effect the singleness of purpose leading to desired results. The developed and advanced countries like Japan, Canada, France, Germany, America etc. are so, because they have been continuously investing heavily in education for the last many years.

This clearly shows that education is an essential investment and input to realize the utmost possible output. The long term returns and benefits of Investment in education, training and human resources development have been quite phenomenal as is evident from the fantastic growth and development of these nations.

Obviously, a purposeful education makes human resources and capital far more dividend- paying than it would be otherwise. Good moral character, scientific temper, self-dependence, patriotism, social and environmental awareness, singleness of purpose, secular and broad outlook, fortitude and sense of human values like compassion, truth, peace, non-violence, and charity is the another name of education.