The rat race is ruining education

RECENTLY, I read an illuminating piece written by Henry Giroux — one of the finest educationists of our times. While reflecting on the grand victory of Donald Trump in the US presidential election, Giroux examined the crisis in education. If education is reduced to a set of “instrumental skills needed to compete in the global economy” or if it continues to privilege “standardised tests over critical thinking”, as he reminded us, it will lose its radical and emancipatory potential. His complaint is that even the democrats or liberals in America have failed to recognise what education ought to be — “not merely a service or a tool for economic adaptation, but the very foundation of democratic life”.

As the prevalent practice of education seeks to produce “compliant workers rather than active/informed citizens,” argues Giroux, “Americans find themselves in a world where ignorance is weaponised and truth is under siege”. No wonder he sees with deep anguish the rise of “a band of white supremacists, neo-Nazis, radical Christian nationalists and cruel band of misogynists and neoliberal fascists” in the US. Moreover, as neoliberal universities tend to prioritise “profit over democratic values, civic responsibility and critical thought”, we see the invasion of ‘pedagogical terrorism’ that suppresses critical thinking, distorts history, stifles dissent and dehumanises the oppressed.

Indeed, in the age of ‘fascist dream-worlds’, as Giroux argues passionately, “what is needed is a collective determination to reshape mass consciousness through critical pedagogy”.

It seems that we, too, can draw a couple of lessons from his insights and his plea for a creatively nuanced critical pedagogy. In fact, the rise of Trump is not an isolated phenomenon in the age of right-wing nationalism. Even our own country, despite the ritualisation of periodic elections, is not altogether free from the monologues of ‘populist/charismatic’ leaders, the tyranny of majoritarianism, the celebration of hyper-masculine nationalism and some kind of Hindu supremacist thinking. In this context, I will make two arguments.

First, in India too, we are witnessing some sort of ‘pedagogical terrorism’ — particularly, the way our children are getting increasingly deprived of the taste of self-reflexive, libertarian education. Yes, their formative years are primarily spent preparing for standardised tests like JEE, NEET and CUET. As this sort of coaching centre-driven instrumental strategy becomes more important than the joy of creative learning, critical thinking and the aspirations for a just and humane world, it becomes exceedingly difficult for them to celebrate a vision of life beyond careerism, consumerism and economic productivity. It destroys all alternative strivings, kills the power of the imagination and makes them accept that the ultimate destiny of life is to become ‘compliant workers’ rather than politically awakened, culturally sensitive and active citizens in search of a democratic living.

Second, we are witnessing the systematic decay of our public universities. In recent times, the organised attack on some of our leading public universities indicates that it is becoming increasingly difficult to retain the spirit of academic freedom, the culture of nuanced debates and conversations and the ethos of cultural pluralism. Is it, therefore, surprising that, according to the 2023 Academic Freedom Index, India is ranked 161st out of 179 countries? Imagine the fate of a university if the authorities get panicky when a professor plans to organise a seminar on the Palestine crisis or the way Israel violated all sorts of international laws, engaged in war crimes, didn’t spare even schools, hospitals and residential buildings and killed no less than 43,000 people over the past 13 months!

While the vibrancy of critical thinking is repressed, universities are asked to engage in an absurd game — the strategic act of pleasing the ‘ranking agencies’ through the production of largely meaningless research papers, seminars and projects. What do you do with a ‘top-ranking’ university if it loses its soul and conscience, robs education of its transformative potential and produces only a bunch of conformists?

In fact, together with the decline of public universities, we are also seeing the corporatisation of universities. These corporate/neoliberal universities sell education as a ‘product’ to their rich and affluent ‘clients’.

For instance, a fancy private university in India charges more than Rs 12 lakh per year for an undergraduate programme. Even if the university claims that it wants to help students become “well-rounded individuals who can think critically”, the fact is that, barring exceptions, young learners from an elitist/exclusivist/corporate university are likely to miss what, as my experience as a faculty member at Jawaharlal Nehru University suggests, a sensitive student from an inclusive public university experiences. This includes the empathy that an exposure to cultural diversity generates, the art of listening to the tales of caste/class/ethnic/gender violence that some of his/her friends might have experienced and hence the art of resistance against casteism, religious fundamentalism, majoritarianism, patriarchy and gross economic inequality.

I witness a strange paradox. While the ‘Poshan Tracker’ data for June 2024 reveals that more than 50 per cent of the children under the age of five suffer from chronic malnutrition in India, a branded coaching centre tempts children of the aspiring class to pay ‘merely’ Rs 1,14,460 for the NEET Vidyapeeth dropper course! The question is whether our schools and universities will only train our children to fit into this unjust system, internalise the logic of social Darwinism and accept uncritically what neoliberal/authoritarian masters in India love to prescribe: a mix of ‘economic productivity’ and ‘Indian values’ or the alliance of billionaires and populist/narcissistic leaders (almost like the Trump-Elon Musk nexus). Or, should some of us dare to learn from the likes of Giroux and plead for the libertarian potential of critical pedagogy?