Cultural illiteracy, like cancer, is an insidious disease, the symptoms of which appear after it has become incurable and it results in the collapse of society.
As in all developing societies, there is a mad rush for professional education here and we are losing sight of equally important aspects of education — social, political, spiritual and moral. Vocational education enables us to earn our living and precipitate the material progress. Social education makes us good citizens. We need this type of education badly to effect cohesion and strength of the society.
The quality of a civilization depends on its spiritual aspect, on the spiritual self-development of individuals — their cultural education. As flowers blossom in a suitable environment, man also needs culture to display his beauty.
It is in this field that our education system is deficient.
Culture is the system of values, beliefs, behaviour and material objects that constitute a people’s life. It also includes the way we think and what we own. Thus cultural illiteracy is the inability of students to learn as much about their own system of values, behaviour and beliefs as they should.
It is a commonly observed phenomenon that despite their intelligence, even the students who proceed to colleges and universities seem culturally deprived. Their knowledge of history, philosophy, cultural studies and literature is shameful. At the same time they lack the ability of imaginative reconstruction.
A glance at these results of our education makes one think what the plight of a body without soul would be.
The schoolchildren have their hang-ups which they never seem to overcome. Although exceptions exist, it is a safe generalization to describe the ambience of “being in school” as an alternative between boredom and violence.
Those who escape their hang-ups perceive education more as a means of shaping their careers than as the delineation of their future life as a whole.
Admittedly, the critiques of the studied emptiness of middle-class education and the warnings about the baleful future of children who know only career as the goal of education are comparatively subtle in a nation that is increasingly characterized by the quick, the shallow and the ersatz.
Same is the case with the government schools where, unfortunately, education in history and culture is not the primary concern. In those institutions, we face dramatically high rates of absenteeism and adolescent dropouts. We face strife, social and cultural disorder and plummeting scores in basic verbal and mathematics skills.
In the urban private schools, the curricula are excellent but instilling democratic ideas and tolerance have been badly neglected. This can be done only with the help of cultural pedagogy, the common source of our expectations, sensibilities and evaluations.
Pedagogy leaves permanent marks on the minds of the students and it is useless unless it is able to reconcile the unique features of the physical world with the social order.
The existence of contradiction between our heritage and the world in which we find ourselves places the humans at the top of all creatures and the children should, at the very outset, be taught to reconcile with it. This is what cultural literacy means and this is what the present education systems lack.
It is pathetic that literature, philosophy, languages and arts have been neglected so much that children no longer want to take them up as subjects. Under these conditions it is impossible to be culturally literate and socially organized.
The high school syllabus must include biographies, sculpture and theatre. The cultural aspect of biographies is vital in regulating the children’s minds about certain things. They also add interest and colour to the syllabus.
Think, for example, how extraordinarily rich is the prose and historical content of the life and death of Socrates as written by Plato. Virtually every cultural and intellectual movement is represented by one or more biographies.
Sculpture and theatre must also be introduced in high schools. The skill of dramatics can be imparted to the students at a very early stage. Subjects like archaeology, dance and comparative anthropology should also be given more importance in the educational institutions.
The purpose of teaching is to enable the learners to establish relations with each other and with the external world.
In the present curricula, no efforts have been made to make the children reconcile themselves with the past world. It is only possible through education in arts, culture and humanities.
The children have every right to be taught how to write, listen, read and speak with a deep understanding of our cultural heritage. The computer in the end will only be as meaningful as the quality of our input. If we render our generations culturally deaf and dumb, the technology is bound to lead them towards nothingness. They will be robots dancing to the tunes of machines without emotions.
Cultural illiteracy, like cancer, is an insidious disease, the symptoms of which appear after it has become incurable and it results in the collapse of society.
