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The laptops handed out by the provincial chief minister have earned reasonable media space lately. Some have called it an election year gimmick, others have called it a step in the right direction, and there have been others who have found fault with the logistics, rather than the direction, of the scheme.
Simply put, it is a case of something being always better than nothing. Those who have got hold of a laptop will naturally find no reason to argue against the scheme, and those who haven’t will prefer to be philosophical about it. To neutral eyes, however, the question is simple: will the laptops improve the quality of education in the province? OK, let’s make it even simpler: will the laptops improve the quality of education of those who have received one?
The question can be put to both the policymakers and the recipients with equal relevance. Any data about the manner and pattern of computer and internet usage — be they laptops, desktops or any other mode — in the country would struggle to link it to education. It has a lot more to do with social networking and downloading of entertainment-oriented stuff than mere academics.
Ask any parent and you would get to hear more or less the same complaint: the internet is a distraction more often than not. Parents actually have to discipline their children about internet usage, especially when they want the kids to be focussing in their education, like, say, close to exam days.
This, naturally and most obviously, is not meant to be a criticism of the laptops or the internet, or even of the government scheme. Honestly, there can’t be. What is under debate is basically the portrayal of the scheme as a step to improve the quality of education.
The pattern of usage, mind you, is not specific to Pakistan. It is the same across the globe and there have been complaints on this count everywhere. The era of information technology has put so much focus on ‘information’ that ‘knowledge’ has been — and is being — pushed down the path to redundancy. People are ‘informed’, but not necessarily ‘knowledgeable’. The ability to put bits of scattered information into some kind of context and draw certain conclusions is not something that carries much value these days. And that has led many to complain that the modern students are merely clicking, not thinking.
The distance between information and knowledge, come to think of it, is roughly the distance between the ‘brain’ and the ‘mind’. From the 1960s onwards, research has thrown up some fascinating stuff. The ‘brain’ absorbs a massive amount of data that the various human senses generate, but consciousness — call it the ‘mind’, if you will — ignores all but a percentage of it. The eye, for instance, takes in a torrent of information at the rate of around a megabyte per second. The mind edits out everything else to be able to focus on something.
Other studies indicate that the ‘brain’ itself helps the ‘mind’ by performing a huge amount of unconscious processing of sensory input before passing them on to the conscious mind. And the process takes half a second. This half a second represents the stage when the ‘brain’ becomes the ‘mind’; from the unconscious through the semi-conscious to, finally, the conscious.
Interestingly, science has been able to unravel the brain-mind mystery with the help of Buddhist monks. Gautam Buddha had rationalised more than a couple of millennia ago that introspection has the potential to give insights into the nature of mind, reality and the mystery of consciousness. Some nine centuries after Buddha, Catholic Saint Augustine also identified self-awareness as a key aspect of consciousness. His rather charming statement, “I understand that I understand”, remains an item of history.
Prophet Ibrahim and Prophet Mohammad were practising meditation even before they had any conventional, worldly linkage with any religion. Later, from the Muslim clergy to the Hindu clerics, the practice of meditation became part of the religious ritual. But science, as is its nature, needed evidence to accept something. That evidence has been provided by the monks, who were found by science to be good enough to employ their minds to examine the working of their brains.
Researchers using brain scans have found that after years of intensive meditation, the monks are the only people able to produce on-demand stable mental states that offer the level of consistency needed for reliable insights into the subjective experience of being conscious.
Lest it be mistaken, this is not to promote reclusion and withdrawal from society in pursuit of knowledge per se; just that the ‘brain’ needs some time to itself before it can be used as a ‘mind’. And this is just what computers are making more and more difficult by the day. The laptops, with the added convenience of use even in bed or wherever, are encroaching upon one’s time that much more.
Those who have got one in the name of education were lucky to get hold of something from the government, but only they can decide if they are lucky enough to make proper use of it.
