THE STRUGGLING LIFE OF EDUCATION IN INDIA: CHALLENGES & PROSPECTS (original) (raw)

Rabindranath Tagore's Philosophy of Education and Development in India

Tagore envisioned an education system aimed at promoting international cooperation and creating global citizens. Tagore realised that the main obstacle in the path of India's progress is lack of education. The humanist and naturalist in Tagore actuate his ideals of wholistic development of man for a new, awakened and progressive India. This essay is therefore an attempt to understand the philosophical groundings of the journey of the universal man that Tagore aspires for through education and development. While there is a unique sensitisation in Tagore's educational model for education within multi-cultural and multilingual situations, yet the contemporary challenges for excellence in education often makes it a spiritual thesis. Rabindranath Tagore's philosophy of education finds its origin in his own life experiences. Tagore was born in the most reputed and enlightened family of Bengal, whose progressive reformist zeal, inspired by western culture, combined by the enthusiasm for a liberal nationalistic revival of the Indian Renaissance revolutionised the Indian society and the education system in India. The experiences during his formative years of life, to a great extent, form the foundation of his thoughts and philosophies. Tagore realised that the main obstacle in the path of India's progress is the lack of education. The prevalent colonial education system of that era was designed to produce loyals to the British government, Indian in blood and colour but British in thoughts, beliefs and opinions. The education offered through this system was neither modern i.e. at par with the developments in the western countries, nor was it relevant to the Indian context. Moreover, the medium of instruction was English which alienated the masses, dividing the Indian people

Rabindranath Tagore’s Philosophy of Education and it’s Influence on Indian Education

International Journal of Advanced Research in Science, Communication and Technology, 2022

Rabindranath Tagore had firm belief in self-realization. He believed that the man should live for the “ultimate truth” which liberates us from cycle of birth and death. The aim of education too must be self-realization He himself was a writer and a saint, who had, through his imagination and insight, realized the universal soul in himself and in nature. He believed that this realization was the end of education. Because the universal soul is the root of our own soul, man’s aim in life is to succeed in that universal soul of that all human beings are elements. The evolution of nature is consciously or unconsciously steers us towards this universal soul, a processes that can be helped by education. Though it's not assisted, the progress towards the universal soul remain continue, on the other hand individuals will be deprived of self-realization. It is therefore evident that Rabindranath Tagore’s educationally philosophy is associate adjunct of his general philosophy of life. He b...

Inside out, outside in: thinking a Tagorean future of education

Literature Compass, 2014

Rabindranath Tagore’s educational practices and ideas can inspire today’s education in the East as well as the West. This paper distils Tagore’s philosophical anthropology and thereby uncovers a unification within his often unstructured and scattered texts. This makes it possible to apply his principles, as well as to learn from the formulation of the ideal itself. Tagore’s highest goal is to make the world one’s own as well as to enlarge one’s self to encompass the world. The educational practices through which this ideal can be reached can be classified as creative action, love, and freedom. On the basis of such ideal, realms such as the arts, nature, and movement will no longer remain “nice additions” to knowledge-related education that places employability as highest goal, but will be recognized as crucial to the success of the whole education process. Tagore’s educational method (“method of nature”) refrains from turning children into adults as soon as possible, and accept the deceleration of learning and the simplification of living as most forward-leading approach to a successful and comprehensive education.

Influence of the Educational Philosophy of Tagore on Secondary Education in Modern India

International Journal of All Research Education and Scientific Methods (IJARESM), 2021

Mother India has introduced so many great and influential personalities who have brought revolutions in different fields for the betterment and the progress of the nation. Rabindranath Tagore, the great versatile author, first noble laureate of Asia and a naturalist philosopher, is one of them. His philosophy of education brought revolutionary changes in the education system of India not only in the past but also in the present. The present study deals with his educational philosophy and its influence on Secondary Education in Modern India. Like Rousseau, he also believed that the children can learn effectively when they are in close contact with nature. Being a naturalist philosopher, he considers 'Nature' as one of the most important and significant agents in the education process of the school children. For this present study the researchers have went through different books and articles and prepared a brief and compact report of it.

Thinking Education: Rethinking Tagore

For Tagore, the purpose of education is to make the receiver ‘self-conscious’ and to use one’s own ‘creative-power’. These have been two key purposes of education in the reflections of Tagore on education. Therefore, he emphasises that our education should be in full touch with our complete life, economical, intellectual, aesthetic, social and spiritual. True education should guarantee that our training and knowledge have undisputed and integrated connect with our environment, with our surroundings (our imagination dare not soar beyond its limits!). But, being self-critical he feels that the only thing wrong in our education is that it is not in our absolute control. Here he points out what we keep on discussing in political discourse on ‘education’- as the colonialism-baggage! For Tagore, our education system could ensure that it is free from external material constrains, but is ‘colonized’ from within. This leads that the decision-making is not free and fails to relate to the extensive civilizational path of India. Modern education, if we try to put Tagore’s lens of analysis, lacks the ‘inner quotient’ that guarantees education as a ‘free’ human endeavour to be self-conscious. If our thought process fail to recognize the timeless modernity (not time-bound) in Indian tradition, we would miss to experience the desired fruits of education. Need is to give our education a direction that entails our shared experiences and collective historical wisdom. In the absence of it, our education system would function far war from human consciousness in India. Tagore seems right when he claims this system as a machine-made university. Keywords: Education, Creativity, Pedagogy, Modernity, Tagore.

Reflection of Tagore's Philosophy of Education on Human Life

Rabindranath Tagore is one of the poets whose contribution on education is marked by naturalistic and aesthetic values. He had a belief that "The widest road leading to the solution of all our problems is education." His theory of developing the education sector is contemporary. Even after one hundred years, people will be inspired by his realistic points of view regarding education. According to Tagore, education is a must to help establish a new developed pattern of human life. His system of education basically emphasizes the intellectual, physical, social, economic, moral and spiritual aspects of human life by which a man can develop his integrated personality which can contribute to develop his life and the nation in particular. In this paper, the major concern would be how the Tagore's philosophy helps enrich the human spirit by providing moral as well as spiritual knowledge. And it is proved that a man full of spiritual knowledge will certainly be more beneficial for mankind. This paper attempts to analyze how the educational philosophies of Rabindranath Tagore can have impact on a person's intellectual development as well as the overall development of a nation.

A Critique of Right to Education in India

Asian Journal of Education and E Learning, 2014

The judicial efforts at national level along with the pressure built by International community at Jometien Conference and afterwards finally led to the Constitutional Amendment in 2002 to ensure 8 years of basic schooling as a fundamental right in India. The amendment needed enabling legislation to be effective, the enactment of which was not smooth but had a long chequered history, depicting official apathy. The historic legislation was ultimately enacted in 2009 but its criticism outnumbered its main features. The paper submits the critical appraisal of the legislation which most of the critiques have neglected.

Connecting cultures: rethinking Rabindranath Tagore’s ‘ideals of education’

Social Identities

In 1917, Rabindranath Tagore declared, 'There is only one historythe history of man' [Tagore, R. (1917/2009). Nationalism. New Delhi: Penguin, p. 65]. This concept of 'one-history', and by extension 'oneworld' is at the heart of his conceptualisation of what I call, education-sans-boundaries and, as I see it, one of the ways to bring a glocal unity. His goal was to establish the dignity of human relationships across boundaries. Thus, for him, local education and global education should not be two ends of a spectrum but overlapping categories instead. Moreover, the education-sans-boundaries should help in restoring the balance and harmony between man and society, knowledge and knowledge, and nation and nation. In this paper, I will explore Tagore's relevant writings on education, with a focus on his concerted educational efforts to negotiate the boundaries of nation and geography to restore the lost rhythm. In the highly fractured times in which he lived, Tagore saw education in India was in a double-layered crisis under colonialism and growing nationalism. His was a non-dogmatic defence of harmony and principles of unity, and he tried to achieve this in his education models by going beyond the realms of collapsing of cultural differences and without sacrificing local/individual ties and that admits to no artificial boundariespolitical, ideological or geographic. The present attempt, therefore, engages with Tagore's distinct conceptualisation of open-ended education models by looking at his scholarly-and-practical efforts. It suggests that transmission of cultures has provided a 'broad-basis' of education in India and can offer healthy conditions for, and directions towards, building transnational/international solidarities.