Education versus Indoctrination

When does education turn into indoctrination? Can one be separated from the other?

The dictionary meaning of the two verbs seems clear enough -

ed·u·cate
/ˈɛdʒʊˌkeɪt/ Show Spelled [ej-oo-keyt] verb,-cat·ed, -cat·ing.
–verb (used with object)
1.to develop the faculties and powers of (a person) by teaching, instruction, or schooling.

in·doc·tri·nate
/ɪnˈdɒktrəˌneɪt/ Show Spelled[in-dok-truh-neyt] –verb (used with object),-nat·ed, -nat·ing.
1. to instruct in a doctrine, principle, ideology, etc., esp. to imbue with a specific partisan or biased belief or point of view.


However, one could say that definitions can be molded to fit an argument that supports your own reasoning or rhetoric. In this case too the meaning of the phrases - `to develop faculties` or `biased belief` simply depends on an individual’s point of view.

Was there a difference between the men who led the infamous `Charge of the Light Brigade`; Japanese kamikaze fighters; those who flew airplanes into the World Trade Towers (9/11) and the Jehadi’s who stormed hotels and homes in Mumbai (26/11)?

Japanese history provides a fascinating study of how myths and history can be invented, and how, within a span of a few years, an entire generation can be indoctrinated and driven over the edge like lemmings.

At one point of time during the Tokugawa period, the emperor had become such an insignificant person that he would not be recognized on the streets. Then came the Mito Critique, and thanks to the sweeping educational reforms initiated by the Meiji oligarchs, the mindset of a whole country was transformed.

By early 1900s, Japanese soldiers sincerely believed what they had been taught all through their formative years - that they were a superior race; that the rest of the Asians were sub-human who could be slaughtered and raped without batting an eyelid, and that the entire war-effort was for the glory of their God-Emperor.

Perhaps it was no different from the constructed self-belief that inspired the colonists from western Europeans (18-19 century) or the carefully calibrated rage that drives the Islamic fanatics today.

UN & the Gen-Next of Ethnic Cleansers

"JBT Marg" is a prominent road in New Delhi, named after one of the founders of the Non Aligned Movement (NAM), and the chief architect of 'Second Yugoslavia', Josip Bronz Tito. By some strange coincidence, both the road and the leader have come to represent lost causes.

JBT Marg was a recent witness to an ill conceived and poorly executed urban transportation project (BRT Corridor) and the NAM has now become defunct. But both these are mundane, irrelevant events compared to the tragedy that has unfolded after Tito's Yugoslavia splintered into half-a-dozen small republics :

1. Socialist Republic of Bosnia & Herzegovina (Pop.- 3.8m)
2. Socialist Republic of Croatia (4.7m)
3. Socialist Republic of Madeconia (2.m)
4. Socialist Republic of Montenegro (0.6m)
5. Socialist Republic of Serbia (9.5m) [Also Socialist Autonomous Province of Kosovo (1.5m) and Socialsit Autonomous Province of Vojvodina (1.9m)]
6. Socialist Repoublic of Slovenia (1.9m)

This piece is about the rather unusual role of the United Nations in Bosnia & Herzegovina (BiH).

In 2007, a UNDP/Oxford study found in BiH, the lowest levels of social trust ever measured. It was "virtually non-existent" - even lower than in Iraq.

BiH gained independence in 1992, and following the Dayton Peace Agreement of 1995, established one of the most compex political and administrative systems in Europe. The country has 3 presidents, 13 governance units, 13 parliaments, 150 ministries and 137 municipalities...all this in a country which has a third of Delhi's population!

In an attempt to keep the three main ethnic groups - Bosniaks, Serbs and Slovaks - in good humor, the country has three different education systems. The constitution states that "the State shall respect the right of parents to ensure such education and teachng in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions" (Article 2 of Protocol 1 to the ECHR).

Since there are not enough schools for three different systems, there are around 50 'two schools under one roof', where two different curricula are taught and children are segregated. Sometimes the children use segregated entrances, follow separate time schedules and with little or no interaction.

A study conducted by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), states that, "The current fractured system...is having the effect of creating three separate sets of citizens, each ignorant and distrustful of the "other".

Perhaps the biggest surprise is that such a system has been supported by the UN since 1992. In 2004 alone, $24million had been spent on 500 development projects in the country*.

Why is the UN investing millions of dollars to create the next generation of ethnic-cleansers' in the Balkans?

What are the lessons here for education reform in India?

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• Lecture by June Kunugi (Director, UNICEF Tokyo) at UNU-JGC Course, 12 Nov., 2009
• UNDP-Oxford Study, 2007 - http://www.undp.ba/index.aspx?PID=3&RID=43
• *ACTIVITIES OF SECRETARY-GENERAL IN BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA 17-18 NOVEMBER - http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2002/sgt2354.doc.htm
• OSCE MISSION TO BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA- http://www.oscebih.org/education/?d=2

Sabotaging the Right to Education

Anil Sadgopal came up with an interesting piece in Tehelka (14 June 2008) titled "C For Commerce". It clearly showed how a high-minded initiative by the Judiciary is being methodically sabotaged by the Executive.

The key events -

• 1993 - Supreme Court's historic Unnikrishnan judgment gave all children up to 14 years of age a Fundamental Right to Education. The judgment linked Fundamental Right to Life (Article 21) of the Constitution with the Directive in Article 45 to provide Free and Compulsory Education to children 0-14.

• 2002 - After dilly-dallying and procrastinating for ten years the 86th Constitutional Amendment Act is introduced. This introduced a new Article (21A) which said that "compulsory education shall be provided in such manner as the State may, by law, determine".

Having taken the steam out of the SC judgment, the current Draft Right to Education (RTE) Bill, 2008, is destines to become another toothless Act.

Schooling & The State

The Economist has come up with an interesting article this week, supporting the use of vouchers for improving parental choice for better school education.

"Few ideas in education are more controversial than vouchers—letting parents choose to educate their children wherever they wish at the taxpayer's expense. First suggested by Milton Friedman, an economist, in 1955, the principle is compellingly simple. The state pays; parents choose; schools compete; standards rise; everybody gains."

Despite opoostion from the educational establishment there is increasing evidence to show that it works. Columbia is distributing the vouchers through a lottery system while in Sweden, the government pays the parents for educating their children wherever they choose. Both methods have shown a significant improvement in quality and access to education but has also proved that "those who work in state schools are just like everybody else: they do better when confronted by a bit of competition."

It makes you wonder about school education in India…about the controls imposed by a paranoid bureaucracy and rent-seeking politicians; about state schools that exist only on the bureaucrat’s files; classrooms without teachers and children without books.