Literacy in this globalized world is considered the ability to read and write (mostly English) and hold some schooling certificates. So-called degrees have become the deciding factor for one to be called educated. Indeed today’s so-called evolving educated and democratic societies, freedom is evidenced in the increased number rape cases, drunkards and drug addicts count.
For suppose, say, one is with a handful of degrees, and he is a womanizer, drinker, and worst; what do you call such a person? Modern society calls it educated and highly literate, but ethically, such a person is an animal.
This forces me to rephrase Swami Vivekananda’s statement, “The End of education is a character!” to “The End of character is education.”
So, how do you define a literate?
For example, consider a very skilled, talented farmer who has mastered the art of farming that doesn’t harm nature. Now, as he doesn’t possess any degree in agriculture, do you call him an illiterate and uneducated? Yes! says our so-called educated society.
Tell me if the so-called agricultural institutions allowed professionals to exhibit 50% of the skills the traditional farmers possessed from their forefathers. If we observe, in the past 70 years of independent India, the agricultural system has been degraded and disintegrated, resulting in soil fertility loss due to usage of so-called agro-scientists proposed fertilizers. This ultimately resulted in 2,96,000 farmers committing suicide in the past four years. Now, many landowners leaving their lands and working as labourers in the towns and cities. This is the most outstanding achievement by the literates who are kids of this globalization.
Who is more literate? A farmer or so-called university made a trained professional?
Do we call this the achievement of Literacy?
In this country, Dhirubhai Ambani built India’s leading business empire without an MBA or engineering degree. Similarly, global icons like Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, and Steve Jobs dropped out of university but still revolutionised their fields. Ironically, top graduates with impressive credentials often seek jobs at companies founded by these dropouts.
Lack of character-making education should be called Illiteracy rather than just the ability to write and read or mere degrees. What is the use of degrees when character or morality is not built? This situation is merely a ” literate society’s illiterate days.”
Education is best defined in a Sanskrit saying as साविद्यायाविमुक्तये | Meaning that education is that which leads us to freedom, and this is called wisdom! Here, freedom doesn’t mean a lack of discipline; instead, it means the process of unveiling true character within that is WISDOM. Attaining this can only make a citizen a true virtue of the nation and a developed nation. We need this education and sort of literacy, not just to read and write with no character.
