Neo-liberalsim:
Its impact on Education and the Role of Educators Today
This year marks the 56th
Teachers’ day honouring the birthday of the great philosopher, statesman and
teacher of teachers, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan. It was he who said “instead of
celebrating my birthday it would be my
proud privilege if 5 September is observed as Teachers’ Day. It was in 1962
that the first Teachers’ day was observed. 55 years have passed and India at
2017 is vastly different from what it was in1962. A new generation with new
aspirations, new faith, new concerns, new goals, new interests, new approach to
life and new ways of living is reminded of the Teacher of Teachers on this day.
We are no longer the
Nehruvian age with its focus on a
socialistic pattern of society. The present age is known as the Neo-liberal age
and the word ‘neo-liberalism’ marks an idea that has brought about a shift in
our perspectives on all issues that have a direct bearing on day to day life of
every individual. Neo- liberalism has
almost a universal appeal irrespective of the tags appended to a nation, as
developed or developing or under developed nation. This is a change that has
taken roots in the 21st century
and it is therefore imperative that we understand the implications of
neo- liberalism and its impact on
education. It is worth recalling the wise statement of Radhakrishnan in this
context. He said: “Before we can build a stable civilization worthy of humanity
as a whole, it is necessary that each historical civilization should become
conscious of its limitations and it's unworthiness to become the ideal
civilization of the world.” The present article is an attempt to take
cognizance of the change of a new world order and to make education continue to
serve the cause of humanity in our times.
Neo- liberalism is an old term that dates back
to the 1930s and it has been resurrected in our current politics. It is a
paradox that neo liberalism is not a revival of liberalism but it is a revolt
against liberalism as it is a return to conservatism. The
post liberalization period in India in the ‘90s of the last century coincided
with the third phase of globalization which made it easy for money to move from
one market to another depending on which market provided maximum returns on
investment. India moved from socialist rhetoric to join global capitalism. The
liberalization of economy from the early’90s with assistance from IMF and World
bank brought India to embrace capitalism. The country saw the involvement of
corporate money power in Indian politics today as a result of the
liberalization of the Indian economy twenty five years ago.
After the 2008
financial crisis, neo-liberalism became a pejorative term criticizing the
establishment for conceding its authority to market forces, thereby widening
the chasm between the haves and the have-nots, giving rise to loathsome
inequality. According to Stephen Metcalf, “The word has become a rhetorical
weapon, but it properly names the reigning ideology of our era – one that venerates the logic of the market
and strips away the things that make us human.” These are no doubt words of
severe indictment. Though a trifle exaggerated
and hugely biased, there is a kernel of truth in Metcalf’s indictment as it has
brought about a new way of looking at society and looking at individuals as “profit
and loss calculators”. Metcalf states “neo-liberalism is not simply a name
for pro-market policies, but also a name for a premise that, quietly, has come
to regulate all we practise and believe: that competition is the only
legitimate organizing principle for human activity.”
The term neo-liberalism
advocates privatization and free competition that would lead to excellence. As an ideology, at the core it functions as
the guarantor of our liberty, giving us the opportunity to raise our talent and
potential and strive for excellence. The
idea behind free trade was to encourage competition that would lead to greater
availability of goods at a more competitive price and thereby protect the poor
against the rich. But the unfortunate truth is neo-liberalism and the
monopolies it has encouraged has bred more of illiberalism and bigotry. What
was intended to be a revolution in thought, has turned out to be an assertion
and imposition of uniformity as demanded and dictated to by the corporate
sectors. When the corporate interest is involved, it is the only one that matters
and all other interests are set aside.
There is no denying the
fact that Indian economy picked up post Liberalization, and there has been a
huge increase in investments. But the
corrosive effect of neo liberalism has fallen on education which is seen in the corporatization
of education. Henry Giroux of Pennsylvania university explains how “civic discourse has given way to the
language of commercialization, privatization, and deregulation and that, within
the language and images of corporate culture, citizenship is portrayed as an
utterly privatized affair that produces self-interested individuals”. This is a far cry from the core meaning and purpose
of higher education which is to make young people engage with citizenship. What
had been the earlier practice in universities and colleges of developing
democratic, pluralistic and thinking individuals by inculcating the spirit of unity among diversity has now been given up in
favour of promoting self-centred individuals in pursuit of jobs for their
personal progress. In the era of
neo-liberalism, there is a perceptible shift in the concerns and issues related
to education. Katharyne Mitchell observes “This shift is directly linked with
and helps to facilitate the entrenchment of neo-liberalism as it supports a
privatization agenda, reduces the costs of social reproduction for the
government, and aids in the constitution of subjects oriented to individual
survival and/or success in the global economy.”
What is now mooted is turning out students to serve market forces and not
as responsible citizens who can think and deliberate on issues that relate to the welfare of fellow individuals
and the society they live in. This can be best exemplified by an early Greek
play The Clouds by Atistophanes( as
cited by Martha Nussbaum in Cultivating
Humanity,her book on Higher education) where a young man in search of
learning is confronted with two
alternatives- (1) the traditional, conservative thinking on education which
placed emphasis on discipline, memorisation and implicit acceptance of all that
was taught, without questioning and (2)opposed to that, the new learning
established by Socrates with its emphasis on learning to think analytically the theories, norms and concepts that had come down through the ages and on developing a questioning and critical mind
to enquire into issues that related to Man and society. Those who belonged to
the old school insisted on a disciplined approach to learning so that they
evolved as robotic members of a well established, paternalistic and domineering,
authoritarian society while the new school of Socrates encouraged independent thinking,
heedless of authority. Socrates Academy was burnt down and he was put on trial
on charges of sedition.
We are in a similar
situation, caught up between the discipline imposed by market forces to serve
their regulated commercial world and the freedom to debate, argue, analyze and
act in the interest of the welfare of society and fellow beings.
Our present day education is torn between
a neo liberal state that advocates
uniformity and discipline with no scope for debate and argument as against a
new orientation towards independent thinking and linking education with issues that have a
direct bearing on society, citizenship and generation of ideas to suit the new
age. The resulting conflict has in a large measure contributed to apathy in
teaching and total absence of interest and enthusiasm for learning. It has
adversely impacted the teacher and the taught. This is seen more in higher
education than in school education, though there are many other factors that
have affected the latter.
Neo liberalism paradoxically is a
swing way from liberalism and towards conservatism that opposes change and
innovation and prefers maintaining the existing, traditional order. The binary
conflict between historians of the right and the historians of the left is a
case in point. It has left young minds in confusion. It is sad that we have
given in to the maxim ‘might is right’ and whichever party is in power thinks
it is its right to impose history as seen from its point of view to the total
suppression of the other. Earlier the progressives had overdone their ideology.
It is time now for the conservatives to hit back. We ee this binary conflict between the right and
the left in the selection of texts for Humanities and Social sciences where ideology
is the deciding factor. The scrapping of the essay of the celebrated author
A.K.Ramanujan on Ramayana from B.A(Hons) course by Delhi university has
conveyed to the students the wrong message that only the ideology that is
supported by the majority will be accommodated. It is best to recall what
Radhakrishnan said “Books are the means by which we build bridges across
cultures.” The balance between the right and the left is severely dented and
needs to be restored in our education. The present day crisis in education is
one of non accommodation. There is no one ideology that is utopian in its
reach. There has to be space for different ideologies to co-exist and this in
turn promotes in the students objectivity, critical thinking and analytical
reasoning to arrive at a well informed interpretation and judgement. The
teachers whatever their ideological leanings are, they should try to give comprehensive
lectures that present the different interpretations. I read about a brilliant
young history teacher who introduced Indian history to her graduate students by
speaking about a train journey. The passengers in a compartment had settled
down when the train started. As the train reached the next station a few more
passengers made their way into the compartment, seeking a share of the space enjoyed by the
early passengers. There was initial resentment and resistance and the seats
were shared. This got repeated in the next stop and more passengers joined in.
It was push and squeeze to occupy and share the limited seat. As the train chug
chugged its way, the passengers settled down within the cramped space, started
talking, opening their food packets and sharing their meals with one another. When
the train arrived at its destination, the passengers before alighting, exchanged
addresses and contact numbers to continue their friendship in the times to
come. The students understood that this is the history of India fighting for
its territory with Muslim invaders and Christian traders and emerging as a strong
secular India accommodating all those
who were not Hindus. The teacher in the
neo- liberal age cannot allow his personal ideological bias to come in the way
of an objective presentation of facts. Radhakrishnan believed
that "teachers should be the best minds in the country". True
teachers, he said, are those who help us
think for ourselves.
The problem singularly that is of India is its humungous population. As
per the demographic profile of our country, youth constitutes one fifth of the
total population. There is a great deal of pressure on the universities,
colleges and schools to accommodate all eligible young students in these
institutions. The PPP model (Private-public partnership) is indeed a welcome
model. The private sector has to be an accommodating partner to share the vast
growing number of students. But this is not happening. The fees are high in
private institutions and beyond the reach of the poor. Even in schools the fiat from the government
for a compulsory 20% intake of the poor has not worked satisfactorily as there
is no attempt to bring a genuine integration of students coming from
economically and culturally weak backgrounds. The social divide has only widened
and deepened. The private institutions have the resources to give quality
education while the government institutions have to cater mainly to all classes
that are not affluent and therefore left out.
The shrill
orchestration to ban private universities is not the solution. Some of the
universities are imparting quality education(not all private universities are
good; most of them are profit making commercial ventures) as they have the
funds to provide the best of facilities in their campus. As the Tamil proverb
says , it is easy to demolish a nest than build a new one. Let us not make this
mistake. What the government should do is to facilitate entry of students to
top universities where the fees are also high. Instead of wasteful expenditure
in building new colleges, new buildings, new auditoria etc, the government
should ask the universities to identify brilliant students during the last two
years of their school and give them provisional admission subject to their
scoring the requisite eligible grades. These students should be provided scholarship
to pursue their studies in the best private/government institution. This “Catch
them young” strategy is followed in many top UK universities.
Government should facilitate MOOC(Massive Online Open Courses) to make learning
material accessible to a vast number of students via web. Teachers have to be
specially trained to prepare these online courses. The old form of teaching is
good in a small class, but where there is an urgent need to provide for a
humungous number of youth population, teaching with technology has to be
insisted upon. New recruits to faculty positions have to be given training in
using technology for imparting instruction.
Today there is a lot of talk about skill development and universities vie
with one another to showcase their potential by introducing skill based courses
as a part of the academic curricula. This has resulted in turning out graduates
with no academic learning and no skill competency. What universities have to do
is to enlist the private sector- the industry, manufacturing units, corporate
offices, hospitals etc and (if need be), mandate them to take graduate students
for skill training. We can follow the Japanese model where the student spends
the first half of the day in the college/university and the second half with
industrial units for skill training. This will ensure that academic standards are
maintained while the student gets adequate skills to be employable.
The role of the teachers in the neo liberal age has necessarily to
change. Teachers can no longer be presenters of facts. In the age of internet,
facts are available at the press of the keyboard. They have to be interpreters
of facts and should arouse the curiosity in the students to learn more. They
have to be creative teachers who have to find innovative methods to uphold the
interest of the students. There is no point in complaining that the students
have no interest in study; they come to colleges to pass time”etc. The fault lies with the academic community as
the lectures are uninspiring, pedantic and mechanical, often far removed from
the interest of the new generation which
constantly asks for insta-satisfaction a la insta-coffee. Less lecturing hours,
more mentoring time and more participatory sessions where the student is expected
to present his views. Universities are not schools with a monotonous time
table. Students have to be given time for self study and lectures have to be
crisp, short and knowledge capsules. Time for a redefinition of the role of a
teacher where s/he is more of a catalyst , activating the knowledge cell of the
students.
Neo liberalism cannot be wished away.
True to the history of Ages, there will be a continuous cycle of
ideologies. The socialist ideology has now been replaced by the neo-liberal
ideology. It will run its course before it is replaced. But the goal of the
universities remains the same. It is a place for generation of ideas. Let
universities be the repository of ideas and not a crucible for ideologies. Neo
liberalism has its positives and its negatives which is true of all ideologies.
Universities have this problematic task of sifting the plusses from the minuses.
Let the positives of competition, reaching after personal excellence, high
aspiration for self- centred progress be synergized with social consciousness,
empathy for fellow humanity and development of the society to make education
serve the interests of the new world order.
In conclusion it will worth revisiting a few of the cardinal statements
of Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan that have universal and all time validity:
“The end-product of education should be a free creative man, who can
battle against historical circumstances
and adversities of nature. ”
“We must recall humanity to those moral roots
from which both order and freedom spring.”
“ A
literary genius, it is said, resembles all, though no one resembles him.
”
“A life of joy and happiness is possible only
on the basis of knowledge and science.”
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