Purpose of Education
Education—like democracy, free markets, freedom of the press, and “accepted human rights” — is one of these topics whose distinctive feature is self-evident. So is the prevalence of the industrially advanced countries in accomplishing them. Consequently, any package with this sort of magic label automatically qualifies for the “inexperienced channel” at our access ports. No questions asked. This uncritical popularity has seriously crippled our dialogue on a lot of these important subjects.
For instance, in training, most of our dialogue centers around literacy statistics, and they want to have so many graduates, masters, Ph. D.s, and so many experts — engineers, docs, and so forth.— in a given country based on the requirements inside the industrially advanced international locations. The important issue of curriculum, or even more fundamental issue of the cause of education, typically no longer appeals to our interest; they’ve already been decided with the aid of the “superior’ nations for us, and our activity is only to comply within their footsteps to attain their level of progress.
Indeed, they have got. In the “first” international, schooling has become an extension of the capitalist system. Its motive is to offer qualified staff for its manufacturing equipment and keen customers for its products. Stated in a more polished shape, schooling aims to provide for the monetary prosperity of a rustic. Similarly, on a non-public degree nowadays, the purpose of education is to earn a first-rate residence. While incomes halal dwelling and presenting for the monetary properly-being of a country are virtually essential Islamic desires, linking education to economic wants is extraordinarily unfortunate. It turns the learning facilities into mere vocational centers of their outlook and spirit. It degrades training and, through it, society.
To convey home the pivotal but forgotten function of training, we want not to forget that humans and animals have a fundamental distinction. Instincts and physical needs by myself can deliver ants, bees, or herds of beasts collectively to stay in a perfectly functioning animal society. Human beings are no longer characteristic that way. They aren’t confined by nature to comply with only those important methods for their society’s harmonious operation. If they’re to form a possible, thriving community, they must choose to do so.
What drives that preference is sharing common goals, beliefs, values, and outlooks on existence. Without a common framework binding its members, a human society cannot live; it will crumble and be absorbed by other clubs. Further, the community must ensure that the not unusual floor will be preserved from technology to era. This is the real reason for schooling. The training device produces the citizens and leaders wanted for the easy operation of that society, now and into the destiny. Its nation of health or illness interprets directly into the fitness or sickness of the community it is supposed to serve.
Today we find many inner troubles — corruption, injustice, oppression, crippling poverty — everywhere we turn in the Muslim globe. If we consider it, we may comprehend that most of these problems are guy-made. Which is another way of saying that they are largely traceable, directly or indirectly, to the schooling device that produced the folks that perpetuate the problems? The rulers who promote out to overseas powers and subjugate their humans; the bureaucrats who implement legal guidelines based on injustice; the generals who salary war against their people; the businessmen who exploit and cheat; the newshounds who lie, sensationalize, and promote indecencies, they may be all knowledgeable people, in lots of instances “particularly” familiar people. Their education was meant to put them together for the roles they are gambling on. And it has, even though shockingly!
The hassle plagues all layers of society. Why are Muslim groups in the grip of so much materialism today? What should we assume when our whole schooling gadget is preaching the gospel of materialism? Why have we effectively relegated Islam to a small, inconsequential quarter in our public life? Because that is exactly where our secular schooling system has placed it. Why do we see so little display of Islamic manners and morals in our conduct towards each other in our behavior towards each other? Because our imported training gadget is devoid of all moral education. Why are our societies unwell? Because our education system is ill.
This is the real disaster of training. Before we were given into this mess by importing what was contemporary and popular from the Colonial powers, schooling in our societies has continually become the approach to nurturing human beings. Moral education, Arabiya, turned into frequently an inalienable part of it. The Ustaz (teacher) turned into a lecturer or mere expert and a mentor and moral manual. We remembered the hadith then, “No father has given a more present to his kids than accurate, ethical training.” [Tirmidhi]. Our schooling gadgets changed into informed using this hadith. Our Darul rooms still hold that lifestyle; however, the number of students who skip via their gates is minuscule compared to the secular schools.
In the U.S. And Europe, the faculties were commenced by the church. Later, as forces of capitalism overtook them, they molded them into their picture. Moral education was a casualty of that takeover. But capitalism and their political-economic system did want people trained to paintings below these structures. So citizenship schooling was retained as a crucial, even though diminishing, thing of the curriculum— a faith-free subset of the ethical instruction it displaced. Whatever civility we see right here is essentially a result of that leftover aspect. The imported versions within the Muslim countries, although, had even that issue filtered out. And the consequences are seen.
We can remedy our hassle once we understand our errors. The first motive of our schooling machine should be to provide certified citizens and leaders for Islamic society. Tarbiya, actual Islamic moral education, should be an indispensable part. This should be the soul of our education, no longer a ceremonial husk. All plans for enhancing our training could be in vain until they are based on a complete understanding of this key fact. This requires revamping our curricula, rewriting our textbooks, retraining our teachers, and figuring out that we must do all this ourselves. We do have a wealthy history of doing it. Are we ultimately willing to turn to our in-residence treasures to redo education the way it should have been?
