EDUCATION: OF HEAD, HEART AND SOUL
(Elocution Speech - M.A.II - 1st Prize)

First let’s clarify what does education mean? IS it the process of cramming digest answers and vomiting them in three hours? Is it all about passing traditional board and university exams and getting degrees? No way.

I personally believe that education is a process of grooming genuine understanding of life. It aims at preparing a person to face the hard and harsh realities at the crossroads of life. Education must realize one that life is not all about rosy dreams but one has to come across ample troubles and traumas, too.

Education should be equally imparted at three levels:-

HEAD

HEART

SOUL

Or let me categorize it as:-

I.Q.
E.Q.
S.Q. respectively

Unfortunately education has now bee restricted only to the training of the intellect and education of ethical values has become subservient. The focus of education has shifted from human virtues to the ipods and nano technology.

Youngsters rush in flocks to become master of engineering or computer or business administration but none wishes to be a master of kindness and honesty.

Many meritorious people like J. Krishnamurthy, Swami Vivekananda, Mahatma Gandhi etc have observed that the contemporary education system only produces a mass of dumb-founded degree-holders awaiting in ques for the jobs.

Gandhiji refused to walk on the beaten track of school-education for his son Harilal as he believed in the all-inclusive training for life he defines education as an attempt of self-realization.

Let me give you an acute example of the failure of our academic process. The number of educated intelligentsia has increased two-fold but the crime rate zooms four-fold. It is an irony of education that female feticide is a crucial problem of the same state from where Sunita Williams soared to the universe.

My point is that the goal of education must be the culmination of an individual in all spheres of life. That’s what I had to say. Thanks a lot.