The need of the hour is skill and value-based education.
“So long as millions live in hunger and ignorance, I hold everyone a traitor, who, having being educated at their expense, pays not the least to heed them. ” — ——–quote Swami Vivekananda
This issue has become relevant in the light of recent global economic crisis and fall from grace of capitalistic image. The ugly side of capitalism under which, in the quest for short-term gains wrong doings are overlooked. As a result people have lost trust in corporate performance and those involved in it. If we look at the situation over the last one and half years, we see that CEOs and accountants have become depised breed, less truusted even than politicians and journalists.
Further more, many who were involved in many scandals were highly educated men.
‘All for each and, Each for all’
Earning of profit is no doubt, the main aim of any business. But if they are earned with principles they enrich people’s lives. While profit motive, no doubt provides the main spark for any economic activity any entreprise which is not motivated by consideration of urgent service to the community becomes outdated soon and cannot fulfill its real role in modern society.
What sort of education ?
When we talk of investing in education, a question arises as to what kind of education needs to be given to the youngsters. Our aim is to evolve not only an affluent society, but an egalitarian, just, humane and compassionate society. For that we need people who possess not only high skills but high values as well.
This becomes clear from the follwing anecdote : The disastrous consequences of nuclear missile technology transfer into countries like Pakistan ……………..Did anybody thought about it when India developed the same technology on its own in the name of self-defence? Did we thought about it before that jihadists or terrorists being a “high skills – low values” people, could create concerns against even self-defence mechanisms?
In general, in every walk of life, there are similar anecdotes. Because even high valued people at times of different forms of crisis loose their balance and fall into disgrace, causing havoke to their own and others life in the planet.
So the need of the hour is not only skill-based education but also value inspired/based education. We can find the answer for the present sickness through the all-round development of a society and this is achieved through betterment of the individual. All individuals must be sensitised to the abject poverty., and made to think in terms of what is our duty towards alleviating the infirmities that afflict our fellow human beings.
Such a life of ours needs three abilities.
- ability to control ourselves
- ability to give to others
- ability to be compassionate
These three collectively constitute ‘development conscience’. Building up such conscience among all sections of population will go a long way towards
- sustainable economic growth
- shared growth process
- and improved quality of life
Human capital needs to be developed and nurtured carefully. A given amount of capital will be more productive with an educated population. Hence investment in education is necessary. But we must ensure its is the right kind of education.
It is time to introspect whether what is being achieved might not be undone by human greed as God will not ask you what your highest salary was; but One might ask if you compromised your character to obtain it.
“Efficiency without nobility is worse than useless. It is positively destructive.”
What is unique about HR?
Human resource has the ability to learn, distinguish between good and bad and lead one’s life the way one likes. While other resources are inanimate and can be controlled, human resource, gives its ability to think, reason out and add value by optimally combining and utilising other resources, needs to be handled carefully. It is the sum total of the knowledge and competence of an organisation, which is termed as intellectual capital, that gives the organisation an edge over others.
Need to invest in HR
Given such importance to human capital, as a natural corollary, we need to invest in it.
The next question is : “Investment in education? Yes, but what sort of education?”
We all have to think about this, from very early on in our lifetime, for us, for our children, for our employees, for our society, for our community…..
It is clear that the content of education is as important as the emphasis on the form of education.
Blog work in Progress………….coming back soon……..
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