Education in Context:

A few centuries ago education was not at the reach of the ordinary – Only the rich and the affordable could have education. But when St Ignatius of Loyola realized that education was needed for the ‘counter reformation’ he thought of education for the ordinary. Since Luther was a man of letters and in order to tackle him, Ignatius reasoned out, one needed intellectual approach and the people should be able to think for themselves. Ignatius of Loyola wanted to make education affordable for all. Hence he began a school in Rome and put up a board at the entrance ‘Education gratis’, that is, education for free. In order to bring in the logical and rational thinking amidst people, especially through education, the Jesuits developed ratio studiorum.

In his time Ignatius felt the need for a paradigm shift. The pedagogy developed based on his principle is called Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm, which is today popularly known as Integrated Pedagogical Paradigm (IPP). He initiated the process of bringing education to all and even today, especially at the present context of Indian scenario, the felt need is that education should be available to all. According to IPP the process could be depicted as follows:

Context ® experience ® reflection ® action ® evaluation

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In a given context, based on one’s already existing and available experience the need of the people are reflected upon. The outcome of the deliberation is concrete action plan. This action plan, as it is carried out, needs periodic evaluation which in turn enriches one’s experience. Then the cyclic process continues – Thus the need of the people in a given context is kept in focus. When the context changes, then the rest of the process also would accordingly change.

Historically speaking there were mainly studies in theology and philosophy when education was offered to those who could afford to pay for it. When the enlightenment of Jesuits to open up educational institutions took effect, liberal arts were given consideration. Thus universities were opened up starting in Europe and wherever the Jesuits went for their mission. Along with their pastoral ministries, they thought opening up educational institutions, wherever possible centres of higher learning, was essential. Even in India the first Catholic University College was opened up in 1844 at Trichy (St Joseph’s College).[1]  The purpose was that people could come up in social status with the help of education as only educated could have access to job-markets. Social upward mobility could be ensured to the poor and the downtrodden through education. Thus the initial goal was to educate the Catholics who were poor and most of them were at the lowest social rung. Education was thus foreseen to empower the socially powerless; and education was menat to give voice to the voiceless.

Though later education got into the rut of the so called ‘merit-oriented’, namely, based on marks one obtained which to some extent kept the original target people away from our educational institutions, now there is an awareness to do the needful to these marginalised. If this context is kept clear, then we could clearly think about what could be done in the future with regard to effective education. Once Christians were running, in India, most of the educational institutions but now the number of educational institutions in the hands of Catholics have become relatively fewer. And with the advent of commercialization of education, mushrooming of educational institutions have practically eclipsed the worth of service-based educational institutions founded for the poor and downtrodden.

In most of the prospectus of our educational institutions and in our school/college handbooks we could find it stated that the particular educational institution was founded to impart education to Catholics in a Christian atmosphere. But the atmosphere in our educational institutions, on close look, would be seen as something different. When there is not even 50% of Catholics enrolled in out educational institutions, even with the label of minority institution, how does one create a Catholic atmosphere? Hence this needs a radical look and once again a paradigm shift with regard who do we run the educational institutions for! If the context is clear then our action-plan also would be effective, relevant, and meaningful.

Evaluation of our past Education History:

In order to see what should be our focus and context in the future it might be better to have a look at what we have so far had for our educational system. Our educational institutions, especially run by the religious, have been well-known for academic excellence and for discipline. Many were very proud to announce that they were ‘convent-educated’. We have been, by and large, promoting an elite group of students – Those who could get high marks and our English medium schools attracted all well-to-do people.  Even the recent Supreme Court judgment on Minority rights states: “The rush for admission is occasioned by the standards maintained in such (private) schools”. We could even accommodate upper-middle-class and middle-class people. To certain extent, with constraint, we had sympathy to the lower-middle-class people. The poor could very rarely come into the portals of our educational institutions. In this system the best ones came in and they left our institutions as the best ones – Horses come in and horses go out! We coached them a lot to do their best in the school final exams – Most of the time it was a drill in writing exams, rather than teaching them the methodology of studies.

The outcome was very powerful administrators and successful business people. People who could easily find their passage to greener pasture, namely, to other affluent countries. Those who came in helped themselves to come up in life – And we had, so far, very little social agenda in our educational policy. If we ask the soul-searching question: What have those who have been educated in our institutions done to change the face of India politically, socially, or even religiously? We would humbly acknowledge that our influence, through education, has been minimal. Has anyone who made a dent in politics  or who brought about social-reform or who worked for religious-harmony studied in our educational institutions?  We have not formed social or political reformers as much as we have prepared administrative and industrial executives. We have been helping to keep up the status quo in the society at large.

In the time of crisis how many of our former students stood with us or raised their voice for us? In a few states, such as Tamilnadu, Gujarat, Orissa, and Haryana, anti-conversion bill has been introduced without any difficulty and with little or no opposition. And how many of  our alumni/ae registered their objection – Or how many came forward and vouched that we did not force religion on them during their school/college days? Or again, when Catholic nuns were brutally raped or Catholic missionaries were mercilessly murdered how many of former students took up the cause legally or with the politicians? When natural calamity occurred, as in Andhra Pradesh due to cyclone or in Gujarat due to earth-quake, how many of our former students came out to stand with us as we set out to help the affected? Perhaps some might have offered some good-will gesture of sending some money. But we have helped them come up in life – We have served them as their social ladder. Have we instilled in them a ray of fire for social concern or for social/religious harmony? – Have we formed them to be the voice of the voiceless people?

Perhaps we could go through our silver-, golden-, even centenary-jubilee souvenirs and we would be very much impressed by our achievements. We might read how the school/college grew out of a thatched roof to a multi-storeyed building or how the number of students grew from a few dozens to a few thousands etc. We may not be able to glean much about what have we done to the society or the immediate neighbour. And it is this that calls our attention today.

Present Situation:

Though our Constitutions assures compulsory education upto the age of 14 – The poor cannot afford to send their children to schools since the present scenario is grim. The Governments, especially the State-Governments, are not in favour of new appointments of teachers both in colleges and schools; neither are new schools granted recognition. In this situation the student has to pay for their education which is impossible for the poor. Soon even the Government aid extended to the management would shrink and we would have practically self-financing institutions. Already for a few years any new courses initiated in the colleges would be self-financing. On the one hand the UGC fixes the scale of payment for the faculty but on the other hand the Government does not pay the faculty – The result is that students have to pay for everything.

So we are in a dilemma: Whether to cater to the poor, our target people, or to run the institutions efficiently with the help of those who could afford to pay for education! On the one hand our religious call is to serve the people of God who are in need of our service but on the other hand we need to think of the survival of our educational institutions! We perhaps know that the focus of Yahweh in the Old Testament in his redemptive history was the poor – the marginalized and suppressed lot in Egypt. Again we are aware the focus of Jesus was the poor of his time. And we cannot deny that majority of the Church is of socially and economically poor people. Thus our mission is at cross-road: Should we serve the affluent or the needy? – Do we dedicate our time and energy to the suppressors of the society or to the suppressed? Hence clarity of mission is needed at this juncture. As there are so many schools founded and run efficiently by non-religious, our focus should be still on the poor.

Need of the hour:

More than ever we become aware that education is for the liberation – social and political liberation. We can recall the Himalayan task of Moses: He was called to liberate the Yahweh’s poor from slavery to freedom; from scatteredness to unity; from brokenness to a nation; and from nation to a chosen royal family of Yahweh. The only assurance he had was that Yahweh would go with him and He would be present with him at the time of challenges and crisis. Looking at the reality we have to take a stand – our solidarity with the broken and the marginalized people. We should spend ourselves for their upliftment and for their empowerment through our ministry of education.

Our education should be affordable to the poor. Of course, they cannot come up with money to pay us for our education but we have to find money for them. We have to create Corpus Fund if we want to ensure their future education. We have to motivate them of the opportunities they would have for their upward mobility in the society. We should initiate and accompany them for their political, social, or even religious rights. And we have to revamp our educational system in this direction – There should be new breeze in the arena of education and they should be a paradigm shift in our system of imparting education. In the first place we have to make bold to start somewhere!

Vistas opened to us:

In the first place we have, in addition to and apart from our system of formal education which is degree or diploma based we could think of non-formal or informal education. After conducting a need-based study in a locality we could either initiate measures to do the best or we could start something anew in this direction. The advent of ‘Community Colleges’ are a welcoming change in this direction. Community colleges first of all studies the potential in an area for job opportunity.[2] In India the problem is not unemployment but unemployability of our graduates or students come out of our formal educational institutions. If the Community College is situated in an industrial area, then industrial collaboration is sought. For example, as per the need of an industrial partner the selection of students are done and the industrial staff could handle theory classes and even could supervise their practical training. In this way one could not only ensure the employment for the student but also one could assure quality job for the industrial partners. As theory and practice go hand-in-hand often the stipend that the students get would be sufficient for them to pursue their studies. At present there are about 70 Community Colleges in India, most in the southern states.

Even in the realm of informal education we could make inroads. One hears of such things done in Gujarat. For example, during the summer the school drop-outs upto the fifth standard are collected and they are trained using the cumulative vocabulary. This seems to work out well. And in the same way, the drop-outs from higher classes, say upto eighth grade, are trained in simple soft-ware programmes and they are able to earn reasonably.[3] Such innovations could be spread out and similar ones could be discovered. This would help the poor to attain financially viable position. In Madurai a girl was molested – The girl students from DACA (Dr Ambedkhar Cultural Academy) took out a procession and they themselves convened a meeting and spoke boldly against the atrocity and presented memorandum to the Government officials.[4] It was very effective – Children could do mighty deeds!

Even within the purview of formal education, say in the schools and colleges, we could do a lot to make our education people-need-based. In order to instill in the hearts and minds of the students, for the social awareness and upliftment of the needy, we could have human rights education. In Tamilnadu the CRI has initiated the process – Initially for a couple of years it was done through cooperation of an NGO but now the CRI is able to manage itself. The teachers are trained first in teaching human rights and the text books are prepared centrally and the programme goes on well.[5] The children are very much alive to social issues and they are able to take up issues such as child-labour. In Dindigul[6], around the time of Deepavali, the school children took out a rally to underline how the fire-crackers are made by children. The students not only took a resolution not to buy that year fire-crackers, they could convince other school children through their rally.

In the colleges foundation courses, to promote social and religious harmony, could be introduced. In all the Jesuit Colleges in Tamilnadu there are Department of Foundation Courses. The text-books are professionally prepared and the courses are taught effectively. In one college (Arulanandar College, Karumathur) a course was developed: Hinduism for the Hindus. Through this course it is possible to indicate what exactly the teaching of Hinduism and how today the hindutva forces distorts the values. Even research projects could be promoted, based on the need of the society, so that people-oriented and environment-friendly research could be promoted. In Loyola College (Chennai), Loyola Institute of Frontier Energy (LIFE) inter-disciplinary research based on energy and environment are conducted – Researchers and research scholars from the disciplines of Physics, Chemistry, and Biology are engaged in inter-disciplinary research activities.

However, there is one area that needs to be specially thought of – It is the are of Primary Education. Very often children from socially lower rung are not admitted into schools run by higher castes and they cannot afford to come to some of our posh schools due to economical conditions. Hence there is need for us to pay attention to primary education – At the young age if we could channelize their potential they would become a force to reckon with for social reform. As starting new Primary Schools would not be viable, since the Government aid may not be available, the next possible way would be to organize study centres. In the evening the children could come to such study centres and they could study for a few hours helped by one or two staff who would be able to help them study better. The social action commission of Jesuit Madurai Province, monitored by DACA, are running more than 200 such study centres and the outcome is very welcoming sign.

Special attention is to be paid for the education of women as well. In Tamilnadu there are the so called ‘Grihini’ schools for the village girls who either missed schooling or who cannot afford to go to school. In this Grihini they are taught about hygiene, running of family and to bring up children, self-help programme, even tailoring are introduced. Once the girls leave Grihini they are able to run the family in a responsible way and they do very well. And in turn they are able to prepare their children for schools and their children are educated reasonably well.

In order to make our option more meaningful we have to pay attention to the education of women and children especially the Tribals and Dalits. They need financial help as well. If only we could help them come up we would do a great service to Indian marginalized in empowering them on social and political maps. The option for the Tribals and Dalits in admission should also be extended to appointment of staff in our educational institutions. The Jesuit Madurai Province has taken a policy that 50% of the appointment in the schools would be given for Dalits, preferably for Catholic Dalits. Only when there are Tribals and Dalits among the staff, then the students would feel encouraged and better motivated.

Eventual Goal:

Based on our experience for our future action our motivation should be convincing and our goal-setting should be clear. Now what is needed is the empowerment of the powerless and marginalized. The present challenge or privilege to us is to make the suppressed, the policy makers at all levels – political, social, and religious. We, religious, are to be the catalyst to make the voice of the voiceless heard clear and loud for Indian social change.

Apart from educational institutions we have to think of people’s movement. If we want to build a society of the people, by the people, and for the people, then the people should be given prime of place at all levels but starting from village level. For example, we could unite people, especially the Tribals and Dalits, so that they elect their representative as the panchayat members, and if possible even the panchayat president. In towns and cities we could do the same by helping them get elected as ward-members or commission/committee members. This would be the first phase in empowering people who would have a taste in self-determination and in policy making for others. So far they have been following instruction from others but now they could formulate guidelines for others. This needs education – at least to read and write. We could, hence, think of evening/night schools or study centres in villages and rural areas.

There is one other area where at present administrators of religious Congregations should pay attention to: That is to promote vocation to religious life among the marginalized. So far we have been trying to do work for the poor and now we are beginning to realize that we have to work with the poor but we have to be enlightened to prepare ourselves to work under the poor (when they become policy makers). And that holds good for religious vocation as well. As the majority of the Church is made up of these poor and downtrodden people it is high time to realize their rightful place in hierarchy. For example, the religious Congregation should seriously think of opening up apostolic or candidacy homes where they could educate the students in high school with a view to promote vocation among them to the religious life. So far we have been taking cover saying that the vocation is call of God. But we have been looking for such call of God only among the higher strata of society but it time to realize that the call of God is for everyone who takes his/her step to serve the people of God. If our education has to take a change it is in this area as well – Educating the broken and the downtrodden in order to form them as the leaders and policy makers in religious Congregations as well as in the Church.  If we could plunge into this education then we fulfil the mission of God as given to Moses, and today given to us, ‘Let my people go’ (into freedom of self-determination). The Lord says to us: I have heard the cry of suppression from the Tribals and the Dalits – Liberate them and let them go to freedom of taking leadership in Church and in religious Orders/Congregation. If only we have the ears to listen to the mission call of God as well as the heart-rending cry of the oppressed!

Future of Education:

The prerequisite for the future of education is paradigm shift. When the need is obvious and call is clear then one should be ready to leave the present position and take up measures that are meaningful and relevant. Soul-searching is very much needed. The Medical Mission Sisters, for example, did such an examination of Conscience and they have decided to reduce their personnel in their established hospitals and then to take to alternate medicine. They commitment to people through medical help is unchanged but their modality of operation has taken a change – Now they are more involved in herbal medicine and other alternate medical helps to the needy. This is our learning process!

Our education ministry should be need-based. Today the people who need most our education is the poor – Hence we have to cater to the socially, politically, and religiously marginalized people. Let us open up our educational institutions, formal as well as non-formal and informal, to the poor. When the poor cannot afford to pay let us come up with financial help as well. Hence planning is needed to build up and strengthen Corpus Fund in our institutions to offer scholarships to the needy. And once admission is given to the poor we would realize that they would not do that well in studies – At any rate they would not be able to compete with other students who have had better exposure to education. Hence we have to pay special attention to them. We have to take efforts to arrange and organize remedial programme for the needy. Sometime, at the beginning of high school as well as at the beginning of higher secondary, having one-year remedial programme for such students has proved very beneficial. Even in colleges subject-wise remedial programmes have helped students to come up well in studies. In St Xavier’s College (Palayamkottai) there is guardian-programme: Each faculty take charge of a dozen students – They not only monitor their studies but also they are their moral support and they offer guidance as and when needed.

We could make need-based study and start community colleges and even technical schools where even school-drop-outs could come in and get education. In these institutions women and children could be given special consideration. In Loyola Technical Institute at Madurai women are taught two-wheeler mechanism and after training they are able to do well in life. They could even run their own two-wheeler repair shop successfully. Through such technical education we could also teach them spoken English and other subjects so that they could qualify as private candidates in the Government and qualifying exams.

Developing projects for mass-literacy would be most welcome. Through this methodology, especially women, could be introduced to self-help programme. This is the best way to bring in the people’s movement and to build up people’s power in the society. This could be easily done through social action ministries.

In our formal educational also we could bring in the elements of skill-oriented training as part of academic studies. Accordingly the curriculum should be restructured. The model that is followed in Loyola College, Chennai is worth following. Here a student might be able to leave the college at the end of any year but with job-oriented training:[7]

1. In the first year one gets certificate in the respective subject.
2. In the second year he/she acquires a diploma.
3. In the third year under-graduate degree is awarded.
4. In the fourth year one gets post-graduate diploma.
5. And in the fifth year he/she is given a post graduate degree.

Hence he/she could be easily employed. And later when he/she wants to rejoin and complete the course it is possible. And the students are also exposed to the hard reality of the people – In all the Jesuit Colleges in Tamilnadu the students have to put in at least 60 hours of extension service – They go to the nearby villages and spend time in interacting with the rural folk. They take necessary steps to meet the needs of the people – such as drinking water facility, bus-transport convenience etc. They are teach them about hygienic conditions – In turn they also learn from them – for example, about herbal medicine etc.

We could also think of business education for small scale industrialists and for entrepreneurs with medium operation. We could also think of leadership training programmes so that they could take up administration later both in the society as well as in politics. For the time-being the social action centres cater to training of village leaders or animate those who are in people’s movements. This could be bolstered by formal educational institutions.

On the one hand we should know the need of the hour and on the other hand we have to prepare personnel. As religious we should be people of vision and foresight and we have to plan with far-sight. We should not give yesterday’s solution to tomorrow’s problem. We should be able to foretell the future trend and we should be able to visualize what people would need, their skills and training, and then we should chalk out action-plan. In this process net-working is very much needed. All the resources we have, personnel as well as machinery, to pool together and then we could work out how effectively we could work out starting from a local level and making it to the district level in order to make it a state-level or even national-level mission.

Needed: In order to achieve all that needs to be done, keeping the people in focus, we have to be clear about what we should do. First of all we should have an upsurging motivation why we should do what we want to do for the people. Then we should have clarity of goal – This goal should be as clearly defined as possible and it should be made into long-term, medium-term, and short-term goal. Once there is clarity about our mission , the next complementary thing is courage in heart. To have a stout heart even amidst seeming failure or misfire we should be able to keep going. Of course, this needs systematic planning based on our context and local needs but this could be energized by periodic evaluation. If we could go through these meaningful exercises effectively, then we could be happy that our future education would be relevant.

Hence our future with regard to education has to shift its focus from formal schools and colleges to local need-based centres such as community colleges and skill-based training centres (technical/industrial schools). The more we move towards liberation of women and children the better would do in our education. The future of education lies in formation of people, especially of women, to organize themselves as people’s movements – In this context if our education, formal or non-formal, could makes its impact, then we can say we are on the right track.

Cf Caritas 89 (2) 2004 pp.60-75; and In: Education as Mission, (Ed) L. Stanislaus, 

Ishvani Kendra/ISPCK, Pune 2004, pp.199-214.

[1] First St Joseph’s College was founded in Nagapatnam and later shifted to Trichy.

[2] For information and expert-advice: Director, Madras Centre for Rearch and Development for Community Colleges, Chennai (Email: mcrdce@vsnl.com).

[3] For detailed information: Fr Vincent Braganza SJ of Gujaraj Province.

[4] For information contact: DACA, Madurai (Email: dacatrust@yahoo.com).

[5] For more information contact: Fr Cyril SJ, Beschi Illam, Dindigul-624 001.

[6] St Mary’s Hr Sec School, Dindigul-624 001.

[7] Cf Dr Arun S Nigavekar, the UGC Chairman, at the valedictory function of Workshop on Autonomous Colleges organized by the Tamilnadu Council for Higher Education in July 2002 (Chennai).