Family, health and education are the 3 foundational pillars of a society – this has been long understood and clearly narrated by our vedic era scholars. Modern day societies( largely grouped as countries run by governments, constitutions and law) agree and follow the same belief. Schemes, policies and systems in all modern day developed countries are centred around these three foundational pillars. 

 

Indian society had successfully managed itself and flourished for thousands of years primarily due to all its practices, culture, knowledge and societal guidelines knitted to preserve and balance these three pillars of Family – the ashram and varna system; Health – Ayurved, developed and practiced as the science of health (physical, mental and intellectual) and life, which is pro-active, preventive and routine oriented instead of being reactive, corrective and need based; Education – which meant physical and intellectual knowledge to enable one to make the right decisions, strengthen the mind, excel in various skills and arts, to know one’s strengths and weaknesses and accordingly shape the future course for livelihood, society and country.

The modern education system, in the last 100-200 years, has been unsuccessful in bringing about all this. There are a lot of shortcomings in this human psychology based modern education system (introduced by Macaulay)  and it is mandatory to improve this education system or to provide an alternative else the negative consequences of this otherwise improper education system will affect all the other streams and systems of the society and country. Education is the foundation of all other systems and thus it being right or wrong affects other systems deeply.

Its result is a deteriorated education system which focuses on literacy and rote memory more than knowledge. Educationalists, education policy experts, psychologists and employers – all are pointing to huge gaps of this system as lack of value education, shallow or incorrect understanding of concepts and subjects, multiple personality-character issues and mostly unemployable adults.

The new National Education Policy 2020 seems to be promising to address a lot of modern education system’s shortcomings. The key, however lies in implementation and how effectively is the system able to upskill and improve the teachers

Here is what our vedic education directs the student or the disciple to do. The focus is on making a learned and noble human being, who is respectful, capable, skillful and doesn’t shy away citing lazyness:

_{शिष्यानुशासनम् वेदमनूच्याचार्योन्तेवासिनमनुशास्ति । सत्यं वद । धर्मं चर । स्वाध्यायान्मा प्रमदः । आचार्याय प्रियं धनमाहृत्य प्रजातन्तुं मा व्यवच्छेत्सीः । सत्यान्न प्रमदितव्यम् । धर्मान्न प्रमदितव्यम् । कुशलान्न प्रमदितव्यम् । भूत्यै न प्रमदितव्यम् । स्वाध्यायप्रवचनाभ्यां न प्रमदितव्यम् ॥
vedam anucya ācāryaḥ antevasinam anuśāsti | satyaṁ vada | dharmaṁ cara | svādhyāyānmā pramadaḥ| ācāryāya priyaṁ dhanamāhṛtya prajātantuṁ mā vyavacchetsīḥ |satyānna pramaditavyam | dharmānna pramaditavyam kuśalānna pramaditavyam | bhūtyai na pramaditavyam |svādhyāyapravacanābhyāṁ na pramaditavyam|}

तैत्तिरीयोपनिषत्

The journey continues…..