“The goal of education … is to form professionally competent, morally upright, socially conscious leaders …who will … make a difference in society…” I summarise thus the challenge of the editor who is setting forth the outlines he wishes discussed in this piece, which outlines he concludes with a comment of his own: “If we [Catholic teachers] lose our vision and sense of mission, education can simply become a business or a cult of routine and mediocrity that makes little difference to the students or to society.”
Too late!
Harshly, dear Editor: too late. This latter is largely what education has in fact become in most schools in our country, including Catholic institutions. I am tempted to offer supportive illustrations, but such are all too familiar to those in the field, and of little interest to (or too late for) others. Just a comment or two however to underline the dimensions of this negative observation:
The ‘big name’ schools in our country are almost all run by Christian institutions, are English medium, are largely patronized and equally demonized by the powerful in our country, are expensive, and turn out good young women and men who take their place in society as polite and comfortable nobodies. Their names are rarely if ever heard challenging situations that are harmful for India in one way or another. And among those names Christians are a tiny minority.
To read the entire article, click Subscribe
Brother Brendan
