28/08/2022
GAP students of Ghatshila Ramakrishna Math participated in various competitions, arranged as part of the "Annual Day Celebration - 2022" of Lily Foundation, organized at Viye, Kashida, Ghatshila on 28-Aug-2022.
Sunita Kumari of Class XI received First Prize in essay writing competition. The topic was "Importance of Education".
Below is the write-up that earned her the first prize.
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Importance of Education
What is Education?
According to Swami Vivekananda, “Education is the manifestation of the perfection already in man”. He said, “Education, Education, Education alone! By which a man ‘learns’ is really what he ‘discovers’ by taking the cover off his own soul, which is a mine of infinite knowledge.” Travelling through many cities of Europe and observing in them the comforts and education of even the poor people, these brought to my mind the state of our own poor people, and I used to shed tears. What made the difference? Education was the answer I got. Swami Vivekananda said, ‘A nation is advanced in proportion as education is spread among the masses.” But, what was the education that he advocated? He said that our process of education should be such that it helps the students to manifest their innate knowledge and power. He advocated a man-making character-building education. He said, “We want that education by which character is formed, strength of mind is increased, the intellect is expanded, and by which one can stand on one’s own feet.” He said that education must make the students self-reliant and help them face the challenges of life. He was highly critical of the so-called educated who do not care for the poor and downtrodden. He said, “So long as the millions live in hunger and ignorance, I hold every man a traitor who, having been educated at their expense pays not the least heed to them.” According to him, three things are necessary to make every man great, every nation great and that is: 1. We should have conviction in the powers of goodness, 2. The absence of jealousy and suspicion and 3. Helping all those who are trying to be and to good.
Swami Vivekananda favoured the Vedic education system to raise the common masses of people. In Vedic period education occupied prominent place in society. Education was considered as pious and important for society. Vedic age had a system of education in which hearing, chanting and memorizing, played a great part. Education was compulsory for everybody for becoming cultured. Education was the fully capable of bringing physical, intellectual and character development. It was capable of bringing social efficiency and happiness, preservation and spread of culture, infusion of piety and religiousness and development of best type of personality. There was a cordial relationship between Guru and pupils during Vedic and Post-Vedic period. Through education efforts were being made to infuse―Satyam Shivam and Sundaram inside the students. A great importance was attached to Veda in that education system. Self-study was considered more important during that period. The Vedic period favoured equal education for women.
His eagerness to educate the downtrodden masses of India leads him to think for informal education. At the time of Vivekananda maximum peoples could not go to school. Boys could not go to school because of the poverty of his family. He had to work for making money. Again girls were not sent to school by their families. Maximum families in India considered girls unnecessary burden. Vivekananda in this complicated situation offered a very practical solution. The following lines of Vivekananda are evidence of it. “Suppose you open a free school in every village, still it would do no good, for the poverty in India is such that the poor boys would rather go to help their father in the fields or otherwise try to make a living than to come to the school. Now if the mountain does not come to Mohammed, Mohammed must go to the mountain. If the poor boy cannot come to education, education must go to him.” Says he. Thus in his view if the student cannot go to school, school should come to the student to teach him. If this happens no one would be deprived of education. He again says that single-minded, self-sacrificing Sannyasins in our country should undertake the responsibility of going to village to village to teach the poor students. The right to education for everyone, guaranteed by the Constitution of India, was Vivekananda’s dream. But it is still a far cry from its goal. However, his idea of continual, or lifelong education, has been adopted in many countries already. Moreover, because of the adoption of continuous education in these countries, our idea of what constitutes success and failure has altered, raising new hope for the weak, underprivileged section of these societies–the very people who for various reasons cannot complete their education when they are young. Vivekananda’s cry for the uplift of the downtrodden masses, particularly of the long-neglected women, has evoked a favorable response from different quarters. But societies tailor education to meet their own needs, thereby often robbing the weak of their freedom to determine their own destiny. Unless radical changes are made in all societies the poor will never be able to raise them. This was a major concern of Vivekananda.
