The mass education mess we’re in

EVERY time the subject of education crops up in academic discussions, it is almost always focused on technology and the advancement of it.

Before computers were introduced, the policymakers used to say “computers are the way”. Then there is the so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution. And now we have artificial intelligence. Why do we let technology lead the discussion? Simple: Because there are no philosophers among us to ask different but very necessary questions.

Decades and decades of specialised industry- and economy-based education and what do we have the world over? Poor health, strained race-religious relations, harmful right-wing and populist politics, a destroyed environment, and 600,000 street children in Bangladesh without parents or any one to care for them.

Our education is premised on the fact that we have to compete to enter universities so that lives will be better individually, not collectively. In other words, our education teaches the science and art of pure selfishness.

But I digress. I am not here to lead a discourse in this high-end philosophy but to make a simple observation about our present way of life and how I think we should now view the last leg of what I call “mass education”.

Mass education was started to feed an industry hungry for workers doing work that is both physically and mentally menial. Yes, even in people with PhDs I see much "menial thinking” not philosophical thinking. That is the product of our current education system: menial thinking, menial attitude, menial vision.

Then, education of the masses is also designed to propagate a feudalistic idea of who’s the boss – yes even (maybe especially) in the so called “democratic” world.

I have been an academic for 37 years, raised five children and put them through schools and universities, and have a wife who was a teacher for 17 years in the public school system. I know education, and I am a thinker as well, and I say that mass education in our schools and universities should no longer be the way forward for us.

I do not have to interview students or PhD candidates or teachers individually (though I do a lot of that), I just have to read the news, the columns, and social media content and I can tell you that we are in a big mess – and that it’s going to get messier unless we wake up. Let’s not wait for a huge, destabilising event to say, “Hey, is something up?”

First, there’s the experience gained during the Covid-19 pandemic that began in 2020, when we had to scramble to organise home schooling – that was an interesting experiment. It took a virus that killed millions for us to actually see a possible way that is different than going on a bus or van or car to spend seven hours in schools while carrying a huge backpack that damages young bones.

Home-schooling is the way to go to avoid the spread of contagious diseases that will be our way of life from now on thanks to the ease of global travel. Every month I hear of one of my grandchildren getting sick because some other sick kids were sent to school by a high-powered globe-trotting parent.

The possible hybrid of working a short time at the office and more hours at home was again inspired by the virus. And we have parents who were forced to turn to the gig economy and now have more independence, while some companies are allowing hybrid work systems and offering a better work-life balance to employees. I spend barely 1% of my time at the universities I have worked at. I produce my maximum output at home, including writing books and essay and organising and preparing talks and other public engagements. I do not catch any diseases from work and my carbon footprint is virtually zero. Why do we need a virus to actually change our whole working lifestyle? Sadly, most of us are now back to pre-pandemic pollution, stress, and minimal output levels.

I think the time is ripe for all educational institute buildings to be turned into small “packages” of learning, with a small community of students looking for specific needs for their different and diverse careers.

Our problem is no one is asking how we should be living now and in the next 100 years. We are busy putting out all the useless hours and carbon that is no longer necessary while destroying the lives of our children in pursuing careers that are going obsolete rapidly.

Where are our thinkers of a new vision of happiness, liberty, and the pursuit of a fulfilling life, who is thinking of something other than what we think we want now? That, my dear friends, is the true question about education that needs to be asked.

Prof Dr Mohd Tajuddin Mohd Rasdi is Professor of Architecture at the Tan Sri Omar Centre for Science, Technology and Innovation Policy Studies at UCSI University.

The views expressed here are entirely the writer’s own.