The soul of education

India today stands at a crucial crossroads in its educational journey. Over the decades we have built an expansive network of schools, colleges, and universities that churn out millions of graduates annually. On paper, our youth are more qualified than ever. Yet, behind this impressive quantitative expansion lies a qualitative void one that manifests in a growing mental health crisis, ethical ambiguity in leadership, and a palpable loss of meaning among the young. This crisis is not merely institutional, it is civilizational. We have spent the last century borrowing pedagogical models from the West while steadily distancing ourselves from our own intellectual and moral traditions. The result is a system that prepares the youth to earn a living but leaves them ill-equipped to live fully and purposefully. It is in this context that India must turn inward not in retreat, but in resurgence.

- BY DR. R BALASUBRAMANIAM

We must re-anchor our education system in the civilizational wisdom of Indian Knowledge Systems (IKS) and in the inspirational vision of Swami Vivekananda, whose call for "manmaking education" is more relevant today than ever. Modern education in India has become overly transactional. Marks, placements, and packages dominate the discourse, crowding out conversations about character, citizenship, or consciousness. This overemphasis on utility has created a generation that may be employable but not always ethical; informed but not necessarily wise. Swami Vivekananda's conception of education stood in stark contrast. For him, education was "the manifestation of the perfection already in man" a process not of accumulation, but of awakening.

He emphasized character over career, inner strength over outer success. “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 declared. Such an education is not about feeding facts into young minds but about lighting the fire of self-discovery. It is not about creating workers for the economy alone, but whole human beings who can shoulder the responsibilities of society and self. India's traditional education systems epitomized by the Gurukula model embraced this holistic vision. Students were not just taught logic and linguistics, but also humility, self-reliance, and spiritual discipline. Learning was experiential, values were internalized through example and immersion, and the teacher (Guru) was both a source of knowledge and a moral exemplar.