Education Pollution

When Knowledge Breathes Toxic Air

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Some crises announce themselves with noise, sirens, smoke, collapsing walls. Others arrive quietly, disguised as routine, normalized through repetition. Education Pollution, authored by Prof. Ashok Kumar, belongs to the latter category of warning. It exposes a catastrophe so subtly that society continues to function even as its foundations erode. This is not the pollution of rivers or skies; it is the contamination of thought itself.

Prof. Kumar introduces a metaphor that unsettles precisely because it is accurate. Just as poisoned air damages lungs invisibly and polluted water spreads disease silently, corrupted education infects minds, values, and futures without immediate symptoms. The damage reveals itself years laterin ethical hollowness, intellectual fragility, and institutional decay. When education becomes toxic, civilizations do not collapse overnight; they hollow out from within.

Prof. Ashok Kumar's academic journey reflects a lifetime of distinguished leadership and international scholarly engagement. He served as Vice-Chancellor of CSJM University, Kanpur (2011-2014), with additional charge of Chandra Shekhar Azad University of Agriculture and Technology, Kanpur, and earlier as Vice-Chancellor of Deen Dayal Upadhyay Gorakhpur University (2014-2017). He later led Shree Kallaji Vedic University, Rajasthan, and Nirwan University, Jaipur, as President (Vice-Chancellor). Currently, he presides over the International Society of Life Sciences and the Social Research Foundation, India. A recipient of the Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship and Japanese Postdoctoral Fellowship, Prof. Kumar has served repeatedly as Visiting Scientist and International Professor at leading Japanese institutions.