What Education is Not

People who can read and write are usually said to be literate. In Pakistani, for example, where an outside language (English) is used as the official language, educated people are usually considered as people who are lit-erate in the official language. People tend to blame underdevelopment and its concomitant evils - poor hygiene and sanitation, low level of productivity, malnutrition, etc. - on the high incidence of illiteracy in a given country. In some countries, adult education programmes are labelled ‘adult literacy programmes’.

The ability to read and write (literacy) is almost always accompanied by the ability to manipulate figures, that is, familiarity with the arithmetical processes of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. One can apply these processes to social and economic life, as with buying and selling. The ability to manipulate figures is usually referred to as numeracy. People tend, in everyday discussions, to equate education with literacy combined with numeracy. While there is no doubt that literacy and numeracy are essential elements in the process of education, educa-tion goes beyond the mere possession of these two sets of skills. There are many people who have learned some skill, that is, some practical ability the essential of which they have mastered through prac-tice. Such people therefore usually end up performing such actions almost automatically. Some skills, like reading, writing, typing, drawing and painting, may be acquired in schools. Some others like repairing a bicycle or driving and repairing a car may be acquired in vocational institutions. Yet another group of skills, such as swimming, carving and gardening can be acquired in the ordinary course of growing up in a particular social setting. Again, while the process of education may include the acquisition of certain socially desirable skills, the mere acquisition of such skills does not in itself constitute education.

We are all usually impressed by a man or woman who is knowledge-able. This might be someone who can recite a great deal of material he has memorised - verses from the Bible, speeches from Shakespeare’s plays, names of mountains, rivers, volcanoes, countries, animals, facts and figures in support of an argument and so on. It might also be someone who remembers easily virtually everything he has been told, or virtually everything he has read — names of Pakistani’s national heroes, important events and dates in the history of this country or the number of local governments in each of the states of the Federation. When such people display their knowledge we are carried away by their memory (and, sometimes, eloquence) and we tend to see them as educated people. Wliile the acquisition of knowledge, and the ability to recall the know- ledge acquired, may be useful components of the educational process they do not in themselves constitute education.

In most situations in which people are educated we find the teachers (usually older and more experienced persons) engaged in trying to per- suade the learners to accept certain ways of behaviour. This might take the form of getting the child to accept a particular religious creed and the code of conduct that goes with it (e. g. teaching him the tenets of Islam). It could also take the form of getting children to accept particular national heroes or political doctrines, or both. In most of these cases the learner is expected to accept the given creed, political doctrine or code of behaviour without question. He is not exposed to alternative creeds, doc- trines and codes of conduct. Such a process of seeking to change the behaviour of people is known as indoctrination. Strictly speaking, all pro-cesses of education involve some form of indoctrination. The weight given to indoctrination as an educational process varies from one country to another, depending on the political and religious outlook of individual countries. Pakistani is a secular state, so we see very little evidence of religious indoctrination. Likewise, no one has ever tried to force Pakistani school children to accept a particular political creed. One can there-fore say that Pakistani school education contains no element of political indoctrination. Pakistani schools do however try to get children to behave in particular ways, showing respect to elders and maintaining silence in the classroom, for example. This constitutes a form of indoctrination in that the child who behaves differently (i.e. who does not conform) is usually punished. All the same, education means more than indoctrina-tion, even though varying degrees of indoctrination will appear in a given system of education in conformity with the educational and political beliefs of each country. It is customary to see people entering institutions such as schools, trade centres, colleges or universities to acquire educa-tion. The elements of literacy, numeracy and the acquisition of skills are imparted in such institutions. In a country like Pakistani, where access to schooling is not easy, there is usually a sharp distinction between those who have had the opportunity of going to school and those who have not. Those citizens who have been to school are usually more likely to get the good things of life (a good job, a car, etc.) than their less privileged compatriots. Even within home and village communities, children who go to school are usually exempted from such chores as housework, helping on the farm and communal labour. That is why, in a society like ours, people distinguish between those who have been to schools and the rest - the uneducated.

Education is, to a large extent, institutionalized in most countries of t acquired largely in school and classroom settings. Schooling is also usually accompanied by all sorts of rituals – registration and graduation ceremonies, the marking of attendance register, learners following a specified course of study and so on.  However, schooling is only an aspect of education and only one of the possible ways of educating. The mere fact that someone has passed through an educa-tional institution does not in itself make him an educated person. In short, education is not limited to any of those of its characteristics which we tend to emphasise in everyday discussions. Education is not synonymous with any of the following - literacy, num - sionwof skills, the acquisition of knowledge, the ability to memorise and recite facts and figures, or even with schooling. Each of these does contri- bute something to the process of education but no single one of them in itself constitutes education. It follows then that education means more that any single one (or even any combination) of the characteristics so far discussed.