IN 1970, prominent sociologist Basil Bernstein asserted that education could not contribute to society. Because our education system is interwoven with and increasingly influenced by the economy, it is unable to rectify economic imbalances and thus ‘miseducates’. Educational theorist John Dewy defined ‘miseducation’ as a system that stifles children’s curiosity, creativity and critical thinking. Knowledge, according to him, is created within the student rather than imposed by authority. Miseducation promotes ‘indoctrination’ and seeks to enslave the mind.

As a result, we ignore relevant information and emphasise irrelevant facts, promote propaganda and conspiracy theories and frame a situation in a certain way. It causes cognitive bias that impacts our choices and actions. It makes us misinterpret information and make irrational decisions, for example, we blame external enemies as the cause of our destruction rather than the absence of the rule of law.

Likewise, if a student’s educational experience is at odds with his or her life outside of school, it will likely be difficult for him or her to make rapid progress and contribute towards social development.

It is regrettable that education in our country is less understood in terms of socioeconomic and sociopolitical effects and more commonly employed for the purposes of a mass-level narrative construction to create bias, which has trapped us — with no exit in sight. To legitimise the institutional role that schools play in a system of control and intimidation, our classrooms, curricula and educators adopt ‘dogmatic truths’. As opposed to developing independent thought, schools have always played an institutional role in a coercive system.

Miseducation seeks to enslave children’s minds.

The type of education that emphasises the connection between individual and public life, as well as social responsibility, the broader responsibilities of citizenship and the state-individual relationship is, unfortunately, ignored. As a result, teachers emphasise mechanical learning and the memorisation of information, preferring them to critical analyses of the social and political system that mandates education in the first place. They are increasingly confined to the duty of imposing the ‘official reality’, which is determined by a small group of individuals who analyse, make and execute decisions, and govern the political, economic and ideological systems.

We find our ruling elite periodically engaged in ‘restructuring’ the educational system to address the broader narrative, without leaving room for de-traditionalising the curriculum and remedying policies that define the working classes as education’s losers. There should be more focus on access to education and enrolment by concentrating on prominent issues such as out-of-school children and, even more importantly, ‘out-of-learning children’. Instead, they appear to want to enrol as many as possible to indulge wider control and coercion and leave no room for fostering independent thinking. Education is a fundamental human right, but only quality education, and not the one that degrades the intellect and thinking abilities and produces only zombies.

There is little faith in education as a means to social reform since, in its current form, public education is shrewdly constructed to perpetuate its estrangement from practical domains. This is to encourage incorrectly defined ideas that act to preserve and privilege the ruling class and elite. The ruling class may promote subsidising elite schooling for geniuses who represent the working class to update their skills and defuse their anger so that they can fuel the elites’ industrial production and increase their economic gain. It deepens social stratification with­in the middle and lower middle classes. As a result, the middle and lower middle classes are more oppressed, and vulnerable, and ultimately, the losers.

We may find that almost no graduate of such subsidised schools remains connected to their class and avoids living within poor communities; some may even prefer the elite as their neighbours. Many parents are heartbroken because their ‘elite-transit offspring’ have abandoned them. The allure of such entry points into elite circles renders public schools compromised and useless in the eyes of the working class.

So, do we aim to forego formal education? Of course not. But we should be clear about the fundamental elements of our education system and its purpose within the context of the power structure. We should advocate for the education system to be restructured to serve the common man, a goal that is not being pursued by academia, policy experts, educationists or politicians. We need schools to be authentic learning spaces and not instruments of coercion and indoctrination or incubators of deceptive ideologies.

The writer is an educationist.

Published in Dawn, February 23rd, 2023