“The end of education is character

The end of knowledge is love”

Education in its very essence means bringing out what is best in a person and providing him/her an opportunity to realize his /her complete potentiality and giving rational touch to his feelings and thoughts. Education is meant neither exclusively for employment nor entertainment and not even for mere living but it is for life. So education cannot be an end in itself but it is only a means to an end since end of education is character and tolerance.

With the onset of globalisation and urbanisation, the diversity is increasing in all the societies and countries all over the world.In any given region or society on earth we can easily find people belonging to various religion and caste at any given moment. This being the case, tolerance is a much needed ideology today and tolerance not just regards to religion and caste but with different attitudes too. If there is no tolerance in the society it gives rise to communalism, regionalism, terrorism etc. So tolerance as an inherent nature of a society is must for communal harmony and peace & order in a nation.

As it is mentioned earlier, the purpose of education is not just a job or employment but it must also develop good character and tolerance in a person. Without these, all other things don’t make sense and process of education is not complete. When a person completes his/her education and joins a job, he needs to work in a very diverse social setting with different kinds of people. Even if their opinions and practices from that of ours, we must show fair and objective attitude towards them. So those who call themselves ‘Educated’ need to assess their tolerance level as well. That education which does not develop tolerance in students and youths is not only useless but can also be disastrous. This very failure of education to teach tolerance to Hitler resulted in world war and his hatredness towards Jews led to genocide. And this very same failure has failed to curb cross border terrorism and hatredness of so called jihadist which is leading to more and more bloodshed of our jawans and common civilians. Education can provide best of the minds with gifted intelligence. But this intelligence need to accommodate tolerance in it and only then it is perfect education

Today educationists all over the world are talking about introducing human values in the curriculum of education system especially in higher education. Although it is a good move, it must be noted that the change in a person must come from source i.e. within but not by force. Mahatma Gandhiji’s concept of Nayee Talim about education too had connection with tolerance as he said the function of Nayee Talim is not to teach an occupation but through it to develop a complete man.’ Thus here he brings in the concept of brotherhood of man and father of God. Brotherhood of man can be rightly referred to as fraternity where in a person learns to treat everyone as his own brother and kith & kin. Fatherhood of God is again the same principle which makes people to abide by a common ideology i.e. God bringing in unity. So our education system must include these principles to build tolerance in the students. Some of the important challenges that the world is facing today like terrorism, naxalism, crimes and harassment on women etc can be easily tackled if we are to understand and assimilate this one principle of tolerance. So education must take up this task of cultivating the seeds of love and tolerance from the very beginning as the child develops into complete man. Aristotle said ‘Educating the child without educating the mind is no education at all.’ So true to his words education must be for transformation and not just for information.

When we think in Indian context, tolerance is a much needed idea that must be contemplated on. The diversity that exists in India surely needs this great principle if it is to experience harmony and order. Some of the problems in our country like Kashmiri issue, Ayodhya & Babri Masjid can be solved with tolerance because the root cause for all these is absence of tolerance among people. When our youths are trained in moral values, surely they can come up with wonderful ideas which can revolutionise our thoughts on religion, castes and give us feeling of unity. Tolerance is one wonderful entity which consists of all the other qualities like love, gratitude humbleness, positive thinking etc. So this must be inculcated in children and this must begin from home itself.