purpose of education

Education — like democracy, free markets, freedom of the press, and “universal human rights” — is one of those issues whose virtue is seen as self-evident. So is the superiority of industrially advanced countries in catching up. Consequently, any package that arrives with one of these magic labels automatically qualifies for the “green channel” at our ports of entry. No questions asked. This uncritical acceptance has seriously paralyzed our discussion of all these vital issues. For example, in education, most of our discussion focuses on literacy statistics and the need to have as many graduates, masters, doctorates, and as many professionals—engineers, doctors, etc.—in a given country according to standards in industrially advanced countries. The central theme of the curriculum, and even more fundamentally the theme of the purpose of education, does not normally attract our attention; they have already been decided by the “advanced” countries for us and our job is just to follow in their footsteps to reach their level of progress.

In fact they have. In the “first” world, education has become an extension of the capitalist system. Its purpose is to provide skilled labor for its production machinery and enthusiastic consumers for its products. Expressed in a more refined way, the purpose of education is to provide economic prosperity for a country. Similarly, today, on a personal level, the purpose of education is to be able to earn a respectable living.

While earning a halal livelihood and providing for the economic well-being of a country are also important Islamic goals, the linking of education to financial goals is extremely unfortunate. It makes learning centers mere vocational centers in its outlook and spirit. It degrades education and through it society.

To remember the fundamental but forgotten role of education, we must remember that there is a fundamental difference between human beings and animals. Only instincts and physical needs can unite ants, bees, or herds of beasts to live in a perfectly functioning animal society. Human beings don’t work that way. They are not bound by nature to follow only those paths that are necessary for the harmonious functioning of their society. If they are going to form a viable and prosperous society, they must think about doing so. What drives that choice is sharing common goals, beliefs, values, and life perspectives. Without a common framework binding its members, a human society cannot continue to exist; it will disintegrate and be absorbed by other companies. Furthermore, society must ensure that the common ground is maintained from generation to generation. This is the true purpose of education. The educational system of a society produces the citizens and leaders necessary for the proper functioning of that society, now and in the future. Your state of health or illness translates directly into the health or illness of the society you are meant to serve.

Today we find many internal problems—corruption, injustice, oppression, crushing poverty—wherever we look in the Muslim world. If we think about it, we can realize that most of these problems are man-made. Which is another way of saying that much of it can be attributed, directly or indirectly, to the educational system that produced the people who perpetuate the problems. The rulers who sell themselves to foreign powers and subjugate their people; bureaucrats who enforce laws based on injustice; the generals who wage war against their own people; businessmen who exploit and cheat; journalists who lie, sensationalize and promote indecencies are all educated people, in many cases “very” educated people. Their education was meant to prepare them for the roles they play in real life. And he has, albeit in a very unexpected way!

The problem affects all layers of society. Why are Muslim communities in the grip of so much materialism today? What should we expect when our entire educational system preaches the gospel of materialism? Why have we effectively relegated Islam to an inconsequential little room in our public life? Because that is precisely where our secular educational system has put it. Why do we see so little of Islamic customs and morals in our behavior towards others? Because our imported educational system is devoid of any moral training. Why are our societies sick? Because our educational system is sick.

This is the real crisis in education. Before we got into this mess importing what was current and popular from the colonial powers, education in our societies was always the means to nurture the human being. Moral training, tarbiya, was always an inalienable part of him. The ustaz, (teacher), was not just a professional lecturer or mother, but a mentor and moral guide. Then we remember the hadith: “No father has given a greater gift to his children than a good moral education.” [Tirmidhi]. Our educational system was informed by this hadith. Our darul-ulooms still maintain that tradition, but the number of students who pass through their doors is minuscule compared to secular schools.

In the United States and Europe, schools were started by the church. Later, when the forces of capitalism caught up with them, they molded them in their image. Moral training was a casualty of that takeover. But capitalism and its political economy needed trained people to work under these systems. So citizenship education remained an important, if diminishing, component of the curriculum—a religion-free subset of the moral education it displaced. Whatever civility we see here is largely the result of that leftover component. However, the imported versions in Muslim countries even had that filtered component. And the results are visible.

We can solve our problem once we realize our mistakes. The first purpose of our educational system must be to produce qualified citizens and leaders for Islamic society. Tarbiya, the true Islamic moral training, must be an integral part of it. This must be the soul of our education, not a ceremonial shell. All plans to improve our education will be totally worthless unless they are based on a complete understanding of this key fact. This requires revamping our curricula, rewriting our textbooks, retraining our teachers, and realizing that we must do all of this ourselves. We have a rich history of doing so. Are we finally ready to draw on our own inner treasures to remake education as it always should have been?

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