Author name: Mavesh Khan

By Mavesh Khan[*] Abstract (Research that focuses the impact of education on the economy, reaches myriads of conflicting conclusions. What seems quite clear is that adequate education alone is insufficient to improve the economic conditions of a country. There have to be other political, economic and legal institutions in place already to facilitate the impact of education. The Pakistan government had, until 2005, inadequate data on education. Now that it has the data, it does not know how to use it. Therefore, a major question that arises is how exactly is the government running the education system? On what basis is it creating its policies? How is it evaluating the effects of these policies? It appears that Pakistan lacks both self-direction, the information necessary to direct itself or the scholarship required to understand and analyze its education system and its place within the society. The vacuum is filled by external actors such as UNESCO and the USA. Author). Introduction                                                                                            During the late 18th century, the Industrial Revolution took place in Britain. As a Great Power, Britain was outstripping both Europe and America. France, Germany and the USA identified mass education as the one method to close the gap. The technological orientation of education in Great Britain, France, Germany and the USA stems from this competition between the Great Powers of the 18th century. In 1792, the Marquis de Condorcet, a scientist, philosopher and politician, proposed a plan for a free, compulsory, state-run system of education. This was rejected at the time by the French Legislative Assembly. In the United States, a similar plan introduced by Thomas Jefferson to the Virginia Legislature was rejected in 1779. Yet the seeds of a powerful idea had been sown. By the early 19th century, Condorcet’s ideas were put into practice. Governments in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, and other European countries organized national systems of public education. The formal system of mass education thus created is now seen as the key to progress. The idea, implemented first in the West, has become universal as most countries attempt to provide their citizens mass public education in one form or the other. On 10 December 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 26 of this declaration states: Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit. Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace. Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.” (1) On 16 November 1945, The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) was founded. The preamble to UNESCO’s Constitution states: “Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed.” It further declares that the Member States party to the Constitution believe in “full and equal opportunities for education for all, in the unrestricted pursuit of objective truth and in the free exchange of ideas and knowledge.” (2) Ancient Ideas of Education It is said that “All philosophy is a footnote to Plato.” Plato, a Greek philosopher who lived in the 3rd Century BCE, wrote a number of philosophical works. The most famous of these is “The Republic.” In this work, Plato outlined most of his foundational philosophy, including the Theory of Ideas. This theory held that there exists an eternal, unchanging world of forms or ideas to which this real world is an imperfect counterpart. Wisdom lay in understanding these eternal forms and bringing imperfect matter into conformity with them. This was the task of the Philosopher. In the world of forms there also existed an ideal state. “The Republic” is concerned with discovering this ideal state and how it should be created on earth. In his theory of how the inhabitants of the ideal state should be instructed, Plato outlines a theory of education. For Plato, the state is literally an individual writ large. Indeed, the study of the state begins in an attempt to study the virtues of man: the state represents the human soul writ large. Just as the soul has a lower and higher impulses or beings, so does the state. Therefore, the individual is completely subordinated to the state. In Plato’s state, individuals are divided into slaves, artisans and rulers. It is possible that a child born into a lower class may have the capabilities of a higher one. Therefore, Plato builds in a system of selection for each class. This is the education system. He outlines in careful detail what children will be taught. The idea of Beauty guides him: an individual who grows up in Beauty – a concept that includes the real and the true – will instantly recognize the false when he comes across it. Therefore, children are to be taught music to learn harmony, poetry to learn the virtues, dialectic to think clearly, gymnasium or physical exercise to train the body. Plato is aiming at the perfect individual in the perfect state – he is concerned with the “soul” of each – there exists an ideal to be attained. This justifies, for example, what would today be known as censorship. Plato objects to poets who show the gods behaving in a “low” manner. He argues that it is not possible for higher beings to behave in an ignoble manner and therefore the poets are relating false tales that set bad examples. Before their poetry is allowed into his Ideal State, it has to be expurgated of the offending passages. This will ensure their conformance