I sit back today and wonder, “How is it that wildlife conservation struggles for funding while projects supporting stray, homeless animals get so much attention? Is it not life too?” I felt outraged initially. Now, I have accepted it as a way of life. As a struggle that I will face throughout my career… But the question still troubles me – “Why?”
A colleague couldn’t have expressed it better – “Wildlife science is not entertainment.” You could cry yourself hoarse trying to convince your family and friends (who are notoriously impossible to get around) that the quality of life of humans would degenerate quickly in the absence of birds, animals, reptiles, frogs, forests, coral reefs, wetlands and what have you. But more often than not, you get categorized as the ‘freak’ that lives in the jungle and studies ‘all those animals that I would rather not have around.’ “Why are you doing social work when there are much better avenues for you to showcase your skills?” is a common refrain. “She/He could get a green card but the fool wants to live in the malaria-infested jungles of India,” is probably what people we have known all our lives think of us. And when it comes to donating money, almost every issue takes precedence over wildlife protection. The works of the researcher who slogs all his life, produces the most revolutionary piece of science, and gets much applause in the scientific community, might never reach the common public. The media sometimes relegate it to the inner pages. But more often than not, the populace is largely unaware of the issue, of the significance of the unceasing efforts of conservationists working for the environment. So how can things change? I recollect another conversation with a colleague who interjected, “Conservation Biology is the synthesis of possibly every field and skill on this planet in an attempt to protect our natural heritage.” Yes. We need you. The ‘common’ man with ‘common’ skills. We need entrepreneurs to initiate alternate sustainable livelihoods projects, marketing professionals to promote the importance of wildlife conservation, salesmen to sell our ideas to the larger public, engineers to design technology to understand animal movement and behavior, social scientists to engage local communities in conservation efforts, medical teams to provide proper treatment to individuals in cases of accidental animal attacks, investigators to investigate wildlife crime, managers to devise adaptive management techniques, journalists to spread the message far and wide, artists to popularize the environmental movement, teachers to germinate seeds of nature conservation in younger generations, finance graduates to establish clever funding schemes towards greater conservation efforts, and finally, scientists to ensure that scientific process isn’t violated. This is also what Nagaland needs. The common man. You may feel that your job/career lacks the potential to make a difference. You are wrong. Conservation, especially in the Indian scenario, requires active collaborations with the most regular of people who are willing to volunteer a part of their lives into the cause. For many of us, wildlife hunting might seem to be an alien concept, but it is a stark reality for Nagaland’s wildlife and for the indigenous communities that depend upon this tradition. Only that tradition is being replaced with over-exploitation. Spears with guns. Subsistence with commerce. How does it affect hunting? How sustainable is hunting? How severed is the web holding the ecological communities together? And what does erosion of a significant tradition imply for the social dynamics and history of indigenous peoples in the state? I hope to navigate the labyrinth of emotions, traditions, economics, relations to find a satisfactory answer. It might be the classic case of the untrod path beckoning the traveler along it – and the traveler could not do it without you.
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So there I was. An opportunity to study what I had been yearning to study since 5 years. Satisfying a dream I had nurtured for the longest time. The road here had been rough. But it was well worth it. Or so I thought...
Flashback to education in India. A product of the Indian education system, a marks-oriented intense societal pressure system that is becoming increasingly capable of driving young children to suicide. But I was among the lucky ones. The kid who scored. Who managed a decent rank in all exams. In school I did it because I liked it. Or that's what I was taught to believe. I would like to think I liked it. Then came a series of bad choices, not fought hard enough against that sent me straight to the exact education I did not want. Technical studies were traumatic enough- I was driven further up the wall thinking about how I should be outdoors and not cocooned inside air conditioned walls. Scoring in exams came easily though- whether out of lack of challenge or because of smarter friends who taught the subject a day beforehand, I don't know. But we lived, I lived and to my relief I was spat out of the system- glossy and shiny - all ready for a thriving it job market. When I put my foot down. And decided it wasn't worth it. But once a victim, always a victim. After a year of relative peace in a nondescript rural area, I packed off to another education system, another continent, another country, another culture- but the same stress. This time around I face a time-starved system- that offers me a zillion choices, but won't afford the time to give justice to any of them. So without launching into a diatribe on the evils of the education system, I ask a few questions- 1. 'Customer Satisfaction' is the buzzword across the globe. If the customer is satisfied, if the electorate is satisfied, if the employee is satisfied, success follows. Why is this principle not applied to education systems? And to students? How many students can claim to be a 90% satisfied with their education? The issue becomes critical once the student enters college, and falls into a routine- a routine he accepts as being a part of his future. In a way the system prepares him for a future of dissatisfaction with his career, his dreams crushed. And hopes shattered. 2. Is education for the elite? Despite considerable efforts at promoting school education globally, higher education remains the privilege of an elite few, who have the means (or rather are supported by parents) to pursue graduate education. How fair is it that despite such advancements in human society (of which I consider few to be really significant, but that's another topic) only a few of us get the opportunity to pursue further studies? Why are education systems so cash starved that they become increasingly elitist with higher degrees? And what responsiblity towards society do we bear, as alumni or current students? 3. As products of a graduate degree, what is our global contribution? As fortunate members of a 7 billion population, being people who have had the rare opportunity to become 'knowledgable'- how are we using our skills and knowledge to improve the globe? Eradicate poverty? For social justice? Improve health? Not everybody needs to be a social activist, not everybody needs to be out in the sweltering sun. But where are the big ideas, the innovations, the reforms required to revolutionize society? Or to make the lives of even 50 households in a remote poverty stricken village better? Where are the big ideas?! 4. Is education really the answer to all problems? As students (ESP in India) we have been pushed from one degree to the next to the next to the next until our rationalizing, understanding and tolerance powers vanish into thin air. We remain but hollow skeletons of a system that ruthlessly churns out more paper degrees each year, unmindful of the quality of students being generated. So should we care about education at all? Depressing though it may seem, there has to be a golden rule. Some hidden formula that makes education worth the quarter of our life we invest in it. Perhaps it is time we start looking for answers. Avoid the mistakes of our past. Because education is not such a bad word after all. The purpose of education should be to provide students with a value system, a standard, a set of ideas- not to prepare them for a particular job.
Education is, at its core, a basic understanding of the world encompassing all social, political and developmental aspects of human life. Human beings, for ages unknown, have used this knowledge to form a deep and meaningful relationship with all that they have encountered over the long-drawn and arduous process of evolution. Socrates, Galileo, Newton have all contributed in the struggle for the Truth, sowing the seeds of unquestioned respect for scholars and academics worldwide. Education, in itself, is a powerful tool. It provides a fascinating insight into how the universe functions- why the earth is round and the sky is blue, why birds migrate and frogs hibernate, how machines are built and bridges constructed, and to sum it up, how the entire system of the universe manages to co-exist without any alteration of balance. Scientific breakthroughs in the field of medicine can revolutionize healthcare, upcoming fields like genetics research can lead to treatment of thousands affected by incurable diseases. Robotics can send an unmanned spacecraft into the solar system and return with never before seen footage of the worlds beyond our own. Any individual, irrespective of his social background, can dream big and achieve the impossible with just the right degree of training. The ability to change the world lies in the hands of the learned, those who spend their lives yearning for that control. And their education is what determines whether they have that capability. A human child begins to grasp his surroundings at a very young age. He absorbs and analyses situations and sometimes, manipulates them for his won benefit. Education provides him with a new set of eyes through which he views his world. Man’s thirst for knowledge can never truly be quenched. He remains a student throughout his life. Many academicians have debated about what truly is education. Is it a system that should concentrate on feeding crass knowledge into raw minds, or should it be a higher school of thought that focuses on the overall development of the child? Should colleges be reduced to factories minting out custom-made professionals whose curiosity in subjects occurring outside their chosen fields are treated with contempt and cruelly suppressed? Educational institutions are seats of higher learning. But more than that, they are places where a child grows into an adult, his life transforms, first into gawky adolescence and then into mature adulthood. This is where he makes the first friends, wins the first game of basketball, participates in the drama competition, falls in love and then out of it, and creates a niche for himself, an identity that he can claim to be totally and completely his own. And that is what education should be all about. It should concentrate on developing the personality of students and discourage academic pressures of any kind. The student should be dissuaded from poring into his books, instead he should be encouraged to look around, travel and gain the amazing insights the world has to offer. Free thinking should be the norm on college campuses and knowledge should be acquired, not force fed. There should be an attempt to achieve the seemingly impossible, which would allow the participant to savour the victory of his acquisition. Liberation of education from the clutches of narrow mindedness and anachronism is the order of the day…Unless of course, we want our future generations to be reduced to a collection of intelligent, yet mindless robots. |
AuthorSahila believes it is time to overcome the disconnect between education and reality ArchivesCategories
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