Failure Of The Modern Western Education System To Graduate A Complete Human Being:
A CALL FOR PARADIGM CHANGE
By: Sherrif Kaisi
The modern education system ignores the inner development of human beings and instead allows corruption to take root on earth in different dimensions. This is due to the fact that Western education philosophies are based on a secular and secularist worldview. Secularism leads humans down the path of conjecture and speculation. Secularism and secularization, in the end, isolate human relationships from the truth and reality of the world. This means every knowledge that man gets from the education system, which is backed up with secular ideologies, gives him a way to ignore his link with the creator. As a result of this issue, students and graduates from education systems that are deeply rooted in secularism ideologies face a slew of intellectual, cultural, and spiritual crises.
“What is the problem with the modern Western education system, which many African and Asian countries have blindly embraced?” One might ask. If the system is wrong, then why do we have graduates? The simple and straight-forward answer to these questions is; the problem is not the system per se, but the worldview and ideologies that anchor the system, which
are the ones marred with problems.
Because it is based on three main pillars, namely secularism, dualism, and humanism, which permeate all aspects of Western life and thought. For a better and more critical understanding of why I blame the Western education system for massively contributing to human moral decay, here is the definition of each concept mentioned above:
- Secularism is most commonly defined as the separation of religion from civic affairs and the state, but may be broadened to a similar position seeking to remove or minimize the role of religion in any public sphere.
- Dualism is the underlying belief that the human mind and the human body are two entirely separate entities. This is diametrically opposite. The real truth here is that man must be capable of knowing himself, i.e., to recognize his original position and place. He must be able to understand that he is a combination of body and soul and that the two cannot be separated.
- Humanism is a life philosophy that prioritizes the welfare of humanity over the welfare of a supposed God. Humanism maintains there is no evidence a supernatural power ever needed or wanted anything from people, communicated with them, or interfered with the laws of nature to assist or harm anyone.
These are the ideological foundations that shaped Western education systems. One common theme found in them is that they dismiss the existence of God and believe that man should not submit himself to any supernatural being. So, in this case, the question of God’s punishment for causing corruption on Earth is out of question because, according to them, this God does not exist at all! This is where all the
problems and challenges facing human societies emanate from. Consequently, any educational system founded on these beliefs graduates citizens, not fully responsible human beings.
It is a sad reality to note that all colonized states, whether in Africa or elsewhere, just embraced such educational systems from their colonial masters, and what is sadder still is that no critical review was
done after the adoption. Hence, today, it will not sound reasonable enough to many people when they are told the reality of this matter. Simply because many people are unaware that the system they have experienced and which is now being glorified was founded on such ideologies.
Based on the foregoing analysis, I believe that all educational institutions that adhere to the Western education system have generally failed to produce responsible human beings. A special focus on higher
learning institutions is emphasized here because higher education today has failed to instill integrity in its scholars. This has led to the production of massively corrupt citizens and has hampered the national
development of our country. Many of those who wreak havoc in our societies and have ties to mismanagement of public resources are graduates of various higher learning institutions, either in Malawi or abroad. Since the syllabi they have gone through from kindergarten to university corridors do not have an element of inculcating high standards of morals and values, they graduate only as professionals in their relevant fields but not as responsible and complete human beings. Throughout the period spent at school, they are trained that the body and soul are two different elements and should always be kept separate. The unseen soul should be led and governed by that which has emotions. The truth is that a good education system should aid in the development of people’s character traits. But this is not the case!
Whether to change or continue with an educational system that does not instill virtue and high moral standards in its graduates at all levels of education is a question that should be considered!
If I may give my view, then I say, a new educational system that values the reality of life should be designed, whose structure will be different from that of a Western learning institution, whose conception of what constitutes knowledge is different from what Western philosophers set forth as knowledge, and whose aims and aspirations are different from Western aims and aspirations. The ultimate emphasis is that the purpose of education should not be like that of the West, which aims to produce complete citizens, but rather to produce a complete man, as the Islamic Worldview stands for.
