A liberal education will liberate future

People around the world today face immense challenges in every sphere of life. New and transformational developments in technology are leading to changes in the workplace and in the ways that we interact with each other. Our indiscriminate use of fossil fuels and thoughtless consumerism has led to a rapidly deteriorating environment. There are sharp lines of divide between people based on culture, religion or class. Unfortunately, there are no easy answers to problems such as these.

In such an environment where the only constant is change, it becomes imperative to re-examine how we are training our young people to face the world. Traditionally, higher education has focused on content and depth of knowledge. The assumption was that this would help them hit the road running at the workplace.

However, increasingly, as information becomes freely available on the world wide web, yet knowledge itself becomes rapidly outdated, it is clear that this is no longer the method to best prepare young people for the challenges of the 21st century. Instead of being content-focused, and teaching them what to think, we need to equip them with the skills that will teach them how to think. This is where a liberal arts and sciences education comes in.

In a liberal education set up, students have the ability to explore a number of subjects and areas of study. They can choose a mix of courses from subjects as diverse as the arts, computers, humanities, languages, mathematics, natural or 'hard' sciences, and social sciences, while at the same time going deep into a particular area of specialisation.

In today's workplace, problems are not related to only a single field of study: businesses need to approach every situation from different angles to come up with robust solutions. To succeed in this environment, a person needs to be aware of developments across many fields and take an integrated perspective on issues.

Besides facilitating a multi-disciplinary approach, a liberal arts and sciences education stimulates critical thinking as well as analytical thinking skills. The pedagogy is designed to encourage creativity and curiosity, reasoned and logical questioning rather than the mere acceptance of facts.

The idea is to endow students with the capacity to think independently; to help them move from an examination-oriented, structured environment to new ways of studying and working with their peers in a learning-focused, growth-oriented system that enables them to think and learn across different disciplines. The skills they pick up in the process will equip these students with the agility and flexibility to respond and adapt to different kinds of challenges in life.

A third part of the preparation to being a future leader is the ability to work in cross-border teams with people from different parts of the world.

Experiential learning

Many liberal education-oriented universities today focus on experiential learning, with projects and teams, as well as offer the opportunity to interact with students and teachers in other parts of the world, often through partnerships in exchange programmes or internships abroad. These help broaden the perspectives of students and help them marry local sensibilities with global outlook.

More importantly, it provides students with a nuanced exposure to the world around them, training them not only towards accomplishing narrow career goals, but also towards making socially relevant contributions. Students become more sensitised to issues such as sustainability of resource use and environmental degradation; through their work with the community, they become aware of the people around them and empathise with their problems and issues; they are willing to work for common betterment rather than just for their own individual goals.

Finally, an education in liberal arts and sciences equips young people to work and succeed in a world of conflicts. People today are polarised along various fault lines. They are often unwilling to engage in dialogue, with an attitude of 'It's my way or the highway,' which can only lead to further intensification of conflict.

Liberal education helps young people to navigate these opinions and manage to come together for a common purpose. It trains youngsters to understand, evaluate and accept differences and still discover common ground and a way forward, to debate and discuss and find solutions in ambiguous environments. This prepares for them for life in a fractured, yet global, world where they can be forerunners of change and transformation and can help integrate different factions, thus enhancing the quality of life in not only their communities, but in the world at large.

These several factors highlight the need for multi-disciplinary liberal education in India. In the last decade or so, the emergence of a few institutions offering liberal education in India has not only raised standards of learning but opened newer and more exciting avenues for our youth. These institutions should be strengthened and scaled up to help equip our young people to face the challenges of today, and work towards a better tomorrow.

(The writer is Pro-Vice Chancellor, Ashoka University)