At a time when the search for a job is uppermost in your mind, any suggestion of personal cultivation may sound naive or even unkind. But education will be a highly impoverished engagement if it were to be limited to only completing a course of study and finding an employment, as important as they both are.
One of the supreme ironies of modern education – at all levels- is that its inspiration comes from the open market and not from ideals and visions that elevate the mind and expand the heart. Reductive market metaphors are the order of the day. We have, therefore, saleable graduates, marketable ideas, employable skills, as if the whole purpose of education were to prepare young men and women for employment and nothing else.
Neither extreme is affordable. A wholesome middle path is the call of the hour. James Michener’s conception of the Clovis point provides a most compelling model for a new role of education. In his famous novel The Centennial, Michener has the narrator all praise for the hunter who has manufactured a most potent equipment to catch game.
If it were just a question of fitting out an equipment to catch animals, the hunter could have simply forged a practical weapon and had his feast. But, he went a step further- he turned the weapon into a work of art – over and above making it a hunting equipment.
I like to think of education in such the same way as Michener’s hunter thinks of his hunting equipment- elevating the scholar with the qualities of usefulness and gracefulness. Education gains in value and substance if it ensures that the knowledge that the scholar acquires over a period of study is useful to himself or herself, to his or her family and to the society at large. Knowledge for its own sake is to be welcomed, but if it has practical value, you add fragrance to gold.
Knowledge devoid of gracefulness is brutish and tyrannical. Such knowledge creates a deficiency in the scholar that manifests itself immediately in his or her social interactions and public behaviour. Values are a function of principal and of action. Where do I stand in the scale of values?
On a more far-reaching national scale, when many of you were away, we ushered in a new system of governance in the country. Unlike in so many countries around the world, democracy came to Bhutan in peace-time as the symbol of conscious decisions of his majesty our beloved Drukgyal Zhipa Jigme Singye Wangchuck.
Today, we would like to ask ourselves: What is my image of my country ten years from now” 20 years? 50? 100 years and beyond? Will it be a prosperous and confident country of Gross national happiness at peace with itself? What will it take to move my country forward? What is my place in the scheme of things? As I am, so is my nation.
We have this historic responsibility of establishing and advancing a unique Bhutanese brand of democracy built on the principles of honour, integrity and the spirit of service. Only a strong sense of self-discipline at all levels of our society will ensure the success of democracy in our country.
With all its imperfections, we still have a country that is increasingly being looked at as a model for many things. As leaders of tomorrow, it falls upon you to receive the blessings of our heritage by right and responsibly and hand over to your successors who will receive and advanc3 it by right and responsibility.
I n a democracy, it is ever so easy to bulked and administer cynical and negative impulses. As leaders of tomorrow, it is my dream and my prayer that you will be the subjects of hope and of faith. This country is meant for noble things and you can be rte reason for its nobility of mind and of action.
The mass media have introduced the cost and colour of your kiras and your ghos, the make and height of your shoe-heels, to our capital city. I wonder what kind of Thimphu you met this time round. I wonder too what kind of graduates Thimphu has found this time round.
Year after year, hundreds of our scholars converge in Thimphu and merge in its dizzy life- with its own share of purity and its perversity. What will make your batch unique? This city will radiate the light that you have brought from the many seats of learning at home and abroad.
Our country will illumine in your ideals and in your integrity.
As leaders of tomorrow, we look upon you as the intellectual and moral force in the building of our nation.
May you all rise! May you all shine! Our leaders of tomorrow.
Tashi Delek.
It was a thought provoking speech by Education Lyonpo.
ReplyDeleteIndeed, thought provoking, as always...
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