Modern Education - Its Drawbacks

“Education has no meaning unless it helps you to understand the vast expanse of life with all its subtleties, with its extraordinary beauty, its sorrows and joys.” – J. Krishnamurti

In a world that is propelled almost exclusively by materialistic concerns, this statement awakens in us an insecurity about the efficacy of modern education. Other than awarding one with a series of degrees how can a packed classroom how can a packed classroom and voluminous textbooks on various subjects equip today’s man to face the larger questions of life? The answer to this question lies in the system of education prevalent in ancient India long before the West had even shed its barbaric culture – the gurukul system.

This ancient system of education imparted knowledge not only of the curriculum but built within each student a strong system of values which enabled him to weather the crests and troughs of life. Of course one does not mean that modern man has to go back to classes under ...