Is it fair to use these words, qualification and knowledge, interchangeably? As knowledge refuses to be fully captured within the means of qualification, educators face a big challenge trying to fit it within system whether they agree with it or not. Of course, it is not everyone’s cup of tea to develop a blind faith in the system, especially if you are an evolved educator. With qualification comes the knowledge (despite the limitations of the system) that qualification is in no mean an end in itself. Knowledge might be, but qualification is most certainly not. So, is there any education system in the world which claims that their qualification is equivalent to the best of knowledge? Could it be Oxford, or Harvard maybe? Now, here is an unsaid assumption underneath this claim, if anyone does make it. This assumption is that the best of knowledge has been gathered and measured and put on paper already. Isn’t that a challenge to the very gist of knowledge: which yearns to be unbound?
The nature of knowledge is that it seeps in quietly depending on the willingness of the receptor whereas qualifications are bound, enforced, something to be acquired while you fight against fellow beings. Does knowledge also seek you to beat the competition? Framing a competition to check someone’s knowledge seems nothing more than a desperate effort on the part of educators and even worse is when they themselves fail to spell clearly what it is exactly that they are seeking. If it is just education then you are valuing a piece of paper over knowledge and if it is knowledge then the competitive exams are not really the right way to go about it.
This reminds me of the famous All Souls College, Oxford that is rightly famous for setting the hardest entrance exam for students. Hardest because there are no rules that you have to follow, you have to write an essay following a single keyword given to you on the spot. Now, just imagine the level of knowledge that ‘no-system’ can test and compare it with a system that drags down with it not just the financial resources of an institution but also reduces the search for truly knowledgeable fellows to a run of the mill competition.
If education is about learning and changing with the time, about keeping one’s knowledge updated then why the educators are so slow when it comes to learning from the best in their field? How is it that they can teach the same every year for years, without updating their knowledge? Where is the review? The system starts stinking the moment you leave the manhole with review open. To do your best, ensure that you close the loop. Define a system that competes with the best in the world instead of making you chose from the rest while you loose on the best fellows.
Gorgeous Human Love 