Write in brief note on education as an instrument of change.
1. No doubt, education serves very effectively as an instrument of social change.
2. One scholar has rightly urged that education is nothing but change of behaviour. The modern education changes the outlook of people from dogmatic, conservative, inert, to rational forward looking and achievement-oriented.
3. The change in the outlook and altitude of people leads to changes in social and cultural matrix of society.
4. We can observe radical changes that have taken place in the family, community and caste system of Indian scoiety due to expansion of education facilities.
5. The modern education has contributed greatly to the introduction of new sophisticated and highly efficient technologies in the service of human beings. It has brought about not only economic development particularly in rural areas but has also been instrumental for several changes in social relationships.
6. The modern education has contributed in disturbing the traditional Indian joint family system, particularly the dominating positing of a male member and relatively lower position having by the women in this family system. The position of the women has improved. This has been possible only due to expansion of education. Economically also the women are more independent. This has automatically reduced the magnitude of gender discrimination.
7. In traditional Indian society, interpersonal relations in the community were based on the caste norms. For most of the castes, there were fixed occupations which the people were supposed to adopt. As a result, inter-caste relations were guided by criteria of ‘high’ and ‘low’ and were generally exploitative.The higher landed castes often monopolized political power in rural areas. But, the education now is changing very quickly this traditional setting in the villages very interpersonal relations in the village community are now coming to be based more and more on the principles of democracy and equality. Every individual can now make efforts for his or her economic and political betterment and thus try to rise in the social hierarchy.
