Liberalism and Education

By Prof. Jan-Argy Y. Tolentino


A rough characterization of the liberal spirit might be "live, and let live". A friend would always remind me that it would be illiberal to insist on everyone following Socratic rule to examine and reflect on what is valuable. Liberals must let people live unexamined lives; their concern arises only when such people try to stop others getting on with their own preferred life-style.

If liberals should let people get on with their lives, always, except infringements on the equal liberty of others, it might seem that liberals should let people get on with bringing up their children, pretty much how they like. Unexamined modes of life can be reproduced. Let people get on with it.

An important value for liberals, which is often forgotten and yet is implicit in many of the things liberal strive for is Education. Education is a central liberal value. The liberal commitment to the individual doesn’t stop at the notion that the individual is the best judge of his/her own interest. The commitment to the individual includes commitment to maximizing opportunities and commitment to self-fulfillment.

It is a truism that the educational literature is replete with conceptions of education that tell us that in this context of bringing children into the human fold we have some special obligations to them that we do not have towards adults. Even when education is viewed as little different from any other mode of socialization, educators are not likely to advocate exposure to prostitution or child abuse as part of their offerings. Fortunately or unfortunately, what schools offer is colored by normative conceptions on everyone's view.

But the important point is that within this range of conceptions of education are some which stress intellectual detachment from what is socially given and promote intellectual independence and autonomy. It is likely to cut people somewhat adrift from their social moorings. Nor is it a particularly congenial site for toleration. We liberals want learners to get things right, not just do any old thing that occurs to them or is customary in their social milieu.

When liberals speak about education, it is not about learning by mechanical repetition of something so that it is remembered, often without real understanding of its meaning or significance, but learning to decide for oneself.

Our values define and affect our thinking on education policies. If you’re a right winger, your proposals would emphasize on tradition. You would probably would have greater emphasis on History, Literature, Arts, Geography of your own country. Maybe an emphasis on Religion. Your school rules will reflect tradition in the behavior it promotes. If you are left leaning, you will probably emphasize the importance of a uniform and unified single school system owned and controlled very closely by the state.

The purpose of such an approach would be to ensure that the system produces an equitable outcome. You will try to avoid coaching high performers, concentrating your efforts instead on helping those who have difficulties on education. But if you’re a liberal, progress as a liberal value is inconceivable without education. Liberals also put great premium on education. It is not important in itself but in the outcome it produces: better answers, greater quality and choices.

Liberals believe that Education is a tool. There is an old Bengali saying that knowledge is a very special commodity, the more you give away, the more you have left. Imparting Education not only enlightens the receiver, but also broadens the giver

In the seminar I attended in Gummersbach last year, the agora for liberal ideas, there are propositions that we put forward. And here are some of those

1. 1. Every human being has a right to education and a duty to educate himself. And Excellence is not the end all of it, the purpose is not just to make us winners but first and foremost fight ignorance.

2. 2. Education is primarily self development that provides emancipation, opportunity and security hence it is the responsibility, not just of the government but of all free citizens.

3. 3. Quality can be achieved through competition. This means competing schools, curricula and it also means direct control by consumers.

4. 4. Education is a life long learning. Was it Mark Twain who said “I don’t let my schooling interfere with my education” It doesn’t end after graduation. Even in our deathbeds we continue to learn

5. 5. Occupational Skills are just as important as academic skills. We tend to give importance to education that could provide us white collared jobs but can you just imagine a world without carpenters, waiters, attendants.

6. 6. In financing education, the liberal approach is to encourage and invite all potential actors to play their part in the finance and provision of education.

7. Access to Education is as important to the content of education.

We liberals also want everyone to be able to say, in some cases, "I accept –this idea (say Islam)- but I think you are not unreasonable not to accept it", but in others "I accept –the idea (of Islam)-, say and I think you are unreasonable not to accept it." The difficulty is to spell out a coherent sense in which you are reasonable to withhold assent while I am reasonable to accept a belief, when we are both confronted by the same reasons and evidence.

Surely the only reasonable thing to do is to withhold assent until something good enough to determine acceptance (or rejection) becomes available for both of us. It is not only self-defeating to defend tolerance by arguing for the falsity of religious or other views that might reject it, it fails to capture an important element in the liberal defense: we tolerate for reasons you can endorse too, not for reasons you have to reject.

Before I end, I’d like to quote a Muslim friend from Mindanao “If Muslim and Christians or protestants or Jewish and other children do not mix, and nor do their families-they become ignorant of each other, then suspicious, then fearful and hostile…there is no doubt that those promoting faith based schools have laudable intentions, but it may prove retrograde step. Schools should be used to provide bridges, not barriers.”

Delivered by YLDA MemComm Chair and KALIPI Sec.Gen. on the occasion of the International Youth Day, August 12, 2006 in Lahore, Pakistan in a forum organized by the Future Youth Group of Pakistan