Shiksha And Vidya Essay

Ancient Indian educators used ‘Shiksha’ and ‘vidya’ terms in education. The term “Shiksha” means ‘to discipline’ or ‘to teach’ or ‘to instruct’ and the term “Vidya” means “to know” or “knowledge”. The aim of the ‘Shiksha’ and ‘vidya’ was to train the child through experiences of his life.

In India the concept of education is different from the western concept of education. The differences are based on the social values, the prevailing norms of the society and the concepts of personality. From Rigveda till today the concept is the same but the trends are changed. “Rigveda” defined the term education as ‘education is something which makes man self-reliant and self-less. “Upanishad” defined the term education as ‘education is for liberation’. “Bhagavdgita” defined ‘nothing is more purifying on earth than knowledge”.

In the narrow sense, education is a planned, organised and formalized process which is imparted at a particular place such as school, college or university and at a definite time. It is also imparted by definite teachers to definite students.

There is no time limit for the purpose. Education is neither teaching nor instruction. Education is a continuous process from birth to death. Man can learn from every platform of life such as the playground, the library, the temple, the office, the market, the sea shore, the hotel, agriculture field etc. In this broad sense life is education and education is life.

Education in India follows a uniform structure of school education which is known as the 10+2 system. This system is being followed by all Indian States and Union Territories. But not all of them follow a distinct pattern as per the system. In recent decades India has made significant progress on access to schooling and enrolment rates in primary education but dropout rates and low levels of learning remain challenges for the state and the central