The term 'education' etymologically comes from 'educare'. It is Latin in origin. It means to lead, to take out of. Education by definition takes you out of ignorance, and leads you towards light, the light of knowledge, the light of wisdom, the light of truth. That is the stem of education, the core, the real value and meaning of education, whatever be the branch.
This definition seems to be changing drastically now. To begin with, everything now has to have a utilitarian purpose. To be relevant at all is to be useful. Given such a scenario, 'stem' now is an acronym. The full form would be science, engineering, technology, mathematics/medicine. Undoubtedly, all these,too, do have the base of intellectual exploration.
Primarily though, education as per this definition of the STEM is use-oriented, and hence market-driven. It is noteworthy that in such a scenario, interdisciplinary studies would not even be 'Liberal Arts'! Rather interdisciplinarity would mean a cross of medical technology, a cyborg, for instance.
Yet another "in" branch is management. Noteworthy by absence is the branch called humanities. Even therein, such quasi-technical areas as Economics, Psychology do carry some weight. Language, getting more and more hieroglyphic under the influence of emoji writing, has very little space in this scenario, and literature, almost none. Sad in an era dominated by communication.
YES, people seem to be reading a lot. It is either pop literature or the p.d. (Personality Development) or the DIY (do it yourself) stuff. Serious literature, not much required in the Times of Millions of Mobiles that are a gateway to 'entertainment, entertainment, entertainment ' 24 x 7 non-stop, now with the OTT, not to forget 'all' types of sites/vlogs, is getting more and more elite, esoteric, exclusionary even when it deals intensely with most seminal issues.
None is concerned though; especially not Language/Literature departments, lost to cheap politicking, third rate infighting, and baseless 'me alone' oneupmanship! The stem is indeed rotten!
Pratima@ This is not Plato's cave. Neither is it the dark before the dawn. It is the dusk that settles in to the dark night!
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