Human Capital to Being Human: Exploring the Meaning of Education in Our Times.

From the transition of traditional society to industrial society, during this whole epoch education is seen as something which is essential for once sustenance in current society. The emphasis on skill learning and resultant production of skilled labour can be associated phenomena related to it. We see the rise of this phenomenon more in post-industrial global society. And because of this, education is seen as production of human capital. But many educationists question this process of education and thought, by asking the very basic question of what education is & for?. Ivan Illich, in his book ‘Deschooling Society’ and in ‘Celebration of Awareness’ questions this form of education, which leads to schooled consciousness. While Paulo Freire, in his book ‘Pedagogy of the oppressed’ question banking nature of our education system and showed the dialogic possibility within education. We can see many thinkers who question the very nature of education in our contemporary society. This paper, while taking into consideration the education system in present context, tries to find different thoughts which talked about education different from the neoliberal-global context and its association with one’s being & life. This paper will also tries to explore the answer of a question that is – can life-affirming education still be possible in our times?, through the writings of Rabindranath Tagore, Jiddu Krishnamurti, Bell Hooks and M. Gandhi.