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| Yes | 12% | 12 votes | Total: 100 votes | |
| No | 88% | 88 votes |
Yes
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Add to FavoritesWhile everyone wants freedom from the watchful eye and strong hand of the government it is often the wisest move to entrust such activities with people who are working for the greater good of everyone and not for one small aim or objective.
Let me elaborate, I suppose most people would want a separate agency to be set up to decide the history syllabus. Perhaps a committee consisting of the most knowledgeable historian in the country and perhaps even experts from other parts of the world. Most probably they would come up with the most concise and in dept history syllabus we would have ever seen and parents would be able to sit in peace knowing their children are getting a detailed unbiased knowledge of our past and the worlds history.
But such a Utopian situation is very unlikely. Firstly historians are not unbiased all knowing people. they are very likely to support their own point of view and that point of view might not always be the best for the students or the nation. Secondly, frankly they are far too likely to make the books thick beyond measure with unnecessary things. History simply need be taught at a fairly basic level to ensure we are not disconnected with the world and our past and hopefully make us a tab bit wiser and smarter so that no one can fool us with a Trojan horse again.
the government is the perfect body to decide what should be put in the school history books as they have everyone's better self interest at heart. Perhaps they would change a few things here and there and maybe omit a few details but if that is enough to increase the level of patriotism and national pride in our people then it is a small price to pay. More importantly history must finally be taught for a greater purpose than simply the accumulation of facts and dates, we have university majors for that. History must now be something which will make a difference in an individual's life and hopefully that will translate to the nation as well.
I suppose someone very rightly said that history is written by the victors. Lets allow our government a fair chance, what have we to lose? Students are currently least interested in studying history and feel it is a complete waste. Only a new program designed keeping all this in mind will bring us back on track and I really can't see how anyone can do that better than the government who has been making the very history we read in our books.
Learn more about this author, Rohan Jolly.
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No
Let's face the facts. As Alex Haley puts it so succinctly, "history is written by the winners. Education, for all its virtues extolled by so many, is really just an institutionalized and systematic method of promoting propaganda. In its crudest terms, education is nothing more than brainwashing generation after generation. The best part is, because this method of propagandistic proliferation hides under the guise of intellectual nourishment, it faces little, if any, form of opposition."
If that is the case made for what education truly is, then my question is, why should the state not make full use of this tool to further its interests? The politics and influence and survival often dictate what is found in history books. The ruling party tends to orient the education ministry to write history books in a way that places their political decisions and policies in a positive light. This is the cheapest, and perhaps most effective, method of maintaining the support of the masses.
The education curriculum in Japan has long been a sore point for Chinese and Korean sensitivities. The Japanese have been accused of glossing over atrocities committed during their wartime aggression in World War II across East Asia, most specifically, in the Korean peninsula and in Nanking, China. Instead of being repentant for the war crimes and studying such facts objectively, many history texts have placed such occurrences as minor footnotes, while attempting to justify the actions of the past. Understandably, the Chinese and Koreans have been outraged and hurt that injustices committed against their people can be disregarded so blatantly.
This is but one example of how governments can use education and history texts as propaganda tools to their own benefit. However, the sad reality is that the consumers of such warped information and biased facts are the impressionable young. Most would believe what they are taught, and should they grow up learning such lopsided 'histories', our future generations would have an inaccurate picture of what has happened in the past. They will not be able to assess events happening in the present objectively, and are less capable of avoiding past mistakes, mistakes that have sometimes resulted in disaster for an entire generation.
What then, can be done? I believe that nothing much can be done at this moment. However, the rise of an increasingly educated and globally-savvy populace will put increasing pressure of governments around the world to task their education ministries to represent facts accurately. This task must lie in the hand of youths, the future generation of leaders and world-shakers. However, until that critical mass of citizens pushing for unbiased history texts and education curriculum, I highly doubt much more can be expected of the state's constant intervention in what is taught in public educational institutions.
Learn more about this author, Timou.
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