Conquering the existing situation and achieving modern society caused further goals to be defined for human societies to compete and cooperate to achieve. Even though today some societies have passed the modern state and are following a path that ends in postmodernity, some other societies still do not have a platform for the creation of a modern society.
In the current era, when some human societies are struggling to pass from modernity to postmodernity, some other human societies are still resisting modernity. Confrontation with modernity or lack of acceptance of it sometimes comes back to the human societies themselves or it is imposed by governments on human societies. Illiteracy, tribalism, sectarianism, and ignorance are effective in the inevitability of modernity. On the other hand, autocratic and non-democratic, sectarian, and ethnic governments are fighting for their survival to keep societies in a traditional state due to the fact that traditional societies are not well aware of their human and political rights and do not provide the necessary assistance to achieve them.
One of the most basic things for societies to pass from the traditional situation and trend toward modernization is the acquisition of knowledge and more importantly the nature of knowledge. Undoubtedly, only one branch of science alone cannot lead society from traditional to modern. Societies need all branches of science to modernize. This is because overlooking or ignoring one of the sciences can create a disruption in the process of modernity or slow it down. On the other hand, if all sciences are studied in a society and accepted by society, it can lead to facilitating the path of modernization of society and finally completing the process of modernity. Apart from society’s acceptance of learning science, what is fundamental is the curriculum or teaching materials for learning science. Without exaggeration, it can be claimed that the key indicator of learning science to modernize society is the curriculum.
In which direction closure of several science learning centers and institutions and changing the curriculum and teaching materials for school, university, and madrasa students will send the Afghan society? Modern or traditional? In this article, an attempt has been made to briefly discuss the role of education in modernizing Afghan society and its prospects.
Confrontation of Modernity and Traditional Indicators
Afghan society is considered as one of the traditional societies in which the components of a traditional society can be seen with a cursory glance. The importance of traditions, customs, and habits, the lack of educated people, the distance between people and governments, the decline of society’s mobility, the dominance of agriculture and subsistence economy over the industrial economy, tribal affiliation, and giving importance to small communities instead of large communities, society’s resistance to reforming the societal situation and other cases can be easily observed in the Afghan society. Therefore, to pass from the traditional situation to the modern situation, one of the most fundamental things is to make the society specialized literate. To achieve it, a scientific and comprehensive curriculum must be provided because it is the foundation of modern society. Therefore, in order to modernize the society of Afghanistan, one of the most important things is to make the society literate, which should be taken into consideration, and more importantly, to refine the curriculum that is supposed to be taught. It is the responsibility of families and governments to investigate the curriculum that all types of students are supposed to learn. Since today’s rulers do not give prestige and credibility to literacy, or their benefit lies in the traditionality of the society, only families bear the brunt, which intensifies as their responsibility increases.
Based on this, families should try to send their children to scientific and educational institutes, that are ethic-oriented, contemporary, and beneficent to learn science as well as not involved in political and security issues. Modern society requires responsible people to make a responsible society, which is one of the characteristics of modern societies. In traditional societies, people do not feel responsible for the big society by taking refuge in small societies, which is one of the main problems in traditional societies.
For a better understanding of this issue, we remind you of some important indicators and features that are necessary for the modernization of society in terms of education. Following them has the potential to lead to genuine modernization.
- Education Based on a Scientific and Comprehensive Curriculum
The first step in creating a platform for creating a modern society is to compile and write a modern and scientific curriculum for students. The role of the curriculum in the education of children and young people is so vital that if it is not carefully compiled and presented, it can have adverse consequences. Therefore, it should be taken into consideration that the importance of science is interpretive which is known to everyone, but the general public is not aware of the value of teaching materials. The curriculum should be comprehensive and scientific and devoid of the involvement of personal or unfavorable and unrealistic opinions. Socially friendly content should be included in the course materials, so as to encourage the readers to respect each other personally, domestically, ethnically, or even nationally. The curriculum should not include ethnic, regional, linguistic, or sectarian themes because it loses its acceptability in the eyes of the general society. Lesson topics should explain mutual acceptance and encourage the reader to respect the rights of others.
Knowledge is akin to a ladder for society to reach a modern state, and the curriculum and science are the steps of that ladder. Modern society needs a modern curriculum because it is not possible to put society in a modern state without updating the teaching materials and scientific disciplines. The curriculum must be continuously revised taking into account the current situation. What was going on in the schools and universities of Afghanistan in the last two decades and what the ministries of education and higher education were doing regarding the revision of the curriculum, although it was not acceptable, it was promising. Today, with the fall of the political system and the disintegration of the country’s educational systems, this issue is on a downhill path. Modern teaching materials play a significant role in raising a successful generation and talented students because there is a direct relationship between the quality of course materials and the quality of the students of an institution.
The curriculum is very important in determining the character of the students since school, university, and madrasa students shape their opinions and beliefs based on what they are taught. Therefore, if the curriculum of educational institutions and centers of Afghanistan is not designed and compiled based on acceptable standards, or even if the curriculum of schools and universities is changed from being in favor of the traditionalization of the society, the situation and outlook of the Afghan society will worsen. In that case, there will be no hope for the modernization of society for years and even decades. Therefore, families should ensure to the possible extent that their children are educated based on a scientific and comprehensive curriculum.
- Education in Scientific and Impartial Institutions
Institutions and scientific centers should adhere to the goals and objectives they have defined for themselves and strive to stay away from political issues and factionalism to a possible extent. Despotic or sectarian governments make efforts to convert school and religious students into their followers or even recruit from among them when necessary and use them as a tool for their survival. In this case, educational institutions should not cooperate with them for the purposes of authoritarian systems. In history, we have consistently seen such a situation where governments use the youth as a tool for their inhuman goals and seek to impose their ideas and beliefs on them to change the state of society. Communist, fascist, and even sectarian governments of the 20th century serve as clear examples of this situation.
Therefore, in the current chaotic and unorganized situation, people must be further cautious about sending teenagers and young students to educational institutions to learn science. This is because in this turmoil, instead of teaching science and knowledge, they may get involved in non-scientific issues, resulting in exacerbating the situation of society. To overcome the traditional situation and reach modern society, scientific and educational institutions play a significant role and are of special importance. The officials of such institutions should be aware of the society’s situation with all precision and sharpness due to the future of society depending on their decisions and actions.
- Education Based on Local and National Culture
Modern society does not necessarily mean denying indigenous and national culture but promoting and protecting it. However, what is inappropriate and immoral should be removed from the native and national culture and instead, what is appropriate and moral should be introduced into that culture. Modern society is a society that must be permanently updated in its culture, civilization, and social issues, and illicit and immoral phenomena must be removed and replaced by new and desirable phenomena. Accordingly, teaching and learning materials should be updated and new cultural and scientific phenomena should be introduced to society by following the example of modern societies. Therefore, Afghan society should not resist the entry of science or the acquisition of new scientific fields because in order to overcome the traditional situation, it is necessary to learn various contemporary sciences.
Today, scientific disciplines are being divided to align themselves with the needs of the age, and accordingly, each scientific discipline may examine and analyze itself once every few years, so that several other branches rise up from its core. The result of such a process is presenting science in a more specialized and professional manner. In today’s era and with this amount of available knowledge, it is not possible to learn all the subjects in only one institution and with a specific curriculum. A madrasa or a religious school cannot meet the scientific needs of a society by itself and only with a religious quorum. Such work is not possible from a school or university.
Therefore, it is worth mentioning that in order to modernize society, in a rational and reasonable way, it should be modeled after the societies that have followed the path of modernization correctly. For this purpose, different teaching materials and methods should be considered for multiple and heterogeneous fields and departments. For some disciplines or fields of study, only theoretical studies may be sufficient, while some other departments need theoretical and practical methods.
Unfortunately, in the current situation and by the current rulers, the education and learning of science has been severely neglected with only a few parts being taught in scientific institutions and centers, which is also suspect and doubtful in terms of quality. On the other hand, it should be mournfully expressed that the current rulers, in order to survive and maintain their dominance based on their manifesto and strategies, not only pave the way for the modernization of the society but also put huge obstacles in the way of the society, which make the society more traditional and backward than it is. Therefore, in order to go through the transition stage from tradition to modernity, Afghan society must separate its way from the government. The governments of the past few years that have ruled Afghanistan have not adopted a national and coherent plan for the transition of the society from the traditional to the modern state.
- Education Based on Accepted Models and Standards
Today, the world resembles a village that all people know and are familiar with, and what happens in the village does not remain hidden from the eyes of the people of the village. It has been a long time since globalization and related concepts have been talked about and it has somehow been accepted by the public. This situation has become real with the expansion of mass communication and the universalization of virtual spaces. Today, many of the top universities in the world always communicate in different ways to spread and expand science, which is also the case for communication between schools and even other scientific and research institutions. Unfortunately, government educational institutions and centers, which are under the strict restrictions of the rulers, cannot easily reach acceptable standards or even take samples from other countries’ models for better education. Unfortunately, this situation is not describable and desirable for institutions and personal training centers.
Read this article in Farsi here.