Shri Aurobindo Ghosh was deadly against the prevalent education of his times. He has admitted that after the attainment of independence, changes have occurred in our system of education, but it is not in conformity with the mental and spiritual needs of children and demands of the nation.
According to him our education should be in accordance with the needs of our real modern life. Shri Aurobindo writes— “Education to be true must not be a machine made fabric, but a true building or living evocation of the powers of the mind and spirit of human being.” Aims of Education
1. Physical Development and Purity:
The first aim of education is to achieve complete physical and pure development of a child. According to Aurobindo, it is the body which performs all religious obligations. Physical development and purification are the two basis on which the edifice of spiritual development is built.
2. Development of Senses:
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The second aim of education is to train all the senses namely hearing, speaking, and listening, touching, smelling and tasting. According to Aurobindo these senses can be fully trained when nerve, chitta and manas are pure.
3. Mental Development:
The third aim of education is to achieve mental development of the child. This mental development means the development of all mental faculties namely – memory, thinking, reasoning, imagination and discrimination etc.
4. Development of Morality:
Shri Aurobindo has emphasized that without moral and emotional development mental development becomes harmful to human progress. For the moral development of child emotions, impressions or habits and nature are the three essential factors. Thus the ideals of a teacher should be so high that the child, by mere imitation, is able to reach higher and higher stages of development.
5. Development of Conscience:
Another important aim of education is to develop the conscience. According to him, it has four levels namely— (1) Chitta, (2) Manas, (3) Intelligence, (4) Knowledge. A teacher should develop all these four levels harmoniously. This will promote the development of conscience.
6. Spiritual Development:
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Shri Aurobindo emphasised that the main aim of education is to promote spiritual development. According to him every human being has some element of divinity in him. In his own words— “The chief aim of education should be to help the growing soul to draw out that in itself which is best and make it perfect for a noble use.”
