learnability

Nalanda has been an epitome of education once! Every educationalist should know what was and what is Nalanda?

The story of Nalanda -the first university

Nalanda (ISO: Nālandā, pronounced [naːlən̪d̪aː]) was an ancient Mahavihara (university), a revered Buddhist monastery which also served as a renowned centre of learning, in the ancient kingdom of Magadha (modern-day Bihar) in India. The university of Nalanda obtained significant fame, prestige and relevance during ancient times, and rose to legendary status due to its contribution to the emergence of India as a great power around the fourth century. The site is located about 95 kilometres (59 mi) southeast of Patna near the city of Bihar Sharif, and was one of the greatest centres of learning in the world from the fifth century CE to 1200 CE. Today, it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Nalanda flourished under the patronage of the Gupta Empire in the 5th and 6th centuries, and later under Harsha, the emperor of Kannauj. Kumara Gupta was the one who established this university primarily, a Buddhist monastery that worked as a university set up at Bihar was an important center of learning long before Oxford, Cambridge, and Europe’s oldest university Bologna was founded.

Can anyone believe the array of subjects which were taught in this prestigious institution like Nalanda? The Subjects like vedas, theology, grammar, logic, astronomy, metaphysics, medicine, and philosophy were taught in those times?

Much of our knowledge of Nalanda comes from the writings of pilgrim monks from Asia, such as Xuanzang and Yijing, who traveled to the Mahavihara(university) in the 7th century CE.

Nalanda was destroyed three times but was rebuilt only twice. It was ransacked and destroyed by an army of the Mamluk Dynasty of the Delhi Sultanate under Bakhtiyar Khalji in c. 1200 CE. While some sources note that the Mahavihara continued to function in a makeshift fashion after this attack, it was eventually abandoned all together and forgotten until the 19th century, when the site was surveyed and preliminary excavations were conducted by the Archaeological Survey of India. Systematic excavations commenced in 1915, which unearthed eleven monasteries and six brick temples neatly arranged on grounds 12 hectares (30 acres) in area.

The university in its golden period attracted renowned scholars from all over Asia, surviving for hundreds of years before being destroyed by invaders in 1193.

RESURRECTION of the lost most renowned and prestigious university

In 1951, the Nava Nalanda Mahavihara (New Nalanda Mahavihara), a modern centre for Pali and Buddhism in the spirit of the ancient institution, was founded by the Government of Bihar near Nalanda’s ruins at the suggestion of Dr. Rajendra Prasad, India’s first president. It was deemed to be a university in 2006.

The idea of Nalanda as an international center of learning is being restored by a group of statesmen and scholars headed by the Nobel prize-winning economist, Amartya Sen.1 September 2014 saw the commencement of the first academic year of a modern Nalanda University, with 15 students, in nearby Rajgir.

It has been established in a bid to revive the ancient seat of learning. The university has acquired 184 hectares (455 acres) of land for its campus and has been allotted ₹27.3 billion (equivalent to ₹35 billion or US$490 million in 2019) by the Indian government. Nobel laureate Amartya Sen was appointed as the first chancellor of this operational university. It is also being funded by the governments of China, Singapore, Australia, Thailand, and others.

Nalanda university today not only speaks of the kind of education we had centuries ago but the importance of having a large education center could ward off all the distraction which could affect a youngster at that age.

As an Indian we should be proud that we were the first in the world to have a university which benefited students from all over the world .We are the ones who brought enlightenment of knowledge and wisdom in ignorance.

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Story credit : Pooja

The most essential skill in today’s time is learnability which is the ability to acquire knowledge efficiently and effectively and use it in a meaningful way over and over again.

We as leaders need to bring up learners who are ready to

LEARN UNLEARN RELEARN

The internet and its increasingly wide accessibility, with the high penetration rates of 4G ,5G networks and smart phones in the country, has resulted in knowledge no longer offering the competitive advantage that it once did. It is no longer a differentiator.

Knowledge has become an increasingly ubiquitous commodity, as every information is available a touch away, learnability is increasingly replacing the knowledge in every context, which once was the single most important trait that the younger student need to be inculcated in. In today’s context knowledge is a perishable commodity, what one learns today will be obsolete by a new discovery made tomorrow.

In such a fast pacing era, training children in critical thinking ought to take precedence over spoon feeding them information.

The current education philosophy was designed hundred of years ago for the purpose of retaining knowledge and information. At schools, we feed children information,we expect them to remember that information and test for accuracy at exams. In real, we actually expect our children to become walking encyclopedia memorizing tons of facts and figures. It might have worked in the past because the information once learned was valid over a long period of time but today the older generation is already struggling with the accelerated changes that happen overnight.

While knowledge and the ability to retain that knowledge is by no means completely redundant yet – but the difference between a great career and a mediocre one is often determined by learnability and the skills possessed by the person -not by his knowledge.

In the rapidly changing world, what defines our success is not what we know, but rather, our ability to learn what we don’t know. Being knowledgeable does not imply learnability but the reverse certainly holds true. One could make a child knowledgeable in a chosen field by feeding her a ton of relevant information; but she may not know how to acquire a new knowledge independently.

Give a man a fish and you him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a life time.

This is the high time, we need to look for an education methodology that gives importance to developing creative abilities and skills for practical life over drilling in knowledge. our educational philosophy should priorities learnability, creativity and skill development.

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