66 SOCIAL SCIENTIST
industrial growth and the capitalist path ran into trouble.
The main drawback of the present educational system is that it is not related to direct production. To some, education is a means to share the privileges without taking part in social production, even by the technically trained who are expected to do only supervisory or advisory functions. The unskilled or semi-skilled workers and peasants who undertake the actual productive work are denied the benefits of education. And the so called 'educated people5 who are ill at ease with the social life of the multitude, look after the interests of the landlords and the industrialists and lord it over the' peasants and workers. Gradually they find themselves off the mainstream of national life and between the exploiters and the exploited. At last, in order to establish bona fides, they put forward theories which contribute to the preserva^on of class distinctions in society and the defence of the privileged cias^. Through this process a major part of this section becomes the intellectual representative of the exploiting classes. In this way division is created between the illiterate and the literate, the workers and the educated. The capitalists skilfully utilize this cleavage to further their own class interests. A progressive education should aim at bringing down these walls of division and separation.
Bonds to Productive Labour
In this connection Lenin stated:
The correct idea is that an ideal future society cannot be conceived without the combination of education with the productive labour of the younger generation : neither training and education without productive labour, nor productive labour without parallel training and education could be raised to the degree required by the present level of technology and the state of scientific knowledge.1
Education that is not linked with the process of production cannot help the growth of the natural capacities of the individual. It may be mentioned here that the educationists subscribing to idealist philosophy do not consider education to be a part of the process of production, even though they support education based on activity (called activity method, project method or craft-centred education). They try to build up educa-tion along these lines on the qualities, such as tenacity, activity and creativity of the individual. They do not believe that- the main guiding force of social change and progress depends on the changes or improvement in the forces of production. To them individual excellence is all that education means—its relation to social production is not important. However, in the Basic Education Scheme ofGandhiji there was provision for linking education with social production. But as it did not recognize the continuous changes that are taking place in the production forces through inventions and innovations in technique it tried in vain to push back our society to the age of the charka (spinning-wheel).