Education for the 21st Century

Abstract

The challenge of contemporary higher education is in its changing role, its involvement in the affairs and problems of the community, the nation and the world. Education must be involved with personal and social development and services, while maintaining its classical role, the cultivation of the mind, and the promotion of fundamental research in natural and social sciences and the arts. Confronted by serious social, economic, and political issues, a university cannot remain an ivory tower. It must become an “intellectual powerhouse for development and an instrument for social transformation” (Narayanan, 1988, 14). While we need to pursue the material advantages of science and technology, we need also a value-based society with human beings who are not insensitive automotons. We need well-rounded, integrated individuals who combine “the qualities of the heart and soul with those of the head and stomach” (16).