An engineer who supposed has spent most of his schooling and college studying science says that he is a descender of lord Sun because he belongs to Suryavnsi Rajput. A doctor who claims that Brahmins are superior to others because he believes god created them superior. In both cases, they are educated people in the view of society because they are earning money and living a good materially prosperous life. But we have to ask a question to ourselves are they educated? Why do an engineer is completely ignorant of the fact that the sun has nothing to with his ancestry, is just a physical body? The doctor must have studied the theory of evolution during his school or college days. Why was he not able to relate that knowledge in his thinking? How can he say that brahmins are created superior rather than saying we all African apes? The problem is the ignorance of scientific and rational thought is not just harming individuals but society as a whole. A Brahmin boy who thinks that they are created superior to others is part of social evil called casteism we cannot be oblivious of this mindset because it is not restricted to the individual. People’s beliefs determined (most of the time) their actions and they are part of the society and inevitably going to affect society. We cannot afford to be ignorant about them. This kind of irrational thought is not solely related to any religion or caste you can have several examples in different castes and faith. If schools and colleges do not teach the basic thing to students how can they call themselves educational institutions? So, the problem that we have discussed above forces us thinks about a very important question what is education? And what is it to be an educated person.
Who is an educated person? What should education aim for? These kinds of questions belong to a discipline called the philosophy of education Where philosophers of education deal with such questions in every detail. Perhaps one has to spend several years studying the philosophy of education to engage with questions which answer seems obvious to common people. It is not fair to expect people to have a philosophical understanding of these sorts of questions. Since the question of education is very central to any society, we must have some essential criteria to get a sense of education and an educated person. In a society in general, the education of a person is determined by the number of years he has spent in an educational institution. Suppose if you have spent 12 years in education in an educational institution that means 12 the pass it means you are not much educated but not illiterate eighter. If have spent 15 years in education that means you are a graduate quite educated. So, the number of years in educational institutions is proportional to your being educated. There is something called quality education which means in general if you are earning good money after your education it indicates that you got quality education. So, the amount of your salary is proportional to quality education. These are the popular perception of education in society. So, there are two extremes of a spectrum where on one hand are philosophers and on the other hand society in general. But no one can blame philosophers for their deep understanding of education. They deal with the puzzling question and make a celerity for society to develop educational practices. So, how do we deal with questions like who are educated people? To address this question and leaving most of the stuff for philosophers of education I am asking different questions what is the duty of an educated person? What kind of things must trouble him? I would argue about it. In my view an educated person has two fundamental duties; first, he should try to expose prevalent lies in society, and second, he or she should be able to recognize the social evil of his time. So, in today’s context, an educated person, for instance, should have the capability to make a distinction between fact and fiction methodology and history, science, and superstitions. And he must aware of social evils which are harming society. One cannot be Casteist and educated at the same time. A castist cannot be qualified as an educated person so patriarchy , and a communal person. There are many social evils I have just mentioned a few to make my point.
Search for the truth is essential to education. One may not be able to know everything things but they should have mental and intellectual capacities to examine evidence use reason value evidence to know things for themselves. An educated person must have awareness of social evils but that not enough moral courage also important to show possible resistance against such practices to qualified as an educated person. These are two necessary conditions in my mind to call somebody an educated person. So, our education system must make an effort to meet these two conditions along with others which are suggested by the philosophy of education.
If suggest conditions are met by our education system then we will not have to see the example of the mentioned doctor and engineer.