The Essence of Education in Political Science

Aparna Debnath
Assistant professor in political science, CDOE, The University of Burdwan, West Bengal, India

DOI: https://doi.org/10.52756/ieldps.2022.e01.009

Keywords: Political Science, Society, Politics, Power, Education, Human beings, Social and Political.

Abstract:
Political science is a social science. It has had enormous potential to enrich us to be more disciplined, principled, and informed socially and politically. In this paper, from the above viewpoint, we try to focus on what we learn from political science, why and how we are equipped in our thinking as real human beings and how proper education is infiltrated into our consciousness by studying political science. In general, we always think that political science and politics are synonymous. But both are different from each other. The first is a social discipline, and the other is an activity relating to the exercise of power, influence and domination, in a word, ‘Politics’. So the practice/study of political science does not mean the practice of politics. As a social science, the main pivotal of political science is society as a whole and sociopolitical structures and institutions, socio-political ideas & thoughts, values, norms, socio-political practices etc., as a part. So, one cannot be an expert in politics or become a politician just by studying political science. On the other hand, many issues related to politics are indeed included in the topics of political science. From this viewpoint, it is generally believed that a holistic understanding of politics may develop through studying political science.
It is to be noted that the word ‘education’ means here what and how we enlighten and enrich our consciousness by studying political science. Just as we need to fulfill our fundamental needs (i,e., food, clothing, shelter, drinking water etc.) to survive, proper education is also necessary to make our life meaningful. Otherwise, there is no difference between animals and human beings. When we engage in regular reading-learning of a subject, the particular process may differ, but the learning goal remains the same. Again, the consciousness obtained from the reading-learning process can be orthodox, dogmatic, or scientific. So, what and how one learns, depends on the individual. The important consideration here is proper knowledge. So, we will try to focus here on finding out how we can enlighten our thoughts, thinking and consciousness in the context of how political science sheds light on various aspects of our life and lifestyle as a whole.