The Educational Landscape, Its Disconcerting Shift
Shelley Walia | 13 May 2025 | The Hindu
Education has historically been regarded as the cornerstone of societal advancement — a realm where critical thinking, free inquiry, and the pursuit of knowledge could flourish. At its best, higher education had always cultivated intellectual independence, nurtured dissent, and inspired progress across disciplines and societies. The boundaries of human understanding were continually pushed through unfettered dialogue and academic exploration.
Yet, in recent decades, the educational landscape, especially within universities, has undergone a profound and disconcerting shift. Institutions once celebrated for fostering independent thought now appear increasingly constrained by bureaucratic controls, external mandates, and ideological gatekeeping. Rather than serving as laboratories of innovation and resistance…