Abstract

This paper examines the dialectical tension between schooling and education, arguing that while schooling focuses on imparting skills and reinforcing societal norms, education pursues transformative truth-seeking and civilizational progress. Drawing on philosophical frameworks from Bhartṛhari’s vidya-avidya and Heidegger’s technē, the study critiques the conflation of conditioning with learning and measurement with assessment in modern educational systems. It explores how colonial histories and capitalist priorities have shaped schooling to prioritize employability over intellectual autonomy, contrasting this with education’s potential to foster critical consciousness. Through the lens of civilizational dialectics, the paper proposes a synthesis where education guides schooling’s objectives, using Bhartṛhari’s concept of sphoṭa siddhi as a metaphor for innovative pedagogy that transcends conformity. The analysis offers theoretical insights and practical strategies for aligning these domains to nurture human potential and societal transformation.