Re-spiritualization of Education – A Key to Healthy Development

Abstract:

Humanity and Planet Earth face today an unprecedented moment in history. Rapid development, the rush for a boundless progress, the morally uncontrolled over-consumption and immoral under-consumption, the lack of putting into practice values such as truth, justice, honesty, fairness, etc. have led to a crisis that will soon affect the whole planet. This unfortunately is not only an economic crisis, but a much more extensive one, involving profound human values that have not been expressed strongly in recent years, but have generated more and more visible effects. In this context, it is worth stressing the role of education that, through its system of values, has a crucial role in people’s actions. The role of education from early childhood to the postdoctoral studies and life-long-learning is highly important for the human individual and for the society he is part of. We believe that education in general, and the university in particular, is responsible for both the positive and the negative externalities of the use of human knowledge. The serious problems we face in our lives are the result of human actions. In order to stop the backdrop of our common evolution it is essential to re-spiritualize education at all organic levels. In this respect, based on the research carried out by one of the authors in 2008, we intend to show the need to re-spiritualize higher education as a fundamental solution to the more and more serious problems we face.