Value education

The term value is to be defined in a concrete context. Value is not something that can be understood, discussed and easily discarded by a gifted few, who are known as moralists or experts but it is to be understood, experienced and expressed by one and all in their respective contexts. By the term ‘value’, I mean provision of basic amenities to one and all, i.e. to make everyone eligible to get food, shelter, clothing, medicine and education. Value appears in the form of food to a hungry man, shelter to an estranged person and medicine to a man inflicted by ill health. It is the duty of the society as a whole to provide literacy as a prelude to help the last in the row, who has often been ignored by the men in power. In this sense, value is justice to be provided to all, including the deprived sections in a society. To provide value means to do something concrete for the benefit of the marginalised sections, who are not fortunate enough to get the basic necessities. A system of education that inculcates a sense of value among the students must be able to explain the modes operandi of a just society, because what we need is not a system of education that provides sufficient space for the rituals, customs and etiquettes of various religions but a system that explains theories through concrete incidents. The sense of justice must help a student to be aware of the fact that the world has not been created for him alone but it is meant to be shared with the rest. The moment that a student realises that he is not a custodian of the world but only a humble participant in the process of sharing, he or she accepts the truth that he or she is not a tool meant to compete with the rest. Sense of value leads a student to the awareness that a fellow student is not an enemy to be defeated in a cut-throat competition but he is a participant to be co-operated in the process of living and learning. The process of learning through living is the only way to inculcate a sense of value among our students. The process of living begins within the context of the family and extends to the society through organised class rooms. Therefore, the parents, other members of the family, the School (including the teachers and the management) and the various institutions of the society have to be engaged as an indivisible whole in this process. Unfortunately, the first casualty in this regard is caused by the family itself because it is mostly the parents who insist that their children be confined to their own interests alone. A self-centred student thus brought up, naturally thinks that the whole world is meant for him alone and he is not at all meant for the world. As a consequence, he morally separates himself from his parents and estranges himself from the family. This is one of the major reasons that compel an educated guy to keep their parents in old age homes as prisoners. It is quite disappointing to note that our system of education, even today, is incapable to realise this grave problem of amorality. The new generation does not know the difference between morality and immorality and lives in a world of amorals. This too is due to the utter confusion created by maya at intellectual and emotional levels of experience. The moral confusion that has been created by the present day living culture really affects the communication strategy of the present. The purpose of language is to reveal whatever is hidden in us. But now-a-days the language has been used as an effective tool to conceal what is real and project what all that are quite unreal. The moment language conceals the real and projects the unreal, it spreads confusion all over. For ex. When the language has been used as a medium to attract the market at large, projecting some striking qualities which are totally missing in a product but propagating that such attributes are abundant in it, really cheats the consumer.