On Value Education

The Hindu vision of life gives four goals, ideals and core values for a better quality of human life. They are artha (economic values of wealth), kama (psychological values of pleasure), dharama (moral values) and moksha (liberation). These four goals embody the formulation of human values. As we have multitude of religions, cultures, castes, languages and races in India, we need to work together on a broad platform based on the principle of unity in diversity. I remember the story of a journalist girl who remembers nothing from her moral science classes except her visit to a slum, sharing biscuits with them and teaching them for one hour. Experiential training is the one pattern that can be successfully adopted to sow the seeds of values through the education system. The students can be asked to skip a meal before they listen to a lecture or before they are taken for visit to an orphanage. There is no limit to the creativity with which teachers can innovate and improvise. It should all end up in understanding other religions and its' practices. A vast area of experience, experiments and ideas lie untapped in the minds of teachers. There should be forums to pool and share all these. An idea grows and branches out with immense and unpredictable possibilities when planted in a brain other than the one in which it originated. The purpose of a model political administration is not to make people happy; if so a thief who makes his family happy with stolen money should be equally honoured. Right living is reached only through value education which only stands against cardinal sins as Mahatma Gandhi has cautioned us: "Pleasure without conscience Politics without principles, Prayer without devotion, Education without character, Wealth without work, Science without humanity And commerce without morality."