attitudes required for living in harmony with oneself and others as responsible citizens. The shift of focus, over the decades, from religious and moral education to education for peace, via value education, parallels the shifting sense and sensitivities in the larger context of education. The acceptance of education for peace as a necessary ingredient of holistic education in the western context was driven by deepening anxieties about the rise and spread of violence. A similar pattern is obtained in our context as well. It is in such perspective, value education is subsumed in Education for Peace. If the philosophy and principles as articulated in NCF (2005) and the position paper on Education for Peace are put into practice, value oriented education will indeed occupy the centre stage.
Why Education for Values?
One of the most important reasons for reorienting education for values is the fact that the current practices in school education by any large contribute to the lopsided development of students. These put exclusive focus on cognitive to the total neglect of the affective domain and present an alienation between head and heart. Students are nurtured in a spirit of excessive competition and are trained right from the beginning to relate to aggressive competition, and facts detached from contexts.
The individualistic idea of excellence is promoted at the cost of emotional and relational skills. Young learners hardly understand why they are in school, why they are studying different subjects and how their schooling will be helpful to them. Their understanding is limited to learning the subjects. They hardly know how they should live their lives, commit themselves to the welfare of the country, care about the environment and other social and moral issues. They are not clear as to what sort of persons they hope to become when they complete their school education. This kind of education turns children into machines. Such a perspective defeats the very purpose of education – the wholesome development of personality including ethical development which is fundamental for responsible decision making in case of moral conflicts. “The mark of an educated person”, wrote Plato in The Republic, “is the willingness to use one’s knowledge and skills to solve the problems of society.” Education must imbue children with a proactive social conscience. Society is the empowering context for individuals. No one can become fully human or attain dignity and fulfillment outside the web of relationships and responsibilities presupposed in society.
True education equips individuals to live creatively, responsibly and peaceably in a society, and become agents of change for a better society. Improvement of the quality of education has always been the key concern for education. In recent times, quality education has been defined in more pragmatic terms. It has become synonymous with employability, preparation for the world of work, less and less consideration given to the subject of education, i.e., individual student and his/her full development as a human being. Quality of education should not be considered in fragmented terms but in a more holistic and expanded manner, not in terms of number of years of schooling but the quality aspect of the development of the individual; the formation of the whole person and full flowering of the human being and character building. Improvement of quality of education is not the only reason for value education.
The current resurgence of interest in education as a powerful means to inculcate values among students is also due to the fast degeneration of values in our country. Despite considerable progress made, our society is shaken by conflicts, corruption and violence. There has been distortion in our value system. Wherever we look, we find falsehood and corruption. Majority are interested in own families and not interested in fulfilling responsibilities to society. Although erosion of values existed throughout the history of human existence and is shared by all cultures, the current degeneration of values has become a matter of great concern in our country. Typical examples of value erosions are: people have become greedy and selfish; honesty has begun to disappear in society; violence has become the order of the day; and corruption, abuse and power have become more common. The problem of declining values is multidimensional, arising out of a combination of major social forces such as globalisation, materialism, consumerism, commercialisation of education, threats to humanity due to climatic changes, environmental degradation, violence, terrorism. These have led to insecurities, individualistic lifestyles, acceleration of desires, misuse of science and technology, pessimism, sense of alienation and other negative consequences. Schools are the microcosms of the world.
The disorder of the world surfaces in schools in many ways. The state of growing up of children and youth in our country has changed and is further changing fast. We do not need scientific surveys to tell us what our own eyes and ears reveal. The number of dysfunctional families have grown. Children indulge in crime, violence, in school and outside. Mass media has gripped our children in a manner that young minds can hardly discern or judge. While the questioning attitude and critical thinking need to be encouraged in children, we find that many young people and students treat teachers with disrespect and question them out of arrogance and perceive it as a way of questioning authority. A hurry-up society often lacks a sense of community and fraternity. Peers exert powerful influence on them. Drug abuse, irresponsible sexual behaviour, vandalism, commercialisation, stealing, cheating, confusion between heroes and celebrities as role models are witnessed more often than ever before. In a general sense, parents, schools and public feel that our youth have lost qualities of respect and responsibility.
There is in fact a public call for action. Educationists and public alike have voiced concern about moral degradation, about crime, violence in the streets and in the media, lack of discipline in schools. Children and youth need to be educated to practise the commonly held values of harmony and peace with self and others. Children are envoys of
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