Dr. Rizwan Rumi
Since time immemorial it has been recognized that education is necessarily a process of inculcating values to help the learner to lead a good life that is satisfying to the individual in accordance with the cherished values and ideals of society. Philosophers, spiritual leaders, and educationists have emphasized the role of education in character development, bringing out the latent potentialities and inherent qualities. Education helps in developing an integrated personality for the well-being of the individual and the society at large, highlighting the need for value orientation in education.
Value Orientation Of Education
The first step in the direction of changing the world is to take the needed steps for radical change in the human consciousness. One of the most important means to achieve this end is the value orientation of education. This will help human beings to conduct themselves in the more desirable directions. It shapes their life patterns in a constructive direction by strengthening their beliefs and by integrating facts, ideas, attitudes, and actions. This also helps to clarify their aims in life as well as the process to achieve them.
The fact that all good education is, in essence, a process of developing the human personality in all its dimensions, is undisputed and universally accepted. Good education inculcates values that are essential to the good life and social well-being. Great thinkers of recorded history have devoted much attention to understanding the significance of character and values in life and the role of various agencies of education in promoting these values. If moral or value education is to be effectively undertaken, it must be firmly based on the principles of value development.
Value development denotes different things to different people. A society that can offer its members a life of joy, peace, and serenity needs a firm foundation of morality. It needs its members to exhibit the right behavior and practice universal harmony. But in today’s technological world the values and morality of individuals are being swept away to gain worldly pleasures.
Education helps in developing an integrated personality for the well-being of the individual. Philosophers, spiritual leaders, and educationists have emphasized the role of education in character development
Individual achievement and position are preferred even if a sacrifice of values, ethics, and morals is demanded it. But for the universal harmony of our society, it is essential to inculcate values and develop morals in children from their early years. One of the challenges before a modern teacher is how to make value education effective and interesting to the modern youth. The present-day youth with all its potential and goodwill to learn seems to concentrate on all other academic subjects except value education.
Systems Of Education
Every Country develops its own system of education to express and promote its unique socio-cultural identity and also to meet the challenges of the times. Although the country has made rapid progress in various areas like scientific technology, economic infrastructure, etc. its value system has declined. Therefore, Education in general and value education, in particular, occupies a prestigious place in the modern context of contemporary society. The problem of value education of the young has assumed increasing prominence in educational discussion in recent times. Parents, teachers, and society at large are concerned about the values and value of education of children. We are witnessing a tremendous value crisis throughout the world today. A lackadaisical attitude towards value and its institutions is pervasive in the world today. The reappearance of barbaric qualities of selfishness, clashes, and conflagration gives a clear indication of the process of degeneration of human society. There is an urgent need for a great effort to revive and reform the values of human life and to rejuvenate the foundation of civilization.
The Values We Cherish
Values are goals set for achievements and they motivate, define and color all our activities cognitive, affective, and co-native. They are described as socially defined desires and goals that are internalized through the process of conditioning, learning, and socialization. The present education needs moral, spiritual, and aesthetic values to be included in it. The culture and traditions can be preserved and transferred to the next generation with the help of value education only. Value education is much concerned with striving for personal wholeness as well as generating a responsible attitude toward others and an understanding of wrong and right behavior.
The most constructive factor in value education is its purpose which encourages the child to explore the powers while offering living guidance and setting appropriate limits to behavior. Value education helps in building and strengthening positive sentiments for people and ideals. It should prepare individuals for active participation in social life and acceptance of social rules. Value education has to be included in various aspects of education. Attention needs to be paid to higher authorities to spread the importance of value education in society.
In the modern globalized society, there have been continuous and radical changes in the field of behavior and values of youth which reflect important and high esteem in the society where they live, if properly maintained and applied. Thus, value education is essential to rejuvenate the moral degradation of youth to bring orderly sequence, security, and progress of the youth to society. These impressions determine the positive behavior in a given situation, which ultimately builds character, both individually and collectively. Therefore, the problem related to human values should be re-established in a long-lasting way so that the moral degradation of youth in particular and society, in general, is checked.
As a result of quick economic growth, the influence of western culture, over-mechanization, urbanization, and craving for materialistic life, there has been a loss of values and of the value system at the individual level and in the country as a whole. Materialistic needs and never-ending lust to earn more and more by putting in less and fewer efforts, therefore have to be balanced by a value-based life and by the inculcation of an attitude that earning money is for leading a respectable life and for helping others who are disadvantaged. Schools in democratic societies have traditionally been expected to reinforce the basic values of societies and to initiate young people into traditions of critical thought.
(The author is Research Fellow at United Nations World Peace Institute)