Value Education: Meaning and Need of Value Education

Contents in the Article

Value Education

Meaning of Value Education

Values could be defined as follows-

“The beliefs, ideals, principles, moral laws and behavioral norms of a society to which the persons of the society attach weightage and by which their behavior is guided and controlled, are the values of that society and of its individuals.”

Need of Value Education

The need of value education has been felt since earliest times, it is felt today and will be felt even tomorrow. It is much more needed at present.

Foremost thing is that human behavior cannot be determined and regularized in the absence of values. Value education is needed to guide conduct and thought of the individuals to the proper direction.
Secondly, values are depreciating not only in our country, but all over the world. By depreciation in values means not accepting the social approved ideals and norms into our inner-self and not behaving accordingly. We in our country in a perplexing situation; we are giving up the old values and are not able to determine the new ones. Therefore, value education is very essential in our country.
There are three steps of value education-cognitive, affective and conative. The situation is that we know about values but they are not the part of our affective aspect. So on question arises of following them in conduct. Today the need is to apply values into emotions and making them the basis of behaviour. This task will have to be done by all social institutions.
Let us consider a bit more. Every child of ours knows truth, non-violence and celibacy; he is acquainted with love, kindness, donation, cooperation and service; and we are the followers of karma (Good action). But just look around the count how many of us have adopted these in our lives. We have democracy in our country. The legislators in legislative councils and Parliament take the oath of secrecy and national interest; how many of them adopt them is a moot point. Look at any department and you will find bribery prevalent in our quarter. Everybody is bent upon exploiting everybody else. Why is it taking place now? The only answer to this is the absence of values. Therefore, value education should be given to the children.
If we look minutely, we find that language has become meaningless in the absence of values, behaviour has become indefinite, trust has been lost and all people look at one another in suspicion; lawlessness rules in the society and people are living a stressful life. It appears that if we do not awake in time, we will re-enter the barbarous period. If we want to protect human civilization and culture, we will have to lay emphasis on the value education.
All education commissions and educational committees that have been formed in the country and abroad, have stressed on the need of value education in one or the other form. After achieving independence the Kothari Commission (1964-66) was formed to look at country’s education as a whole and to submit recommendations for improvement. This Commission has talked of making value education as inseparable part of the curriculum.
The National Education Policy, 1986 too has expressed its concern on the fact that schools are not capable to form proper values in children, and it has stressed that the schools should undertake this responsibility. Not only our country, other countries too have discussed value education in detail. All of them opine that value education is the need of the hour and the schools should play a special role in it.

Value Education

Meaning of Value Education

Need of Value Education

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Wand of Knowledge Team

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