The absence of values in education might have disastrous consequences, says Rajyogi Brahmakumar Nikunj Ji
In the last few decades, with the advancement in science and technology and with urbanisation and expansion of cities, man’s capacity to do good or bad, particularly bad, has increased manifold. Under such a scenario, there is an urgent need to impart values in education, which if not done, may lead to disastrous results. This education is needed for another reason as well. Since we live in social relationships, we have both rights as well as duties and everyone has to learn to do their part and to respect the rights of others; then only we can have a just society. These rights and duties are actually interwoven with values. Hence, values in education become essential to establish a better world. The state, in defending the rights of its members, can enforce certain duties through legislation and can make possible the realisation of certain rights. But it cannot deal effectively with the motives and attitudes of a person nor is it able to enforce finer qualities such as mutual helpfulness, cooperation and sympathy. That can be done only through teaching values.
Again, in the modern world, because of the increasing complexity of society, life has become a network of secondary and institutionalised groups and specialised professionals. This has produced inconsistency between what a man professes and what he does. On one hand, he wishes to follow a professional code of conduct and, on the other, he wants material gains even against his conscience. Similarly, he has loyalty to some group which may go against the well-being of society as a whole. So, education in moral values is necessary so that he may keep wider interests in his mind, else, there is always the likelihood of conflict on the basis of class, caste, race, ethnicity, profession, etc.
Man, wearing the mask of loyalty, may do much harm to the well-being of society as a whole, if he is not cultured in proper values. It can, thus, be understood that all our present-day problems, be it group rivalry, jingoism, hypocrisy, double standards, various kinds of wrong-doings and anti-social acts, are due to the fact that even though we have education in various disciplines, we do not have education in spiritual discipline.
The failure of a European country to prevent the excesses under the dictatory regime was due precisely to this reason. Throughout the nineteenth century, this country had rapid development of specialisation in science and technology but value education was pushed aside or that also became technical and the concern of specialists only. As a result, it became a nation of highly trained specialists interested in facts in their respective fields but unconcerned with the large problems of life and the world, which resulted in moral paralysis of the people in that country. If therefore, we wish to avoid moral paralysis in the world, we will have to do something to impart value education.
One can’t really say that value education will guarantee the right conduct. However, it will definitely give an understanding of what is right and what is wrong to the people and will create a tendency within them to have the right conduct. Also, it will give a man a moral outlook on life, and ethical purpose, and meaning of life. It will also enlighten him about the purity of means and motives. He will understand that not only we must have high ideals but we must also adopt the right means to attain those ideals. Also, it will explain to us that our motives must be genuine, for only goodness of goals is not enough.
