Value Oriented Approach to Higher Education

Dr. V. Kondal Rao

“Where is the knowledge we have lost in information
where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge
where is the life we have lost in living.”
T. S. Eliot

The word “University” as originally conceived was meant to be a place where integrated knowledge in the form of “values” and “skills” was supposed to be imparted. The word University is derived from the word “Universal” to mean comprehensive, catholic, inter-related and inter-disciplinary. It is unfortunate that of late Universities are being established separately for separate purposes and even if the Universities are established for integrated purposes their departments and faculties have been functioning is isolation.

In ancient times no knowledge which was not integrated in the sense of both “values” and “skills” was respected, valued or recognised as knowledge. But in modern times skills seem to be taking upper hand over values and disciplines and fields which are skill-based but not value based seem to be catching the eye and the imagination of students. It is most tragic that knowledge is being valued and respected more for skills than for values.

If we look at the education system today not only in India but also all over the world we find that what little value based education is happening is happening only at the level of school education but not at the higher levels of education. But it has to be realised that though the value based education is taking place to some extent at this stage of education, the students at this level won’t be able to realize and appreciate the significance and importance of values to their later lives on account of lack of maturity at their age (This is a stage of education where values can be learned only through habits, customs, manners and etiquette but not as concepts). When the students reach the stage of higher education where they branch off into many professional, vocational and general education courses, value based education does not find a prominent place at all. It hardly finds a place in pure and applied science courses. And if it finds a place in social sciences and humanities, the quality of teaching and learning in them in many institutions is so poor and inadequate that it makes the students hardly value-oriented.

When these students settle-down in life one way or the other they only think of using and utilizing their skills to make as much money as possible by fair or foul means to fulfill their ever increasing needs and desires. Of course, the example of the elders is on the negative side!

Corruption, nepotism, favouratism, exploitation and all other social maladies and vices that we come across in the society today are only on account of this lop sidedness of our education in general and higher education in particular which mostly produces insensitive and inconsiderate men and women. It is tragic that at a stage of higher education where students can understand and appreciate the value of “Values” because of their maturity, education becomes almost value-barren.

Added, to this tragic situation in our education, modern sciences, applied sciences, vocational, professional and technological courses make it possible to produce enormous goods and services and a large variety of comforts, luxuries and opportunities creating insatiable desires and temptations. These desires and temptations bring about decline in ethics and moral degeneration.

What then is the solution for this state of affairs in the society? How shall we do away with this trend and bring about a healthy balance between values and skills in our education to have a healthy society and a healthy life?

One thing is certain that we can’t contain and call a halt to the growth of sciences and technologies to curb the desires and temptations which corrupt the minds and hearts of people. It is just not possible and practicable, nor is it desirable. Moreover sciences and applied sciences contribute to materialistic welfare of people and it is as important for life as spiritual welfare. The term “spiritual welfare” is not used here in a dogmatic sense, but to mean an understanding of and respect for the social values from a normative point of view. But one wonders whether the ever increasing tendency of the corporate sector to multi nationalise its structure and multidimentionalise its marketing strategies would leave any time to the “labour” to relax and reflect, considering the temptations which are offered to the workmen to work overtime not only in the factories but also at home. Even if the corporations leave some time to the workers for relaxation and reflection one wonders whether the workmen would use it for that purpose.

The managers and the workers all over the world are undergoing a serious stress and strain today leading to blood pressures, cardiac problems, undetectable allergies, psychic ailments, family breakdowns. alienation of children, all on account of a mad corporate competition to survive and surpass. This is going to increase rather than decrease in future as the trend clearly reveals.

Materialistic prosperity has brought in its train poverty of feelings, sentiments, sensibilities and sensitivities leading to poverty of human relations and human adjustments. The world today is full of tensions, turmoils and crises on account of dehumanisation and inhumanisation of man by the machine invented by man himself. That which was meant to be a slave became a master or should we say, the monster, responsible for air pollution, noise pollution, water and food contamination and for conduct and character degeneration to cite only a few.

Oh! What a gain of wealth at the cost of health!
What a gain of prosperity at the cost of peace!
What a gain of pleasure at the cost of happiness!
What a gain of standard of living at the cost of standard of life!
What a gain of information at the cost of wisdom!

The right way to bring a balance between skills and values other than by containing the growth of sciences and technologies is to have a balanced education which not only takes care of skills but also takes care of values.

It goes without saying that we can’t have value oriented education by merely preaching or teaching the values in isolation but only by combining the teaching of values with the teaching of skills through social sciences and humanities contextually. For this purpose we have to make our social sciences and humanities much more sensitive to sensitize the students to make them socially aware and culturally enlightened in their attitudes and approaches. We have to modernise the social sciences and humanities courses not only for their own sake but also for the sake of combining them with other professional and vocational courses relevantly. This is the immediate and imminent need of our higher education.

Social sciences and humanities are losing the ground in our institutions and are becoming gradually less popular with the students for the reason that most of the students are drifting more and more towards professional and vocational courses on account of their offering more lucrative posts and positions and higher incomes. They are also losing the ground for the reason that they themselves are becoming less and less skill oriented and value oriented for want of good teachers, good teaching and good syllabus.

Today, a strange economic situation and on account of it a strange educational situation is arising in the world on account of which social sciences and humanities which are basically concerned with values may not be in a position to survive and sustain themselves in future without getting tagged on to professional courses and that too by merging their independent identity into the broad field of “Management Studies” which is the most popular field now next only to computer and information technology fields. They can survive by becoming the man-power supplying subjects to professional, vocational and management courses, remaining independent only for the limited purposes of limited students who may opt for them exclusively. The demand for their subjects would mostly be a derived demand in future than an independent demand.

Unless social sciences and humanities are combined with pure sciences and applied sciences under a common caption of “Management Studies” to be as popular as the management professional and vocational courses, their visibility as independent subjects would be very much in jeopardy in future as the trend clearly reveals. If they are retained as before without combining them all under a common caption of management studies by simply clubbing them with the pure and applied sciences, students may not evince much interest in them as they feel that these subjects if studied independently would not be useful to them for their job purposes.

Even if social sciences and humanities courses are tagged on to professional and vocational courses through management courses they can only click if they are revised and reformulated in such a way that they look and sound like the management subjects. Otherwise their integration with the management courses would become rather complex and cumbersome to keep away the students. Some of the subjects like economics, sociology and psychology are already integrated with the management courses. Many other subjects have to be now brought in under their umbrella by appropriate reformatory steps.

The main objection to this entire proposition may come in the form of “time constraint”. But if we take a careful look at the tremendous amount of wastages of time that we come across in our present education system we can easily arrive at a conclusion that the problem is not so much that of the non availability of time but that of the “time management”. In the present conditions of our education system we do not even work for 50% of the days which are officially provided for.

In conclusion it may be said decisively that however much we may desire to promote “values” they can’t just be promoted by merely crying hoarse about them but only by constantly and continuously teaching them contextually through the social sciences and humanities subjects and that too by combining them with the professional and vocational courses in the name of “Management Studies”.

This brings US to another aspect of value orientation of higher education. While it is true that the pure and applied science courses have to become much more value oriented by combining with the social sciences and humanities, it is also equally true that social sciences and humanities in their turn have to become much more skill oriented particularly in terms of communication skills, practical and field experience, application of scientific tools and methods to learning teaching and research and in the development of effective delivery systems in order to become much more precise and exact subjects thereby becoming much more valid and valuable subjects.

Believability of values on account of their “operational effectiveness” changes the whole psychology of the people not only to accept the values but also to adopt them in their real lives. Today, the yawning gap between the values preached and practiced makes the students skeptical about them and this skepticism is at the root of their non seriousness about them at all levels of education.

Lastly a word about the teachers who teach the values may not be out of place. People who teach the “Values” have to teach them with lot of involvement and conviction to generate equal faith and conviction in students. They have to learn the art of teaching the subjects most inspiringly, elevatingly and electrifyingly being fully         conscious and aware that what they are teaching are “ARTS” – the most emotional and sensitive subjects. They have to teach them primarily to touch the hearts but not just to touch the minds. They have to bear in mind that when they are teaching the social sciences and humanities they are teaching them to make the students socially imbued and spiritually surcharges.

In short they have to teach the subjects not like teachers but like the preachers as all subjects of “ARTS” including the management subjects are spiritual subjects with religion at the of them - not the ritualistic but the real “humanising, man making, character building, compassion evoking, conscience provoking religion” as Vivekananda called it. Those who teach spiritual subjects have to be as spiritual as the subjects that they teach and adopt the methods of teaching which are spiritual. For this, the teachers have to be exemplary and value oriented.

Teach to “love” and “like” first and they will take care of every thing else.

Teach to think, to observe, to concentrate and contemplate and they will take care of every thing else.

Teach how to experience without missing the meaning and it will take care of everything else.

Teach “culture” first before any content is taught And it is for culture that the content is taught but not for its own sake.

We have been having for long a system of education which aims at the mind than at the heart. It is high time that our education system also aims at the heart to make the people not only live comfortably but also to live happily, peacefully, amicably and affectionately.