Human Values Through Education (An Old and Rare Book)

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India is passing through a very critical phase of her history. The attempt to transform a feudal and hierarchical society into a democratic, secular, egalitarian community is a most formidable task. Despite our efforts of the last forty years, the outcomes in this regard are not as we had dreamt of. One of the reasons for this is that the values, skills and the models of development that the Indian elite has formulated do not have their roots in India's cultural heritage which is wedded to a specific value system of universal potential. A dichotomy of contradictory values has emerged in an atmosphere of mercenarism. This has to be resolved before its consequences become disastrous.

The function of the modern education system is not to create and transmit knowledge alone. Even merely extending the same to the service of the community will be incomplete. Though these are important, for the modern educational system, something very fundamental is missing in making these useful to the community and society as a whole. The educational system should give society not only what it needs, but also foster what it ought to need.

In order to evolve a paradigm of value oriented education, the National Workshop on Value Oriented Education was held at the Gujarat Vidyapith from 11-15 January 1988. The work-shop was attended by distinguished scholars from India and abroad. Professor J. Schouten and Professor Van Gent from the Amsterdam and Leiden Universities of the Netherlands and Dr. Larry Dossey-a leading medical researcher from the U.S.A. participated. Representatives from various Indian Universities and institutions participated. The working paper and the papers presented at the workshop are incorporated in this book.

If education is to play the role of change-agent, its forms, methods and content will also have to be radically altered simultaneously. This is precisely called for even in the country's National Policy on Education 1986 and its Programme of Action. Value oriented education is a very important component of this. The deliberations of the National Workshop will prove to be useful to the teachers who are expected to spearhead values in education at all stages.

A Manual for teachers on value oriented education is also under preparation. All this is a part of the National Pilot Project being implemented by Gujarat Vidyapith with the support of the UGC. Dr. T. K. N. Unnithan, Visiting Professor at Gujarat Vidyapith and Former Vice-chancellor of the Rajasthan University, Jaipur, is the Director of the Project and Shri P. A. Patel, Principal of our College of Education, is the Associate Director.

It will be the endeavour of Gujarat Vidyapith to develop further supporting materials which will facilitate a smooth trans-formation of the present educational system.

The Gujarat Vidyapith proposes to develop, in the near future, a Teachers' Handbook and Case Studies of Institutions where human and spiritual values are successfully integrated in the curricula as well as in the way of life.

I hope that this and other publications to follow will accelerate the process of transformation of the present merely career oriented education into value oriented education.

Professor T. K. N. Unnithan's active involvement in this National Project on Value Oriented Education is of critical importance in view of his deep insights in studies in Non-violence. Professor P. A. Patel and all his faculty members of Shikshan Mahavidyalaya deserve commendation for their sin-cere work.

I hope this publication will be welcomed by all concerned.

Our National Policy on Education has rightly emphasised the need for Value Education. Therefore it is in the fitness of things that the UGC has decided to undertake a Pilot Project on Value Orientation in Education. This publication is an outcome of the national workshop which we organised at the Gujarat Vidyapith to evolve strategies for implementing Value Education Programmes at different levels of both formal and non-formal education. The value crisis in contemporary society has compelled our policy makers to make value education an imperative component of our entire education system. So the question is no more whether value education is necessary or desirable, but how to do it. Therefore the workshop was primarily concerned with working out concrete and effective steps for developing value oriented education, as well as strategies and methods for effective implementation of value education programmes.

Specifically the workshop addressed itself to such questions as: What is value oriented education? What are its universalistic and particularistic aspects in the context of homogeneities, diversities and cultural specificities in human society and culture in India? How does an individual's value system develop and how is its structure determined? What is the mechanism to promote selection of positive values and rejection of negative values and how to evolve an appropriate value system for the individual and make it functionally efficient? What is the role of formal and non-formal education in value orientation and what are their comparative merits and effectiveness and what ways, methods and mechanisms can be evolved to assist the individual to select, accept and assimilate specific positive values and to base his/her judgements and actions on such values? What kind of teaching can inculcate what kind of values and at what levels and stages? What kind of teacher-learner and formal and non-formal relationships can help inculcation of values? What kind of teaching methods and at what levels would help assimilation of values? How to promote value oriented education in adverse social and environmental infrastructures? What is the relationship between the value system, social structure and social change? What would be the structure of a value system which is universally applicable to human society as a whole? What would be the contents and priorities of a value system of a particular society as that of ours? What specific methods and techniques can be evolved for value education at different levels in both formal and non-formal sectors of our education system? What operational strategies have to be evolved and effected for promoting value orientation in education? What are the techniques of evaluation of the impact of a particular programme of value education? What are the indices of increasing value orientation in education and the corresponding value inculcation by individuals and improvement in the quality of our social order?

Apart from these and related questions the workshop also discussed in detail the draft of a Manual for value education which was prepared specifically for the workshop. Whereas the Manual after its finalization will be published separately by Professor Purushottambhai Patel, the Associate Director of our pilot project, it was thought desirable to bring out this publication embodying various papers presented at the workshop. Apart from the papers presented at the workshop we have also included some other papers by Professor R. C. Mehrotra, Mr. C. E. Mudiraj, Dr. Albert Selvanayagam, Mr. O. P. Mehra and Dr. Sampuran Singh which were presented at the Vice-Chancellors' Conference organized by me sometime earlier. As these Papers are significant contributions in the area and they could not be published earlier, it was thought desirable to include them in this publication. Also included in the volume are some very important publications which we have used as resource papers: (1) Social Revolution Through Nai Talim, a Sevagram Publication, (2) Ahimsa and Science by Dr. D. S. Kothari, (3) Social Virtues in Gandhian Concept of Ahimsa by Dr. R. R. Diwakar.