Arun Bangotra
The most important asset of any nation are the citizens themselves. If the citizens are healthy, patriotic, honest, and sincere, the nation will progress at a much faster pace. For this reason, it is very essential to have moral education in schools and colleges. The educational institutes should not only provide technical and other education, but should also provide moral character building education. Education should help the students master their mind. If the students are bright, the future citizens and leaders of nation will automatically be effective, efficient and pure persons, bringing great happiness to mankind. To impart moral education to students, there can be many ways like telling stories, preaching, group discussions, Yoga, Meditation etc. To be an effective teaching, a combination of all methods can be used. Out of these methods, Yoga and Meditation work at the root level of mind. They does not preach but bring about deeper changes in moral character of students, and hence can bring lasting positive transformation in personality and purity of the students. Meditation in student life result in Sharp memory, Increased concentration, better decision making and confidence, Peaceful and happy mind, Freedom from stress, fear, worry, anger, better performance in studies, sports, and work and better Health.
Our society is deep-rooted in corruption, exploitation, merciless killings, terrorism, a lot of casteism and communalism, pollution, global unrest, mutual hatred and a total crisis of character. These various problems in India are inter-linked. Moral education helps in solving these problems at the root where they originate. All problems can be solved very easily if the citizens have mastered their mind, and are pure, harmonious and sincere. Man, machine and money are the modern day trinity. Morality is a casualty. Inflicting untold miseries and sufferings of fellow beings is the rule of the day. All this needs to be reformed. But who is to bell the cat? It is we in schools and colleges, who have to complete the task. Today the dire need of the hour is imparting of moral and spiritual education in schools and colleges for the simple cause of making the young ones strong, brave, courageous and valiant enough to fight the unending list of evils.
The recent Delhi gangrape case is the example of constant degradation of Indian value system under over-exposure of the present generation to the ills of western culture. Self-restraint and respect for women form the basic texture of the Indian moral value system whose revival is a must at the education level, if we don’t want to repeat the gruesome Delhi-like incidents. The shift from babuji and maaji to Dad and Mom and respect for women has adversely affected the society. We have totally forgotten our culture and the children are not being taught moral values. This is why incidents like Delhi Gangrape take place. The mushroom growth of modern English medium schools and decreasing focus on Hindi language has also resulted in societal imbalance in terms of education. I am not averse to learning English, but not at the cost of your own culture. The students should pay more serious attention to developing India’s own ancient traditional values. I am sure that not many children know the relationship between Krishna and Radha or the birthplace of Bhagat Singh, but they know everything about Salman Khan and his recent films.
Reforms are needed in the education system to make it relevant for society. We need to give our children moral lessons if we want to get rid of heinous crimes and criminal mentality. Every child possesses the potential to become the builder of an ideal society. What it needs is a proper mode of-education to mould the child in a way to make him a useful, complete and perfect person. A rock-like character, spiritual wisdom and the quest for truth should be drilled in the child at an early age and from this firm foundation they can be taught mathematics to marine sciences and anthropology to automobile engineering. The sole purpose of education is to develop a sound mind in a sound body, to teach virtues of oneness, decency in public life, good manners and behaviour and so on. The great goal of education is not to cosmetically furnish the minds to produce doctors and engineers but to develop the sense of right, duty, honour, love of God and humanity. By education they can become good officers but due to lack of moral values they don’t know how to behave in their offices. Many of us have experienced and seen officers not behaving properly with public and using abusive and unparliamentarily languages in their offices. They lack the moral values which were not taught to them. Man is the centre from where forces radiate inward and outward. These give him an outward life and an inward existence. Schools should teach students to acquire self knowledge about what is his true place in the universe and his true relation with God.
A child should be taught about the various golden moral values and virtues. Moral and spiritual values should be infused in a child. He should be taught to differentiate between right and wrong and which value to put into practice at what point of time. All these gems of beautiful values will adorn the bright and glittering personality of a child. The child will be all set and prepared to face the right and wrong of the world and to eradicate all evils right from the roots. Such bold personalities will help in establishing a peaceful and prosperous world which we all dream of.
Children are by nature pure, sincere, and eager to learn. If the schools/colleges impart the moral character building values effectively, the purity of the students can be maintained and enhanced. Absorbing the moral values at an early and receptive age, will be very beneficial for the youth, and will in turn ensure that India has a shining future!
The world has witnessed many wars, battles on the basis of caste, creed and colour. It is lack of a global understanding that stops mankind from living together. Global understanding and mutual brotherhood is attainable only when children are taught moral values. Values like universal brotherhood, faith in one God and one mankind should be inculcated in a child at an early age. This would surely ensure a brighter tomorrow. It is high time people realised the need of the hour and rise to the occasion bringing back the past glory of mother earth and restoring its pristine purity. Only moral education would lead us to attain our ultimate goal of peace on earth. Who can take a better initiative than the budding and tender ones of this world?
(The author is Principal, Govt. Polytechnic College, Udhampur)
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