The Importance of Value Education in Our Society|James Inka

The introduction of the education system in society is meant for mental and spiritual growth as food is made for physical growth. The type of food intake determines the health of the person, so also the kind of education tells the type of person. Healthy food makes a healthy body. Right education makes right life and right society. The present system of education is being revamped and slowly replaced with a digital IT education system and learning is made faster and easier but ignoring the moral aspect of social obligation. Therefore, human value and virtue are almost left out of the human mind. The fact is signaling a threat to human survival on earth.

Our educational system has produced the kind of society we are facing today. The system has conditioned us under a wrongly structured society. We are subjected to the default system of society and reaping its consequences. We cannot undo the wrong that has spoiled our society. We can only create a new educational outlook and climate. We can transform our society by shifting the trend of a defective system of education and introduce a new rationale approach. There are more destructive elements than constructive ones in our society. The many so-called educated that holds qualification certificates of degrees without quality education are burdens to society. 

They profess and project themselves as learned and educated but their action contradicts their profession. Few who are truly educated are made to be silent and voiceless in the evil-ruled society where the majority goes after the hallow drumbeat sound and tone of visionless and selfish leaders. Many professed educated are roadblocks to real development and advancement. The spoil of the society is not the work of the uneducated but the ill-educated. Truly educated men are few but they are the light and backbone of society. 

The wrongly educated citizens are the problems in society. The innocent and ignorant public are made to follow the wrongly educated leaders and end up creating social problems. It can be said that It is better to be uneducated than ill-educated. The school that produces corrupt leaders/citizens is responsible for the downfall of the society and nation. Corrupt and selfish teachers produce another corrupt stock of its kind.

Our society today needs to undergo big thinking from desperation to higher aspiration. We need to introduce a new culture of hard labor, moral obligation, and socially responsible attitude to change over the wrong culture brought about by the defective education system of the past and present. The past and wrong social culture must be shunned and embrace a new and practical approach to the better and ideal culture of humanity. Lessons of gentleness, forbearance, forgiveness, and noble character must be adopted and embraced and replaced the old culture of ignorance, cruelty, and selfishness. It can be possible only when we adopt and introduce a true system of moral education.

The importance of true education must be pursued and acquired to make a quality and progressive society. What is most needed today is not information but character-building education. Emerson, the western philosopher said, Character is moral order seen through the medium of an individual nature…Men of character are the conscience of the society to which they belong”. Our ideas or perception of education is too narrow and confined to a short-range of outlook. There is a dire need to make a broader scope and a higher aim to reach and attain the height of moral perfection. True education means more than the perusal of a certain course of study. Our true purpose of getting an education is to acquire a holistic development of life; the harmonious development of the physical, the mental, and the spiritual powers.

If the past and present system of education is destroying our society, we must change it. To change the trend of education, it is necessary to know the right approach as well the wrong system that has hindered our progress. It is also necessary for one to initiate, taking the right approach to acquiring true education. Knowing the information or knowledge without action is useless. We must act out the way and set an example. Good and right examples are needed today more than ever before. I, myself, and readers of this piece must be the model of change we want to see or bring about in our society.

All the educated sections of our community and society must make a decided change for a positive calculated future. We must act out our will to take and lead our society aright amidst the apparent difficulties and social perplexities. We know that every change is naturally opposed and objected at the start but followed later.

Let us consider what constitutes the right education. Right education is character building. The character of a person is determined by the kind of home he or she is brought up in. In the history of mankind, God-fearing homes and parents usually produce good citizens and so good society. Training of the mind to think of the highest good or ideal life is the true essence of education and the purpose of life. The first school and teacher are the home and mother. The best or the worst school is the home as well as parents. Education begins at home and also education is an endless process of learning and ends at death. 

The educational institution is the second home of the society where practical life lessons are taught. Napoleon Bonaparte once stated, “The future good or bad conduct of a child depended entirely on the mother”. He attributed his rise in life to a great measure to the training of his will, energy and self-control by his mother at home. All manner of life is shaped at home and reflected in the society. There is a saying, “Manner makes the man”, deeper saying is “Mind makes the man”. But truer than either one is “Home makes the man”. To bring about a new trend of society, home education is the foremost factor we must consider and then the school system of education to be the model of a bigger home where systematic training of students to ideal living is to be taught. 

The kind of leader we want to produce in our society depends largely upon the type of education introduced or taught at home and school. As Arabian proverbs state, “A fig tree looking on a fig tree becometh fruitful”, and so it is with children/students looking at the example of their masters mostly reflects in their lives the exact replica of what they see. William Wordsworth rightly put the word, “The child is father of the man”. John Milton put it, “The childhood shows the man, as morning shows the day”. The growth of a child to manhood/womanhood in the school of life happens at home and in society. 

Therefore, the most important factor in the making of an ideal society lies in the remaking of our homes and schools. Our homes and school must be reformed. Building the character of students and citizens must be the focused point of education. Mere learning of information at school is a wastage of time and life. Moral education; character-building education, is the highest mission purpose of education. It stands above all forms of educational institution. Without which all the information and knowledge gained through books avail nothing. The Bible implicitly states, what do you gain if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? Cultivating the mind to think right and act right is the sole purpose and meaning of education.

Character is one of the greatest motive powers in the world. It embodies and exemplifies the highest cultivation of human nature. Samuel Smiles rightly pointed out the essential value of education, “Men of excellence in every station of life, men of industry, of integrity, of high principle, of sterling honesty of purpose – produce the spontaneous homage of mankind. It is natural to believe in such men, to have confidence in them, and to imitate them. All that is good in the world is upheld by them and without their presence in it the world would not be worth living in”. 

The aim of all educational institutions should be to produce men of character who would build and shape the world into an ideal place for humanity to prosper and progress in all aspects of human life. Man of character is conscientious in all things and is the social power to progress humanity on earth. He puts his conscience into his work, words, and action. It is not the size of a nation or its population but the quality of its citizens that have to gain the reputation and dignity of the nation. The character of the nation is seen in the character of its citizen. 

The people of Israel were few and small in number, yet what a great life they developed and made a significant influence on the destinies of mankind. Our people may be few but if we produce men of character, of integrity, nothing is better or stronger than our society. No force of adversary can destroy or conquer us when men of character stand strong as a fortress in the society. Our aim of acquiring education is to produce more men and women of strong character and noble-hearted leaders who can make a difference in the society.

James Inka, Former General Secy. All Naga Students' Association Manipur (ANSAM).

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