For better or worse, we are the product of what we learn. There is every reason, then, to choose education for the better, as we live in varying degrees of conscious pursuit of happiness, fulfilment and self-actualization, goals that shape purpose in education.

Thus, a meaningful education must deal with life the way learners live it if we are to bequeath an effective and relevant system of education. Values are a real life concern with real life application, and educators would do well to recognise the importance thereof to both human life and human learning.

In line with Dr Zakir Husain’s approach to human values, educators should set about the task of transforming our educational institutions from individual self-seeking to places of devotion to social ends, from seats of theoretical intellectual one-sidedness to those of practical, human many-sidedness, from centres of meek acquisition of knowledge to those of its right and proper use.

Thus, educational institutions should provide opportunities for practising what is preached; they should provide opportunities for strengthening the will in its passive form of diligence, patience, perseverance, and constancy by insisting on thoroughness in work and its active manifestations; they should provide moral courage and practical initiative by allowing as wide a field as possible for free activities by pupils.

<B>Edifying ideals</B>

It is time we gave our educational efforts some edifying ideals of personal and national existence, ideals of justice and fair play, ideals of service for the good of the whole of which we are a part, ideals of national solidarity, ideals of co-operative endeavour subscribed to by our young men, healthy in body and mind, with a trained, strong will, a sound judgment, refined feelings, honest and frank, yet generous and benevolent, trustful and trustworthy (such ideals are also upheld and propagated by the recently-created ‘Comité Mauricien Pierre de Coubertin’, which has its seat at the Mauritius Institute of Education).

Since the transmission of values is an inescapable function of the school, it would require a separate subsystem within the system of education. Teachers are constant purveyors of values because to teach is to value. The classroom contains a hidden curriculum as a component, consisting of a network of stimuli and responses not formally a part of the explicit curriculum. Thus, the system of teacher education should have scope for imparting the knowledge, skills and special methods relevant to values.

However, the hesitation about introducing values in education explicitly is more pronounced in a secular and plural society like ours. Yet, a value-free and valueless existence is impossible even to contemplate though the present scenario of indifference to values seems quite alarming.

Fortunately, the MIE, has been proactive in that respect as Values Education is already an integral component in several of its programmes offered. And teachers know too well that the best way to learn a new subject is to start teaching it!

<B>Dr AnandDAWOOTAR </B>

<I>PhD, D. LITT President, Association for LivingValues Education (ALIVE)</I>