Value
based education
Sir,
Our
Education Minister Mr. Harshdev Singh is
for value based education in our
schools-Refer daily Excelsior columns
5-6,page 5, November 2.So far so good.
What shapes a particular society, what
the society is pursuing, and what or how
much can education contribute towards
it,is a much discussed issue. Education
is increasingly sought after. It is
because it helps the pursuer to attain
what he/she dreams of? The mutual
relationship between the kind of society
we are and the society we want to create
is mediated by education.
Do the
past fifty years of our self-Government
give hope that we,of divergent cultures,
languages, and economic status will one
day become a community? Is education a
potent instrument for peaceful economic,
social and political transformation? Will
education become a true power for the
emancipation of the masses? If
revolutions are ignited by ink-bottles,
will education in the state of Jammu and
Kashmir spark off that consciousness that
will bring about a socio-economic
peaceful revolution? Can the Jammu and
Kashmir educator be that Matariswan of
Vedic mythology that walked into the
heaven of the gods and stole the fire
with which to kindle the chetana
(Consciousness) to remould the distorted
Jammu and Kashmir society when he has
always been kept at the receiving end by
the Powers-that-be.
The
educator in our state has always been
pushed on the back burner by the
Politician and the bureaucrat for his
fault of making the one entrusted to his
care a discerning individual not to be
swayed by the political rehoritics of the
self-centred politician. In the eyes of
the bureaucrat he commits an unpardonable
blunder of raising a counterpart for the
bureaucrat outside his family circles.
For these two Himalayan blunders in every
pay revision, the expression used by Late
Bakhshi Ghulam Mohammad "Excepting
teachers in the Education
Department" finds place in every pay
revision orders.Commission after
commission is constituted to look into
the pay anomalies but overtime
"water on duck’s back"
theory is applied.
Rules and
regulations are amended to accommodate
the blue eyed babies of the Ministers and
the bureaucrats on positions of
important. B.ED degree, for the obtaining
of which, students flock to our state in
large numbers, has been done away with in
our state. There are many Principals and
Lecturers in the Schools education
department without the most needed B.ED
degree. The state does not stop herein In
the State Institutes of Education and the
District Institutes of Education we find
people without BED degree devising
educational policies and giving training
to the untrained teachers. These people
also deliver lectures on educational
methodology. What a fantasy and a
charming fairy tale like business. Those
people who have never taught or seen a
Primary, Middle or a High School manage
their affairs as Chief Education
Officers.It is observed that these
officers in a number of cases are without
a B.ED degree. This also is value based
Education.!.
Take the
cases of Education Institutions in the
Private Sector. These schools have
becomes launching pads for tutorials.
Students need pay the requisite fees for
enrolment only to study in the tutorials.
The school authorities take care of the
attendance registers. The same is true of
Internal Assessments for Science
Subjects. There is no check on them. In
many cases the head of the institution
does not have the prescribed
qualification meriting him to be so. The
teachers in these institutions are
treated as mere drawers of water and
hewers of wood for the Management. Does
one understand their kind of poverty,
misery, and wretchedness,in the
institutions of such wealth and
affluence? What explains the cruelty and
callousness in a culture known for Karuna
and Daya not only to the humans but to
all living creatures? Will the day come
when the teachers in those schools will
be rid of this insulating wall so that
the profits are in the hands of the
collectivity known as "Teachers of
Private Schools". Did not the mystic
"Akash Ganga" free itself of
the divine ascetic’s locks and sage
Agastya’s Ashram, to be at the
disposal of the millions downstream?
Unless the Aegean stable is cleared , to
talk of value based education shall
appear as a matter of Alice in the
Wonderland.
Yours
etc...
Predhuman K. Joseph Dhar
On e-mail
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