Students need to be taught values, ethics: academicians
Children’s Garden Higher Secondary School correspondent Shakuntala Sharma, left, presenting a memento to former director of IIT Madras M.S. Ananth.K.V. Srinivasan
Ethics is to society what grammar is to language: former IIT Director
Education offered today has many gaps and that requires soul-searching, feel teachers.
At a two-day conference that began on Friday here, teachers who had spent their lifetime with students felt reforms were needed to enrich the process of education.
Students needed to be taught values and ethics, said M.S. Ananth, former director of the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras, speaking at a conference organised by The Children’s Garden School Society, to commemorate its 80th founder’s day.
An alumnus of the school, Mr. Ananth said, “Ethics is to society what grammar is to language. Grammar enriches language, just as ethics enriches society.” The examination system has ruined the education system, he said.
In India, values were taught through religion and the age-old tradition of grandparents teaching children values through stories had slowly disappeared, he said.
“Students think that life is a 100m dash but it is a marathon. In the race, the teacher bears the brunt. Let the teachers relax. The students will learn anyway,” he said, adding that the government should ensure teachers received respect in the society.
His views were in concurrence with A. Kalanidhi, former vice-chancellor of Anna University, who said there was a big difference in the way education was imparted in schools and in higher education institutions.
“About 80% of the learning happens in school, parents and surroundings contribute 20%. But it is the reverse in college, where the syllabus contributes 20% and 80% of the learning happens outside,” he explained.
Lack of research
As for the structure of education, he pointed out that some of the best insights for life came from poets like Avvaiyar, Tiruvalluvar and Tirumoolar, who did not have any formal education. He regretted that while the West had taken to research in to Vedas and Sanskrit literature, little was being done in India.
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