Parents need to stand up for a value-based education system

By Mithula Guganeshan

Education is simply considered as the science of living, opening the doors to a life full of opportunity and freedom. Education of the mind without the education of the heart is no education at all, is a famous quote by Aristotle. However, our educational institutions are designed to deliver just one side of the coin while completely ignoring the development of human values.

Every single parent, rich or poor considers education as an important investment. Parent’s role in school education system is limited to choosing the school and spending money for education only. Nearly 40% of the children’s active hours in a day are spent at school and parent’s role should be extended beyond monitoring marks and homework.

Parents and teachers are responsible for developing good humans in the society and their active role in the transformation of school governance is a basic necessity. However, parents are extremely silent and ignorant towards the school’s lack of interest in terms of developing the student’s mind and character. Lack of value education plays a significant role in terms of drug usage, alcoholism and unruly behaviour dooming the life of the individuals and developing unnecessary problems.

It’s really crucial that parents get over the marks obtained by the child and look at the bigger picture. Do 100% marks for Mathematics, History, and Geography etc. justify what else they are missing on? Can every single parent confidently assure that all the schools are delivering the best for the students to succeed in life? 

An interesting scenario is when educated parents spend heaps of money on school education yet failing to question the lack of value based education. Unavailability of proper value system at their own homes as well would result in the development of a deformed character. High grades cannot make up for the lack of a solid and sound character. Does our current education system teach fundamentals such as money creation, ways to improve financial literacy or ways to live in harmony with the society and the environment?

The current Government plans to strengthen the education pillar during its regime by realigning the education system. New changes have been proposed in terms of moving towards competency based curriculum, providing basic facilities such as sanitation, library, IT and science laboratories and also to address the teacher shortage. 

However, the quality of the education delivered by schools needs to be monitored and measured by the parents regularly. Educated and knowledgeable parents’ contribution could benefit not only their children but others as well. The existing School Development Society and associations in schools are merely focused on improving the infrastructure of the schools. Ideally, the efforts should be directed towards encouraging a collaborative effort to develop the mind and heart of the students. 

Parents should take up an active role to monitor and regulate schools in order to deliver quality education and it’s the right of every parent. A parent’s role in terms of school education system isn’t limited to monitoring the child, but also to ensure that their children and others children gets the best out of schools. 

Parents need to stand up on behalf of their children for a value education system. Education policy needs to be redefined by incorporating parent’s influence to improve the standards of education delivered. Parents should join as members at school, district, provincial and a national level to improve the quality of education delivered.

The regulatory board needs to regularly monitor the schools’ administration and the Government’s accountability to deliver basic necessities and justify the relevance and importance of the taught subjects to suit today’s modern world. This is the moral responsibility of every parent, to monitor and improve the relevance of the lessons being taught at schools.