The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Value-based education `need of the hour'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Mar 24, 2006

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Value-based education `need of the hour'

Staff Reporter

Loyola College celebrates 81st annual day

EXCHANGING IDEAS: K. S. Sripathi, Secretary, Higher Education, interacts with students of Loyola college at the annual day celebrations on Wednesday. — Photo: R. Ragu

CHENNAI: Value-based education is the need of the hour, said K.S. Sripathi, Secretary, Higher Education Department, at Loyola College 81st annual day celebrations. Mr. Sripathi, who distributed prizes to top-ranking students, said teachers had neither the time nor the inclination to interact with students. Education and discipline go hand-in-hand.

The values one learns in educational institutions are carried forward in life.

Mr. Sripathi, himself an alumnus of the college and taught Chemistry for two years before becoming a civil servant, said education these days stressed only knowledge.

But, does it make every student level-headed, he asked. "Education, if it does not promote values, is useless tinsel."

Compared with other States, the literacy level, even of women, is higher in the State but there were instances of people taking law into their hands and causing unrest.

Students lauded

Lauding the students on their achievements, he said over one lakh technically qualified students, including some 9,000 engineers, passed out every year. Five lakh students from the arts and science streams also graduated annually.

Students found jobs in areas not linked to the courses they studied. "Arts and Science students are equal if not better than professionally qualified students," he said, and urged more students to consider a career in the civil services.

Albert Muthumalai, principal of the college, listed the achievements of the college in the past year.

Maruthi Manikandan of Physics Department won the best outgoing student prize.

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