In the past two decades, many educational institutions have undergone major transformations with regard to the infrastructure, curriculum and training programs to hone both the hard and the soft skills of the students. However, recently, many colleges homogeneously perceive inculcating values in the students as the imperative need.
Bangalore University, in the way of reaffirming its stand on the implementation of value education, in association with Disha Charitable Trust organized a Principals’ Conclave on July 3rd, 2019 at Jnana Jyoti Auditorium, in the theme of “Value Education: Challenges and the way forward”. It was a half-a-day event, attended by about 700 participants from over 250 institutions that included the Deans, Senior Faculty members, IQAC Coordinators and other academicians.
After the traditional welcome address and the invocation, followed a brief context setting for the event. The Inaugural Address was delivered by Prof. K.R Venugopal, the Vice Chancellor of Bangalore University, who stressed the importance of Value Education as the integral part of education.
Dr. Gururaj Karajagi, the Founder-Director of ACT and the Guiding Council Member of Disha rendered the Keynote Address. He underlined the fact that, despite the knowledge, how values are still not integrated in our everyday lives.His talk was one of the best and touched everyone’s hearts. He emphasized faculty members on intellectual dishonesty.
Disha Charitable Trust, having been in the domain of value education for more than fourteen years presented their activity-based methodology of fostering values to the audience. Smt. Rekha Ramachandran, the Founder-Secretary of Disha highlighted values as the only solution to various challenges posed by the VUCA (Vulnerable, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous) world today.
Dr. Padmaja, the Principal of MLA (Malleshwaram Ladies Association) college and Prof. Shobha Sundaresan, who has served as HOD of MBA department in mLAC (Maharani Lakshmi Ammani College) shared their experiences and the transformation of the students in their respective colleges after Disha’s workshops.
This was followed by Open House, an interactive session on various challenges faced by the institutions in implementing Value Education. The honourable guests on the dais responded to the queries of the audience. The session gave an opportunity to understand the role of not just the colleges, but various stakeholders like Universities and NAAC (National Assessment and Accreditation Council) in providing a conducive environment for implementing value education.
Dr. S.C. Sharma delivered the Concluding Remarks on the significance of Value Initiatives towards enhancing the quality of higher education. He appreciated the initiatives of Disha and the positive impacts of their workshops on the students.
The entire event emphasized the importance of character building through Value Education and it was welcomed unanimously by all the academicians. Let us hope that, in the coming days, Values become part of the mainstream syllabus in all the institutions and together we transform youths, who will transform our nation.
