Question- What do you mean by Value-based Education? Discuss the Functions of Values in detail.

Answer -

The dictionary defines value as "intrinsic worth or goodness" or as "that which renders anything useful and estimable". Value is identified with broad fundamental norms which are generally accepted and shared by the members of the society or subgroup and which save to integrate as well as guide and channelize the organized activities of members. The term denotes a shared cultural standard with an element of normativeness and ethical and moral over tones. Value based education in Bertrand Rusell's words is "The formation, by means of instruction of certain mental habits and certain outlook on life and the world". It may be termed as a pedagogic outlet for "Conscience collective". It is knowledge oriented education and it is mostly a teacher-learner interaction for the inculcation of socio-culturally approved personality variables. In value based education man is not conceived of in ethically neutral terms but as a phenomenon full of divine potentialities.

Functions of Values

1. Values provide goals or ends for the members of the society to aim for their life: Values help the individuals to decide their goal in their life.

2. Values provide for stabilities and uniformities in group interaction: They hold the society together because they are shared in common. Some sociologists argue that shared values from the basis for social unity or social solidarity. Since they share the same values with others, the members of a society are likely to see others as people like themselves. They will have a sense of belonging to a social group. They will feel a part of the wider society.

3. Values bring legitimacy to the rules that govern specific activities: The rules are accepted as rules and followed mainly because they embody the values that most people accept. The Americans for example, believe that the capitalist organization is the best one because it allows people to seek success in life.

4. Values help to bring about some kind of adjustment between different sets of rules: The people seek the same kinds of ends or goals in different fields of their life. Hence it is possible for them to modify the rules to help the pursuit of this end. For e.g., If the Indian people cherish the value of "the principle of equality", then they will have to modify the rules governing the interpersonal relationship of husband and wife and man and woman. As and when new activities emerge, people create rules in the light of their beliefs about what is "good" and "right".

5. Values provide a readymade means for judging the social worth of person and pluralities: They make possible the whole system of stratification that exists in every society. They help the individual himself to "know where he stands" in the eyes of his fellow men.

6. Values focus the attention of people upon material, cultural items that are considered desirable, useful and essential:
   The item so valued may not always be "best" for the individual or group, but the fact that it is a socially valued object makes it work striving for.

7. The ideal ways of thinking and behaving in any society are indicated by values: They form a kind of blueprint of socially accepted behaviors that people can almost always discern the "best" way of acting and thinking. Values function as a means of solidarity: It is an axiom among social scientists that groups cluster around and are united by common shared values of a higher order. People are attracted to others who cherish the same values and it may be said that common values are among the most important of the factors that, create and social solidarity.

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