Tamil Nadu: Why can’t moral subjects be part of education?

Chennai: Finding that there is something fundamentally wrong in our educational system and that is the reason behind the many unfortunate illegal and immoral shocking incidents happening in the country, which is supposed to be spiritually and morally rich, the Madras high court has asked the Central and state governments as to why it should not include moral subjects in the syllabus in the school and college level to inculcate ethical and moral values in the minds of the people.

A division bench comprising Justices N. Kirubakaran and S.S. Sundar also asked as to why must not the governments make NCC, NSS and Scouts compulsory in all the schools and colleges?

The bench posed these two queries while passing interim orders on a PIL, which sought a direction to the authorities to take appropriate steps to implement compulsory NCC and moral classes in all colleges and schools including private schools and colleges in Tamil Nadu from 6th standards onwards.

The bench said, “Sexual abuse and murder of a 7-year-old child in Coimbatore this week, Pollachi Sex abuse of young girls by force by youngsters this month, sexual abuse of her own students by a lady teacher, neglect of parents by their children, murder of children/ wife/husband due to illicit affairs, violence exhibited by youngsters in the school and college level, school students consuming liquor, students beating teachers and teachers abusing girl studentswould only exhibit lack of moral foundation in our society.”

Moral education to all the students is the need of the hour. However, sadly academic excellence alone was focused today, ignoring of physical education as well as moral aspects. “Because of non-inclusion of the moral subjects in the syllabus as well, we are coming across so many heinous crimes even by school children. Lack of morality is the basic reason for many crimes including unrest in the country. Unless the moral values are sown in the minds of the students, we cannot have orderly society and peace. The society must have people with moral values and law abiding citizens. That apart, the children should be taught how to respect elders and help others, in case of crisis suffered by fellow citizens”, the bench added.

The bench said similarly NCC, NSS and Scouts were made compulsory a few decades ago. However, it was not known whether NCC, NSS and Scouts were made compulsory in the schools and colleges. It was the contention of the counsel for the petitioner that many of the schools were not having NCC, NSS and Scouts. The issue raised by the petitioner was very important, the bench added and suo motu impleaded Union Human Resources Development secretary and the Chair Person, Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) as party respondents in the case.

Ordering notice to the newly impleaded respondents, the bench posted to April 11, further hearing of the case.