Honing skills through value-based classes

Time and again the need to make our educational system more value based has been stressed. Though a specific policy in this regard is yet to be formed, some of the colleges have taken steps in this connection that have proved useful to the students.
The Govinda Dasa College in Surathkal has introduced value-based classes to help students inculcate values, which cannot be taught in regular classroom activities.The college introduced the concept three years ago on an experimental basis and has integrated the concept with the academic programme from this year. Mangalore University too has encouraged the scheme.
College vice-principal Sreepoorna told the Times of India that the classes are held twice a week where teachers focus on values like management skills, communication, relationship building, truthfulness, honesty through different activities. Students are given the freedom to organize the events. Regular classes are not cut for the purpose. Instead, teachers work for an additional two hours, he said.
The programme is common for students of all faculties. They learn skills which are not available in their regular curriculum. For instance, arts students do not learn about management skills. But such skills are needed in professional as well as one's domestic life. In these classes, art students get an opportunity to learn them, he explained.
But are students interested in concepts like values? Sreepoorna said it was because of the encouraging response from students that they decided to integrate the concept with academic activities.
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Derek Lobo, former regional adviser, World Health Organisation, stressed the need for professional students inculcating soft skills and developing a morally and ethically strong personality. Speaking at the graduation day ceremony of the MBA students of St. Joseph Engineering College, Vamanjoor, he said learning was a continuous process.
The post graduate students council of Mangalore University organized a fund collection drive for flood relief. Students collected Rs 19,150 and handed over the amount to district in charge minister J Krishna Palemar.