1. INTRODUCTION

An increasing number of leaders of thought and action have begun to inquire deeply into the maladies of our times and it is increasingly realised that these maladies are results of a disequilibrium between the ideals that mankind has been labouring to formulate during the recent centuries and the disconcerting actualities which refuse obstinately to change.  With the passing of every decade, we seem to be coming nearer to a point where the realisation of the ideals will become imperative and where, at the same time, it will seem impossible to accomplish this realisation.  In other words, we seem to be heading to an acute crisis.

A huge structure is being built up with an increasing insistence on efficiency needed for industrialised society, leaving practically no room for the growth of profounder human and spiritual consciousness which alone can rightly and wisely guide human volition in taking decisions in the critical times that seem to lie ahead of us.   While under the pressure of the technological development, the world is shrinking, and we are dreaming of the possibility of a planetary civilization, we have not yet the required corresponding psychological development which can enable the human consciousness to sustain such a planetary civilization.  On the contrary, there is a growing preponderance of those impulses which can thrive only through ignorance, fragmentation, discord and violence.

As we study the situation, we feel convinced that it is a vain chimera to believe that the world can be changed without a radical change in the human consciousness.  It seems, therefore, right and just that the wisest leaders of   today have declared unambiguously that the future of the human race is dependent exclusively upon a radical transformation of human consciousness, and that one of the most important means of effecting this transformation is an integral and value-oriented education.

Happily during the first decades of the present century some of the greatest educationists of India devoted their life time to the actualization of the needed new educational system.  The fruits of their pioneering experiments are available to us even though they have not been sufficiently acknowledge or appreciated.  In recent years since the Independence, an increasing stress is being laid on the formulation of objectives of education that aim at uniting science and humanism, ethics and aesthetics, and material welfare with spiritual welfare.  This is clearly discernible in the Reports of various commissions and committees that were constituted by the Government since 1948.  And during the last two years, the Government have expressed the urgent need to formulate concrete and practical plans for value-oriented education.

As an important consequence of this concern, a Conference was held in May, 1981, at Simla to think seriously on the meaning and scope of value-oriented education and to formulate practical guidelines for Government action.  This Conference was presided over by the Union Education Minister and was attended by some of the best educationists of our country.  This Conference recommended inter alia, that value orientation should be the central focus of education and that teachers should be given the necessary training in the effective methods of development of values among students and teachers.

At the same time the Government of India, in their Order No. F. 13-4/80-Schools 3, dated 23rd May, 1981 (Appendix-A) constituted a Working Group to review the teachers training programmes with a view to promoting value-education, consisting of the following members:

The terms of reference of the Working Group as revised in the Government of India letter No. F. 13-4/80 School 3 dated 14th September, 1981 (Appendix-B) are as follows:

(i) To suggest the necessary changes in the present content and scope of value-orientation in education with special reference to the need to ensure development and promoting among students and teachers not only of the highest values of physical, emotional, mental, aesthetic, moral and spiritual culture but also of those values which are uniquely Indian, and which would promote secularism, pride in heritage and composite culture;

(ii) To suggest a programme of the study of the national freedom struggle;

(iii) To suggest the curriculum content for teacher trainees to achieve the desired value-orientation;

(iv) To suggest special techniques of pedagogy for training in value orientation;

(v) To suggest strategies for reorientating service teachers through inservice programmes;

(vi) To suggest ways of promoting participation of voluntary organisations in organising training courses for teachers;

(vii) To assess dimensions of effort required as also to indicate the extent of governmental inputs;

(viii) To make suggestions which would be relevant to the determination of the new roles of teachers as counsellors and guides instead of as mere lecturers; and

(ix) To determine the important tasks that teachers will need to undertake towards preparing the new educational materials keeping in view the challenges of our times.

The Working Group invited the following persons as co-opted members:

1.	Miss. Kamala Vasudev, Principal, Government Co-Educational Teachers' Training Institute Daryaganj, New Delhi
2.	Prof. V. Eswara Reddy, Education Department, Osmania University, Hyderabad
3.	Prof. (Miss) S. Varshney, New D/5, Near Cooperative Stores, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi.
4.	Dr. (Mrs.) G.P. Sherry, Principal Dayalbagh Women's College of Education, Agra.
5.	Prof. P.N. Dave, Head, CAPE Group, NCERT.
6.	Dr. R.M. Kalra, Deputy Educational Adviser, Youth Services, Ministry of Education and Culture, New Delhi.

The Committee had several meetings on the dates mentioned below:

At the beginning, the Working Group tried to clarify the terms of reference and the basic ideas mentioned therein.  Members of the Working Group expressed their views on the concepts of "Secularism,  Pride in Heritage and Composite Culture".  Letters were also sent to eminent persons outside the Working Group to obtain their views on these concepts.  The Working Group also discussed the nature and scope of social and ethical values to be inculcated among students and how these differ from religious instruction.  Members of the Working Group also made studies of books depicting various aspects of our culture and heritage so as to identify the aspects that may be included in the education on values.

The Working Group then discussed the programme of study of the National Freedom Struggle.  In this connection, it was noted that NCERT had developed a set of pictorial materials depicting the National Freedom Struggle.  The Working Group witnessed an exhibition of these materials organised by the NCERT and gave their suggestions for its improvement.  It was suggested that NCERT may develop small handbook incorporating these pictures so that it can be used for teaching the National Freedom Struggle.

It was suggested that the present curriculum of teacher training may be scrutinised so as to identify the value-orientation given therein.  Dr. B.R. Goyal, Lecturer NCERT, was requested to do this exercise and this was presented to the Working Group by him.  The NCERT (Department of Education in Social Sciences and Humanities) was also requested to make a study of the values mentioned in the text books developed by the NCERT for classes I to VIII.  The analysis of the text books was also done by this Department and this was presented to the Working Group.

Before undertaking a discussion as to the content and method of value education for teachers, Prof. V.S. Jha was requested to prepare a paper on the kind of teacher we want.  Accordingly, Prof. V.S. Jha prepared a paper entitled 'Teacher and His Task' which was presented and accepted by the Working Group for inclusion in the body of the Report.

The Working Group then decided that the members should collect inspiring stories which may be suggested as supplementary readings in teacher training institutions as well as in schools.  Members collected such stories which were scrutinised against the following criteria and recommended for use in teaching of values (Appendix A):

(i) The story should be written in beautiful and chaste language;
(ii) It should be of deep human interest, but avoid parables or extolling any particular religion;
(iii) It should not contain plots of cunning and cheating;
(iv) The general atmosphere of the story should be such as to glorify truth, beauty and goodness.

A number of papers were presented by the members on different aspects of inculcation of values in teacher education and these were discussed in the meetings of the Working Group.  Some of these papers formed the main Chapters of the report while the others (list at Appendix - D) were discussed and utilised in arriving at the main recommendations.

There was much discussion on "Pride in Heritage and Composite Culture" as stated in the terms of reference.  Some of members wrote papers on it and also collected views and extracts from selected books which are recommended as illustrative readings on Indian Culture (Appendices-B & C).  In this connection, a Special Meeting of the local members of the Committee was held on June 11, 1982, to which Prof. G.C. Pande, Professor and Head, Department of Ancient History, Culture and Archaeology, Allahabad University, was invited to present his views on Indian Culture.   In addition to local members, Prof. V.S. Jha who was in Delhi on the date, also attended the meeting.  It was agreed that a study of the achievements of Indian Culture should be a part of the curriculum of teacher education.

The main body of the report which follows is compiled from a paper on "The Teacher and His Task" by Prof. V.S Jha and other papers written by Prof. Kireet Joshi which were presented to the Group and adopted unanimously for inclusion in the main body of the report.

2. LEARNING-TEACHING PROCESS

A Synoptic View of the Present Situation

We are passing through a great transition.  The old is becoming obsolete and the new is still in the process of emergence.  The old ways of learning and teaching are found to be too rigid and too out-moded.  A greater application of psychological principles is being increasingly demanded.  It has been urged that the training of the young requires on the part of the teacher a deep psychological knowledge.  According to some thinkers, the present educational system is a huge factory of mis-education.  According to them the spontaneity of the child is smothered at an early stage by our mechanical methods which are prevalent in our education system.   They contend that the child is not a plastic material which can be moulded according to educators' design, but it is a closed bud having its own inherent capacity to flower and blossom, needing only the favourable climate conditions such as the right atmosphere, environment, inspiration and guidance.  Each child, according to them, is a psychological entity, having its own specific individual needs of growth which have to be understood and developed by the same kind of knowledge and tact by which a good gardener tends varieties of plants and trees in his garden.  Just as each plant needs to be individually looked after, even so, each child, it is contended, is required to be looked after individually.  It has been further held that each individual is a great potential dynamo of energy, and if we do not deal with that potentially, only very little gets actualised, and the rest remains dormant and uncultivated.  This means a tremendous waste both for the nation and the world.   Not to tap the full potentialities of each individual is thus psychologically unsound and economically unproductive.  It has, therefore, been urged that our educational system should either be set aside altogether through some kind of 'deschooling" or radically changed in such a way that each individual is provided with conditions and facilities under which he can grow towards his fullness on the lines that are psychologically appropriate to him.

There is another line of thinking according to which it is not enough to develop the potentialities of the individual but also to direct these potentialities towards their highest values.  It has been argued that the psychological development of the individual is an extremely dangerous process, unless the development is guided by wisdom and skill and directed towards certain desirable and sublime ideals.  There is a risk, it is argued, of succeeding in developing only highly egoistic and selfish individuals, if we insist only upon development and do not take a great care to insist on the discovery of the right values, aims, objectives and ideals.  It has, therefore, been urged that education should be value-oriented and should provide those conditions and facilities under which each individual is enabled to discover the highest possible values and enbody them as effectively as possible in thought, feeling and action.

An unprecedented education experiment which is taking place in different parts of the world today has resulted in the formulation on new models of learning-teaching process.  It has been argued that learning is a process of transmutation, transmutation of innate reflexes into organised and conscious perceptions, visions and actions, transmutation of innate drives into wise and skillful pursuit of means and ends, and transmutation of innate tendencies into a harmonious integrated personality.  It has been contended that there are observable and discernible processes by which the process of learning or of transmutation can be accelerated.   We are often asked to consider the tremendous feat of learning that the child performs in the first few years of its life.  It has been contended that the child learns so fast because all its occupations are occupations of learning.  For the child, all play is learning, and all learning is a play.  Again, it is contended, the child learns so fast because the child deals with its universe with its total being by the exercise of all its faculties and by a concrete urge of experience.  It has been argued that our entire learning process should be so changed that we are able to create for the learner the same conditions which obtain in the child's encounter with its universe.  Some educationists have, therefore, pleaded for a search of a school that has no walls, and for studies that have no boundaries.

It has also been argued that the learner learns best under the conditions of freedom to choose, under teacher's wise guidance, what he wants to learn and what he should learn.  The learner should have also the freedom of pursuing his studies at his own pace.  This argument is further intensified when it is seen that an indispensable condition of the moral and spiritual development is secured only when the learner is given ample opportunities to exercise his free will.

Learning by doing is being increasingly advocated.   At the same time, it is being recognised that there are, for different categories of learners, different ways of learning.  Some students learn better through aesthetic experience, some others through manual work, while still others through intellectual or meditative contemplation.  It has, therefore, been suggested that an ideal system of education should provide to each learner that method or such combination of methods which is suitable to his specific needs of learning.

Self-learning is being given in several experiments a pre-eminent place.  Individualised programmed instruction,  for example, follows an instructional model which aspires to produce an effective communication for securing precisely defined goals of learning, in a manner timed to meet the needs of the individual, mostly with the help of programmed teaching and learning material.  An important variant of individualised learning is that of learning of consultation with the teacher, as and when needed.  Lecture system, which caters to group learning, plays   a minor role in experiments which emphasise self-learning.  Even the syllabi and examination system are required to be radically changed in the context of a system based upon self-learning.

Project systems try to combine self-learning with group-learning.  Projects may be directed towards an exploration or towards producing some practical action under certain actual situations.  In a model that is known as Info-Bank, the learner is required to define what he is interested in and the kind of approach that he wants to undertake.  The learner is given the freedom to govern his reading and practical activities and to judge the knowledge acquired and its significance.   In some educational experiments, a combination of different information materials is made available to the learner and he is given the freedom to construct and control his own learning process and the environment suitable for the chosen learning process.   In yet another instructional model, individual learners learn from one another by informing and consulting one another mutually from time to time.  At a higher level of consultation, there is experimental testing and feed-back.  In some models, the learner takes over the roles of those responsible for action and decision in simulated environment.  In some cases, problems to be solved are frequently more complex and make the acquisition of external information necessary, while in others the required information is supplied in advance.  In the "Workshop Model", the learners work like colleagues, supported, if necessary, by organisers and advisers, on the solution of real problems with which they are confronted.   In this model, the learning of the methods of work is as important as the production of results.

Educationists are perplexed by the phenomenon of un-precedented explosion of knowledge.  Teachers and learners are required to deal with this explosion, and efforts are being made to discover accelerated methods of learning and teaching.  The necessity of continuous or life-long education is also being underlined.  At the same time, teachers and students are required to distinguish more clearly than ever before, those aspects of knowledge which are essential from those which are of peripheral importance.

There is also today an unparalleled width and depth of enquiry, which necessitates a new kind of learning-teaching process that would be at once comprehensive and yet peculiarly specialised or varied so as to suit each individual.

Again, there is today a great quest all over the world towards the synthesis of knowledge and synthesis of culture.  Ancient knowledge is being recovered in the context of the modern knowledge.  The humanist and the technologist are finding themselves in greater and greater need of each other.  It is being increasingly recognised that the learner should not only develop his rational faculties but should also pursue moral and aesthetic tendencies.  In India, we go farther and underline the need of a synthesis of science and spirituality.  Against this background, there is a quest to discover a point of convergence where different sciences and humanities can meet in a synthesis of knowledge.  There is a search for an all-embracing project of work-experience that would generate a continuing process of life-long education.  And there is a search for a programme of learning that would necessitate a spontaneous harmony of the needs of a personal development with the needs of collective development.  It is being asked if there is a tool of the acceleration of the summing up of the past and the unfolding of the future.  And it is asked if there is a method and content of education that would necessitate an automatic synchronization of studies, work-experience and flowering of faculties and values.  It has become necessary, both for the learner and for the teacher, to discover or invent such methods by the employment of which the explosion of knowledge can be contained and personality can be developed which would harmonise, progressively, the wideness of the humanist and the skill of the technologist, the disciplined will-force of the moralist and the refined imagination of the artist, and the scrupulous knowledge of the scientist and the sublime vision, wisdom and ever-growing perfection of the profound and wide spiritual culture.

We thus see that there are today powerful trends that necessitate a continual revision of the contents of education as also a continual refinement of the learning-teaching process.

It is against this background that there is a serious thinking in our country to determine the new role that the teacher is called upon to play.   The situation in India is in a sense more complex than in many other countries of the world.  India is passing through a tremendous period of scientific and cultural efflorescence.  This period was marked by a powerful phase of the national freedom struggle during which the Indian sub-continent passed through an unprecedented churning of mental, aesthetic, moral and spiritual ideas.  In the course of this churning, profound experiments in the field of education took place, the lessons of which need still to be assimilated.  There grew in India during this period an irresistible sentiment to give to the children and the youths of our country a new kind of education, which is freed from the letters of the system given to us by the British and which would ensure development and promoting among students and teachers not only of the highest values of physical, emotional, mental, aesthetic, moral and spiritual culture, but also those values which are uniquely Indian, and which would at the same time promote a new kind of synthesis appropriate to our own composite culture.  India has developed a kind of secularism which needs to be properly defined, understood and promoted.  We have to build up young men and women who would have pride in the Indian heritage and our composite culture.  This would mean that we have to transmit to the children and youths a true knowledge of India, of India's complexity, of India's greatness and of India's innate tendencies to harmonise and synthesise.

The task that lies ahead of Indian education is difficult.  We are speeding rapidly towards the turn of the century, and we are being called upon to take into account the educational needs both of today and of tomorrow.

It is impossible to deal with all aspects of the new challenges that confront us.  The framework of the terms of reference referred to our informal working group is limited, and we still restrict ourselves to the task of suggesting the necessary changes in the teachers' training programmes in our country and of suggesting some practicable ideas which can be implemented in the context of our immediate needs.  We feel, however, that sooner rather than later a full-fledged Commission should be constituted which will have wider terms of reference so that a detailed examination of the teachers' training programmes can be undertaken.  We feel that far reaching recommendations are required to be made if we are to provide a meaningful and progressive education so that they might be able to shoulder the great responsibilities which they will have to bear during the next century when India have shaped itself more correctly into the image of our cherished dreams.

3. BASIC IDEAS

In order to deal properly with the terms of reference given to our Working Group, it seems necessary to clarify certain basic ideas.

Most important, we are called upon to clarify the term, value.  Evidently, in the context of our terms of reference, the word value is not to be taken in the sense in which it is used in Economics. The word value as understood in the context of educational philosophy refers to those desirable ideals and goals which are intrinsic in themselves and which, when achieved or attempted to be achieved, evoke a deep sense of fulfilment to one or many or all parts of what we consider to be the highest elements of our nature.  In a sense, it may be urged that the word value is basically undeniable, since it denotes a fundamental category and it is itself the highest genus of that category.  At the same time, there is a common understanding among all of us as to what we mean when it is said that Truth, Beauty and Goodness are the supreme value of life.  They are intrinsic in character and they are ends of themselves.  They are considered to be the most desirable ideals and they occur to us whenever we try to conceive of those states of our being or becoming in which we are likely to find some kind of ultimate fulfilment.

All true education is fundamentally a process of training whereby the individual is enabled to embody progressively, those values which we in our highest thought and aspiration come to regard as something most desirable.

If we analyse our human nature, we find there are in us various energies which can be distinguishable under various categories, such as physical, emotional, mental, aesthetic, moral and spiritual.  These energies are mostly latent in us and only a part of them are actually active.  Even the active part of our energies needs to be developed and directed towards their highest point of fulfilment in their respective values.  But the task of education is not limited merely to the development of our active energies but also to bring out our latent capacities and lead them to their rightful goals and ideals.

The teacher should therefore have a sound knowledge of the psychology of man and should know the secrets of the principles underlying the development of both our active and latent capacities.

In our present system of education, we are too preoccupied with the mental development of the development, we give a preponderant importance to those qualities which are relevant to our present examination system.   We are thus giving not so much of importance to the development of the powers of understanding as to the power of memory.  We do not emphasis the development of imagination as much as we emphasis the power of knowing facts.  We do not give importance to the pursuit of Trust as much as to the pursuit of piece-meal assemblage of topics and subjects which are prescribed in our syllabus.  Recently, attempts have been made to ameliorate this situation and some place is being given to physical education and aesthetic education.  But the situation is far from satisfactory, and when we come to the domain of moral and spiritual values, the situation is confusing and it seems, a deeper exploration is required before we give to ourselves some definite idea as to what they mean and what place they can be given in our system of education.

The situation in regard to moral and spiritual values is complicated by the fact that there are today several powerful trends of thought in the light of which morality has come to be regarded as something relative and spirituality is being dismissed as some undeniable category of irrationalism.  It is sometimes held that scientific method is the only door to knowledge, while morality and spirituality can at best be a kind of emotional responses.  It is, therefore, sometimes argued that what needs to be advanced in our educational system is scientific method and scientific knowledge and that each individual should be left to do what he likes in regard to his moral and spiritual tendencies.  As against this, it is being increasingly  felt that no education can be complete or even worthwhile if it does not provide to the individual not only the knowledge of the history of moral, religious and spiritual ideas which are a great part of the human heritage but also a non-dogmatic but disciplined process by which the individual is enabled to embody those values which seem to our human thought as indispensable to the survival of human race at the present critical juncture of human history and to the eventual development of  a greater civilisation than we have had hitherto.  It is, for instance, universally agreed that pursuit of peace is one of the most desirable things that we should encourage in education all over the world.   No body seriously argues that his is a value, which each individual should be left free to pursue or not to pursue and that it should have no place in our educational system.  And, we may note that pursuit of peace implies the pursuit of a number of inter-related values such as unity, harmony, mutuality, friendship, faithfulness and sincerity.  As a matter of fact, there is in the realm of values an intimate inter-relatedness, and once we admit any given value, we are perforce led to admit the entire range of values.

Nonetheless, it must be admitted that it is not easy to settle the question as to what precise is the relationship between the realm of values and the realm of knowledge, how precisely pursuit of science and pursuit of values should be related to each other, and how precisely we should encourage the pursuit of values in our system of education.  There are, however some guidelines that we can derive from the contemporary educational thought and from some of the great educational experiments conducted in India or elsewhere.

In the domain of physical education, the values that we ought to seek are those of health, strength, plasticity, grace and beauty.  In the domain of emotional education, the values that we ought to seek would be those of harmony and friendliness, of courage and heroism, of endurance and perseverance and of irresistible will to conquer the forces of ignorance, division and injustice.  In the domain of the mental development, the values that we ought to seek would be those of utmost impartiality, dispassionate search after the Truth, Calm and Silence, and widest possible synthesis.  The values pertaining to the aesthetic development would be those of the vision of the Beauty and creative joy of the possible aesthetic experience and expression.

Values that we should seek in the moral and spiritual domain are those of sincerity, faithfulness, obedience to whatever one conceives to be the highest, gratitude, honesty benevolence, generosity, cheerfulness, selflessness, freedom from egoism, equality in joy and suffering, in honour and dishonor, in success and failure, pursuit of the deepest and the highest, of the absolute and ultimate and progressive expression of this pursuit in thought, feeling and action.

It would be observed that the pursuit of the above-mentioned values is not intrinsically related to any particular moral or religious doctrine or any particular spiritual discipline.  One can pursue these values as something intrinsic and as ends in themselves, irrespective of whether one holds any particular doctrine of ethics, religion or spirituality.  Whether one belongs to one religion or the other or to no religion, one can pursue these values devotedly and zealously.  This point is extremely important in the context of the Indian situation where there are a number of religions, including atheistic religions, and where there are people of no religion.  This is again important in the context of the fact that our Constitution clearly states that "No religious instruction shall be provided in any educational institution wholly maintained out of the State Fund" and that "No person attending any educational institution recognised by the State or receiving aid out or State Fund shall be required to take part in any religious instruction that may be imparted in such institution or to attend any religious worship that may be conducted in such institution or in any premises attached thereto unless such person or, if such person is a minor, his guardian has given his consent thereto."

A question is often raised as to whether there is any valid distinction between moral and spiritual values.  In answer, it may be said that much depends upon what we intend to include in our definition of the word "morality" or in the word "spirituality".  In Indian thought, the distinction between morality and spirituality has been clearly made and we have two definite terms, Naitik and Adhyatmik, having their specific and distinguishing connotations.  The word "morality" connotes a pursuit of the control and mastery over impulses and desires under the guidance and supervening inspiration of a standard of conduct formulated thought in consideration of man's station and duties in society or in consideration of any discovered or prescribed intrinsic law of an deal.   Morality is often conceived as a preparation for spirituality.  Spirituality on the other hand, begins when one seeks whatever one conceives to be the ultimate and absolute for its own sake unconditionally and without any reserve whatsoever.  Moreover, while morality is often limited to the domain of duties, spirituality is fundamentally a search of the knowledge (Sakstatkara) of the highest and the absolute by direct experience and manifestation of this search in every mode living, thinking and acting.

What is called religious, and what in Indian terminology is termed as Dharmik is clearly distinguishable from the moral and the spiritual.  The differentiate by which religion can be distinguished from morality and spirituality are: (i) a specific religious belief which is so exclusive that one cannot accept it irrespective of whether one holds that religious belief or any other or none at all; (ii) every specific religion has, as its essential ingredient, certain prescribed acts, rituals and ceremonies; (iii) a religious authority to which religious matters are referred and the decision of which is final..  Both moral and spiritual values, particularly those which we have enumerated above, can be practised irrespective of whether one believes in one religion or another or whether one believes in no religion.   Both morality and spirituality can be independent of rituals and ceremonies and of any acts specifically prescribed by any particular religion.  And both of them are independent of any authority except that of one's own free and direct experience.

It is thus clear that education in moral and spiritual values is quite distinct from "religious instruction"  What we are proposing is instruction and training in the entire realm of values-physical, emotional, intellectual, imaginative, aesthetic, moral and spiritual which can be pursued by any individual irrespective of whether he accepts any religion or no religion.

In addition to the values which are enumerated above, we feel that value-orientation in education must also include, specifically, those values which are being promoted by UNESCO of which India is a Member-State.  This would mean that our educational system should encourage the value of world peace.  International understanding and unity of mankind.  UNESCO has also put forward through a comprehensive ideal and value, namely, "to be".  This ideal has been highlighted in the Report of the International Commission on the development of education, which was constituted by UNESCO in 1971.  While explaining the ideal of "To Be", M. Edgar Faure, the Chairman of the Commission, stated that one of the underlying assumptions of the Report is "That the aid of development is the complete fulfilment of man, in all the richness of his personality, the complexity of his forms of expression and his various commitments."^*

The ideal of "to be" is distinct from the ideal of "to acquire" and "to possess".  The ideal of "to be" refers to that direction of effort which leads individual to look deeply within himself and to find in his inner being the source of his varied potentialities and actualities, the source of a harmony of his varied personalities, and the source of a fulfilment is some kind of perfection that transcends egoism and which rests in a vast and integrated self-hood.

It is pertinent to note that the Indian educational thought has constantly emphasised the value of wholeness of integrality and comprehensiveness.  In Indian thought, a distinction has been made between the ego and the self, between Ahambhava and Atman.  According to the Indian thought whereas egoistic personality is ridden with self-contradictions and internal conflicts, the true self-hood is free from these contradictions and conflicts, and it is the integrating centre in which varied personalities are harmonised and integrated personality is thus a recognised ideal that the Indian educational thought has held out as one of the supreme spiritual values.  In its fullness, the idea of integrated personality connotes the perfection of a four-fold personality that harmonises wisdom, power, love and skill in works.  We, therefore, recommend that the pursuit of this fullness of integrated personality may be regarded as one of the highest values which should be pursued in our educational system.

There are, indeed, certain other values which are uniquely Indian, in the sense that even though these values may be shared by India in common with other countries, they are pursued in India either with a certain special zeal and dedication or pursued with a certain speciality or completeness.  For example, the value that we attach to the ideal of tolerance is something special in India.  In fact, the word tolerance itself is not adequate to convey the intended meaning in the ordinary idea of tolerance, there is still a feeling that our own preferred idea is somewhat superior to the other contending ideas..  On the other hand, what is peculiarly Indian is the sentiment and the recognition that various principal contending ideas are all equally legitimate ideas and that superiority lies not in holding one idea as one preferred idea but in trying to find such a synthesis that each idea finds its own highest fulfilment in it.  It is true that all true tendencies towards synthesis, whether found in Plato or Marx, whether in the West or in the East, have this special characteristic.  But what is uniquely Indian is that the value and ideal of synthesis has been pursued throughout the long history of Indian Culture as a most desirable goal - and that too repeatedly and with a very special insistence.  We, therefore, recommend that a special emphasis should be laid in all our learning process towards the seeking of synthesis not only  as an ideal of intellectual development but also as a cherished ideal of Indian culture.

Along with the basic idea of synthesis, there is also the accompanying idea of unity,  mutuality and oneness is diversity.  That, in spite of there being varying centrifugal forces, there are also supervening powerful and harmonising centripetal forces operating in the Indian life and that the Indian Culture finds its deepest fulfilment not in any exclusive denial but in comprehensive affirmation (or in denial of all denials) need a special empahsis.  And we recommend that our education should be so re-oriented as to give a pre-eminent place to the pursuit of the culture of unity in diversity.

Similarly, what is meant by secularism in the Indian context is uniquely Indian.  According to the Western idea, secularism means a tendency or a system of beliefs which rejects all forms of religious faith or worship.   It means something that pertains to the present world or to things which are not spiritual or sacred.  In the context, however, secularism means comprehensiveness in which all religious receive equal protection, treatment and respect, and in which there is place for every one whether he belongs to one religion or another or to no religion.   Again Indian secularism encourages us to approach everything, whether material or spiritual, with a sense of sacredness.  In Indian secularism there is freedom for the propagation of each religion without hindrance or bar and there is also the freedom to promote and propagate synthesis of religions.  At the same time, Indian secularism insists on the promotion of moral and spiritual values which are common to all religious and to no religion as also on the promotion of a synthesis of science and spirituality.   Secularism so defined and understood is thus a very special value that is uniquely Indian.

There are several other Indian values which require a special mention and which should find their right place in our educational system.   The sense of joy that is behind various festivals in India which are shared by people of the country is something which can be understood only when one enters into the heart and soul of Indian culture  The Indian idea of the rhythm of life and the law of harmony, expressed by the word "Dharma" is also uniquely Indian.  The place that India has given to the womanhood and to motherhood, in particular, is again something very unique to India, and which cannot be explained in terms which are current in the world, whether in the context of any orthodox attitude or in the context of what is known as feminism.  Again, the value that we attach to the pursuit of knowledge, to the pursuit of purity, to the pursuit of wisdom is something unique, in the sense that these things are valued most and they are cherished most, and on the call of which we are inspired to renounce every thing.  We feel that all this and many other values which are uniquely Indian should be encouraged and fostered.

There are indeed certain elements which are Indian, which are basically contradictory of the true Indian spirit, such as casteism, regionalism, and fanaticism.  These have, of course, to be rejected, and they should find no place in our educational system.  India has always opposed ignorance and division   This has been India's dominant theme, and even today, our Indian system of education must declare itself opposed to anything that produces ignorance, superstition and division.

It is noteworthy that the great Indian values, some of which we have mentioned above, became dynamically vibrant during the period of India's struggle for freedom  In fact, this period was marked by the rise of great men and women who embodied these values and enriched them.  Again, it was during this period that these values guided and shaped great movements and events.  Thus a study of our nationalist movement provides us a perennial source of inspiration, and we recommend that we should lay a special emphasis on this study in our educational system, particularly, in the programmes related to the training of teachers.