Lessons from Japan: Building Value Foundation through Education

Japan never fails to amaze the world when it comes to display of values of responsibility and civic sense. The latest example that stunned the world comes from Qatar where the Japanese spectators stayed back and cleaned up the litter in the stadium left by other supporters. This level of sense of ownership and responsibility is hard to be seen in people in one's own country, let alone in another country where you're a tourist.

What sets the Japanese apart from the rest of the world?

The wonder really lies in the Japanese education system that is founded on value education while also being one of the best ranking in the world when it comes to academics, science and mathematics.?

Exams are not given to kids in Japanese schools until they are ten years old. They simply do brief tests. The first three years of school are said to be spent developing a child's character and establishing excellent manners rather than assessing their knowledge or learning. Children are instructed to treat others with respect and to be kind to animals and the environment. They also learn how to be kind, sympathetic, and generous. In addition, they learn virtues like grit, self-control, and justice.

Japanese elementary education is based on the belief that the sense of shared responsibility, dignity of labour, respect for someone's work and appreciation of working by hands, cleanliness, physical activity and working together needs to be imbibed in every member of the society, more so in a society like ours where class difference is highly amplified.

The Japanese educational system makes every effort to guarantee that the kids eat wholesome, well-balanced meals. The teacher and all of the students dine together. As a result, relationships between teachers and students improve.

Greatly needed in Indian schools and society. Perhaps the traditional Gurukul culture did carry these elements where life skills and vocational acumen was imbibed as much as the knowledge of scriptures and texts. Lately the modern education has, despite its various benefits, turned into a factory and ratrace with little focus on value education and building life skills that could last, producing great task performers but failing at social responsibility and mutual respect.

We really have a lot to learn from the Japanese system of education and social structures, but this looks like a distant dream though where the very education system has turned into a cashmachine and social system where people find nothing wrong in defacing public spaces, exploiting systems, littering public spaces and talking rudely to those who serve the society with their labour.

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