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Parliamentary panel suggests media should be monitored

A parliamentary committee expressed serious concern over Western culture's penetration into India through the media and it's effect on the youth and called for stronger monitoring of the media.

"Any attempt to instill indigenous values in students in schools, colleges are overshadowed by the overwhelming impact of western culture," the parliamentary standing committee on human resource development said in its 81st report on value-based education.

The committee felt stringent efforts were required on the part of the government to monitor programmes being aired through its media. "Similar steps need to be taken so as to have a mechanism of quality control of programmes under the control of private agencies too," it said.

The committee said it was aware that some good programmes were being shown on the national television but observed that their message was somehow not reaching young minds.

"Initiatives to make our own programmes attractive and meaningful need to be taken and that requires government encouragement and government patronage," it said.

The committee felt that history ought to be presented to the students in the right perspective. "This has nothing to do with ideology," it asserted.

Education, it said, had a lasting impression on young minds and distortion of history should not be allowed. Value of tolerance against the backdrop of the culturally plural society of the country should be predominantly brought out, especially while writing history books, it said.

The committee agreed with the widely-accepted view that value-based education should be introduced at school and extended to college and beyond. In the secondary stage, some advanced values which were of vital importance for national integration should be integrated into the syllabus, it felt.

It was of the view that in the advanced stage, that is, at the college and university level, values like human rights, co-existence and also ethical values in science and technology and comparative study of all religions, should be taught by specially prescribed books. Literature, with special emphasis on co-existence and non-imposition of fundamentalist ideas, were also necessary, it felt.

The committee felt that value education should be a part of curriculum for teacher training programme. Prospective teachers should be introduced to the concept of value education. All methods and techniques -- direct and indirect -- to inculcate values in students in tune with different stages of their psychological development should be an essential component of a training programme for teachers, it suggested.

The committee said a feeling of respect for all languages of the country should be developed in students if the concept of unity in diversity was to be effectively imbibed. Not only this, students would have to make a conscious effort to learn at least one regional language along with their own mother tongue.

The committee said it understood that at present mother tongues were not being taught in all schools of the country. The department of education might examine whether they could be started at all schools.

At the secondary stage, at least one foreign language might be learnt by students to learn of the advantages of international achievements in science and technology and other fields, it said.

The process of making the students acquainted with the basics of all religions should begin at the middle level in schools and continue up to the university level. Students have to be made aware that the basic concept behind every religion was common, only the practices differed. Even if there were differences of opinion in certain areas, people have to learn to co-exist and have no hatred towards any religion, the committee said.

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