Moral Grounds

In the seventies, during our school days, we used to eagerly await classes like the Physical Training period(PT) and Moral periods. PT classes were mostly held in the evenings, whereas moral classes will be held on Mondays first period and, Fridays last period.

We liked the moral classes not because there will be no tests but because of the teacher who would handle those classes. On Mondays, the moral period cannot be extended further as all other main courses would follow. But on fridays, being the last period of the week, invariably it would be extended by another 60 to 90 minutes on popular demands!

The teacher would tell stories and interesting episodes from epics with such details and drama that the students would get engrossed in it and would invariably request the sessions to be continued! There will always be liberal doses of good virtues, moral values and life skills interwoven in those stories. Integrity, honesty and good behaviour building were the objectives of the moral classes in schools.

Of late, we hear people lamenting that there is no moral values in society!

The curricula have undergone sweeping changes over the years to accommodate a lot of 'portions' under each subject that school authorities hardly find any time to accommodate moral education classes. Moreover, Moral Education does not carry any 'weightage'.

The other day, I was watching a TV program in which a police commissioner was being interviewed. The interviewer asked question about how to control the people from violating traffic rules, causing nuisances and committing petty crimes. In response, the commissioner said that preventive policing is more difficult than managing crimes and went on to say that to prevent crimes only moral education at primary and secondary schools would help!


I find morality has become a personal choice of people rather than being the guiding principle in life. Many would argue that if bad practices are not personally committed, then they are on high moral grounds! With this premise in mind, they would hire others to do such practices for them! A corollary is that you are a honest person unless you are caught otherwise!

Well, moral grounds will be in its ideal place, if all players are found there and ready to participate in the game with same set of rules!