It is a universal fact that in the overall ambit of life, a person armed with a good education is bestowed with an advantage in the quest for success. Whether it is a girl or boy, a "worthwhile" education is the most valuable present a parent can gift a child.

Money is immaterial, when it comes to the question of an admission to a 'famous' school and parents, to the best of their sense and ability, try to select the finest school for their children.

Every educational institution, I'm sure, makes a sincere endeavour to provide, what is generally termed as 'quality education'.

More so, each school has its own definition of education and formulates its own unique methodology, work environment, ethos and traditions resulting in a vast variety of end products.

Positively, education is not teaching a child to just read, write and become proficient in Mathematics and the Sciences. This would surely make a person literate but not educated. Unfortunately, many schools in our country are not reaching far beyond making their children "literate". Are we actually happy and satisfied watching our kids, spend arduous and tiresome hours in tuition, burdened with the anxiety of producing mind-boggling academic results? As parents, we never sincerely contemplate and ask ourselves what we expect from our child's school. For most of us, it is solely academic proficiency in Board examinations which is synonymous to providing first-rate education. Or is the boast of producing an Olympic sportsman or a handful of national level players, providing excellent education? Then what is quality education?

Ordinarily, "all-round development of the child" is construed to be the primary constituent of a "good education" and this is generally accepted as academic competence coupled with personality development. Hence, a school providing an excellent academic environment integrated with a large number of sports and other co-curricular activities would very nicely fit the definition of a school providing good education.

Compared to a day school, boarding schools are far luckier to have the time, inclination and infrastructure to do a lot more in the direction of all-round development. Children get ample opportunities to learn a lot more than just academics. A rigorous routine of physical training, sports, games, hobbies and other co-curricular activities keep students extremely occupied. This well-knit schedule of activities adds to the personality development and smartness of the child and undoubtedly brings them much closer to having acquired an exemplary education. I'm sure all this is part of providing quality education but I personally feel there is something more to it, which needs serious consideration.

Education has assisted the world to develop at a phenomenon pace. The world is moving very fast and people have little time for each other. Man has become extremely covetous and greedy. In these times of avariciousness, selfishness, deceit, corruption, intolerance, terrorism, riots, greed and cut-throat competition we need to ponder, search our hearts and introspect, as to whether we can proudly call our children "well educated". We are fast forgetting the moral and spiritual part of development. Schools rarely have a program related to the teaching of "being good" as opposed to "being successful", We sure are succeeding in producing rich and "successful" human beings but may not be able to say as much for producing "happy" human beings. Our traditional teaching institutions (home, school and society) are failing miserably in producing 'good' human beings.

We are so involved in teaching children Physics and Chemistry that we have little time to teach a child to be good, honest, truthful, compassionate and nice. Who is going to teach a child to be virtuous, honourable, selfless, righteous, benevolent and kind? The qualities of being tolerant, understanding and broad-minded, to respect all religions, to be unbiased in regard to different castes or creeds, race or colour have all been put on the back-burner. The language of philanthropy, goodness and love, need to be added to refraining from violence, resisting corruption, standing up for ones rights, not bowing to tyranny and unfair persecution - in short, to be bold and fearless. To fear only God, to respect one's parents and elders, to be fair in all dealings, to respect the rights of others, to be modest and magnanimous, etc. The list is endless and we can go on and on. To teach this we need time and effort. There are no books, there is no prescribed syllabus. The westerners, whom we take pride in aping, have failed miserably on this front. In today's modern fast-moving world, we too are failing in imparting 'high standards and value education to our children. We teachers and schools are the ones who need to shoulder this huge responsibility. Alongside parents, teachers have to develop the inclination and find the time to teach our children these virtues. Are the teachers of today 'Gurus' in the real sense? Let us together pledge to inculcate in our children the true values of life. We need to be patient and understanding and spend time with our children.