It’s a dog eat dog world; a world of fierce cut-throat competition, smart phones, fast cars and skyscrapers. Who then can talk of values and their importance?

Pleasure, in today’s world, comes from counting currency notes and rising as high as you can no matter who we trample on our way up the ladder. The explanation is simple: we have but one life and the world is a maze of innumerable luxuries. We want to flaunt what we have, we want to brag, too, and we want to show that we are richer and go to better restaurants, wear more expensive clothes and drive a better car than anyone else.

So, in this fast-paced world, where is the time to reflect in order to attend to that nagging sense of guilt, a tired conscience and an irritating bothersome voice which appeals to us for the wrongs done throughout the day as we put our head down to rest?

Yet, it is these very values, or their absence, which define us. Accessories or branded nonsensicals are no substitute for a sense of morality. These are things which go and come with the ups and downs in life. However, with a strong value system, we will always be riding the crests of the waves as we sail through life.

It is of extreme importance that a child be inculcated with a strong value system which will determine his priorities, decision-making, character and eventually make his voice the most confident, truthful and decisive no matter on what subject he speaks and who his audience may be simply because falsehood, dishonesty, meanness and rudeness will always bow and buckle in the face of truth, integrity, manners, kindness and sincerity.

At college, we had a weekly class on values and ethics taken by Sister Tina, our principal, where we spoke at length on a wide range of topics. The classes enabled us to search for the right answers within ourselves and when I come at a crossroads I do it to this day. At school, however, it was through a system of rules and largely by watching our teachers. We always wished a teacher when we passed her by and would immediately carry her bags and books the moment we saw her with them.

I believe that today dishonesty, crime, rape, murder and scams are growing at such an alarming pace simply because parents and teachers do not have the time to talk to the children. The teachers have to complete the syllabus, prepare the children for the tests while adhering to a planner.

Children today are exposed, through various gadgets, to material they are not mentally prepared for. Hence there is a bigger need for bonding, reaching out, talking, explaining, building up on relationships and inculcating, instilling and imbibing an immensely strong sense of choosing right over wrong. But at home and at school, sadly, we are chasing academics while forgetting about real education. The result is that even though our children get high grades in the various examinations they sit for and, at a later stage, highly paid jobs, too, they do not stop to think before stooping low or cheating in order to trample the rights of their colleagues or adopt wrong means to surge ahead.

The aim then for some will be to climb the ladder, irrespective of the means adopted, choosing to be the rats of the rat race. However, there will still be a selected few who will willingly opt to choose the harder right over the easy wrong.

The writer is a teacher.