In a powerful address that challenges the core of India's academic culture, ISRO Chairman V Narayanan has issued a stark warning against an education system that produces 'mere bookworms.' He emphasized that schools must prioritize values and personality development with the same intensity they reserve for academic marks.
The Two Pillars of True Education
Speaking to reporters at a High Level Expert Committee and New Syllabus Design Committee meeting organized by the Tamil Nadu government, Narayanan outlined his vision for a balanced educational approach. He identified two distinct types of education: intellectual-based education focused on subjects like Mathematics and Science, and value-based education.
'Value-based education includes protecting our parents, respecting others, respecting teachers, and tolerance,' Narayanan told PTI. He stressed that academic excellence holds little meaning without strong character. 'The book alone is not important. It is the overall personality development that is important,' he added, highlighting the need for schools to deliberately teach empathy, responsibility, and respect.
Beyond School Labels: The Power of Attitude
Drawing from his personal journey, the ISRO chief, who studied in a government school in Tamil Nadu, pushed back against the pervasive belief that a child's future is determined by the prestige of their school. 'How you study, how you grow, that is important... Wherever one studies, if they study well, they can grow well,' he asserted. His message was clear: opportunity is shaped more by learning attitude than by institutional labels.
Why Values Are the New Currency in the Job Market
Narayanan's warning against creating 'mere bookworms' is not merely philosophical; it aligns perfectly with what global employers are demanding. According to the World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs Report 2025, analytical thinking is the number one skill companies seek, with seven out of ten employers marking it as essential.
Close behind are resilience, flexibility, agility, leadership, and social influence. These are not soft skills but critical employability traits rooted in the very value-based education Narayanan advocates. These competencies enable individuals to adapt in a labor market that changes faster than technology.
Further evidence comes from the OECD's Skills that Matter for Success and Well-being in Adulthood report. It quantifies what Indian educators have long intuited: traits like emotional stability, sociability, and conscientiousness have a measurable impact on employment. A one-standard-deviation increase in emotional stability raises the likelihood of being employed by approximately three percentage points, an effect nearly matching that of higher literacy.
These personality traits also significantly influence job satisfaction and overall well-being. While literacy can help secure a job, emotional stability and other social-emotional skills ensure an individual can cope, adapt, and thrive in their career and life.
Narayanan's vision finds strong resonance with India's National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, which explicitly states that schooling must build emotional and social capacities alongside cognitive mastery. The UGC's guidelines and CBSE's Holistic Progress Card, derived from the NEP, further reinforce this shift towards evaluating students across cognitive, affective, and socio-emotional domains. The challenge now lies in translating this policy vision into everyday classroom reality across India.
