The purpose of education is to bring out a good human being out of the system. For real development along with knowledge, Life Skill education, value education, physical education, experiential learning is essential. Creative skills need to be nurtured. It was demand from all stakeholders that because of heavy curriculum, there is no time left for all these aspects. Also rote learning is not the way forward. Therefore, School Syllabus must be rationalized. To achieve this, the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) has been advised to undertake an exercise to review its syllabus with a view to reducing the curriculum load on the students. They have conducted a workshop in this regard and have come out with following plan of action for reducing the Curriculum burden:
1. Analysis of NCERT’s syllabi and textbooks across subject areas and classes focusing on the following:
Learning outcomes. Curriculum linkages across classes and subjects Overlapping in the content (science and geography; physics and chemistry, etc.) Comprehensibility of language Age-appropriateness of the content Diverse contexts
2. Inviting suggestions from teachers, students, parents and other stake holders through web portal on the reduction of curriculum load.
3. Developing framework for Experiential Learning through mapping of curricular concepts, life skills and values for holistic development of children.
Suggestions have been invited from various stakeholders through the website of the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) on 05.03.2018. The suggestions can be made till April 6th, 2018. NCERT has also placed an advertisement in the newspapers informing the stakeholders about the MHRD’s website for sending their suggestions on rationalizing curriculum burden.
This information was given by the Minister of State (HRD), Shri Upendra Kushwaha today in a written reply to a Rajya Sabha question.
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NB/AKJ/AK/RK/NCERT