By Radhakrishnan C
Most of us felt much relieved
when we heard about government’s decision to reduce the syllabus. I have a
different take on this. I don’t think syllabus or curriculum is the root cause
of learner stress. More than syllabus, how we approach syllabus or curriculum
must be looked into. The current curriculum or syllabus is driven by learning
outcomes, and if we are able to focus on this, there is no need to cut. Reducing
the content becomes a right approach only if the outcome we expect is mugging
up and presenting it as it is in a standardized assessment. To survive in the
current world, learners need to go even beyond the current curriculum or
syllabus, and understand how to apply the theories learned in day to day life and
real life situations. Learners must be able to innovate to improve upon the
current practices and solve the issues coming up, to create a better tomorrow
for all.
The challenge is – in our
traditional classrooms, every page and every word in textbooks is expected to
be taught and mugged by students. Nobody is bothered about its applicability
and practical skills. Assessment is standardized, hence all must mug up to have
a better score. In this assessment system there is no chance for individualized
leaning based on the interest or aptitude of the learner. This creates stress
and makes people feel that content is heavy. We must first focus and build an
attitude on what to teach and what to achieve as learning outcome? Our focus
must be on balancing the school calendar events, providing sufficient weightage
for co-scholastic – sports, literary, cultural and life skill activities along
with individualized learning and assessment practices to strengthen academic
foundation. I do not believe cutting syllabus will help us to have more
experiential learning, co-scholastic activities and life skill oriented
programs in schools. We need to restructure our approach on lesson delivery and
assessment. Actually, by withdrawing the CCE, without having a better system,
we pushed back the system to a more traditional one.
If CBSE continues the present
confusing and frequent altering of policies, parents may move to some other
international boards, which would cater to the needs of learners in a better manner
and prepare them for the future. Policy makers must reform the system to alleviate
the root causes rather than looking for a peripheral change just to prove
someone in the past was wrong. Changes we implement must be to improve the
learning outcomes. It shouldn’t be for producing more certificate holders who are
incapable to convert the knowledge they gained into wisdom and apply in real
day to day situations. Hence, we need to look for a curriculum which can really
bring forth the hidden talents in learners and prepare them with the much needed
life skills to be successful. In short, creating ‘data bank brains’ won’t help
our current school going generation to thrive in the future.
Your comments after introspection
are most welcome…..
