Students to be consulted on school curriculum revision
The Hindu
48 lakh students to provide feedback in outreach programme
The State government on Monday began the process of reaching out to students and seeking their suggestions on the revision of the school curriculum.
General Education Minister V.Sivankutty inaugurated the outreach programme at the Bharathannur Government Higher Secondary School here.
Mr.Sivankutty said the government was taking all stakeholders on board by holding discussions on curriculum revision at the district, block and grama panchayats and schools. The school level programme would collect feedback from 48 lakh students across the State before November 15.
The suggestions and opinions would be collated and handed over to the State Council for Educational Research and training (SCERT). The last school curriculum revision was in 2007.
Mr.Sivankutty said efforts would be stepped up to improve the academic standard in government schools. He added that the government was committed to elevating the standards of school education in the State to international levels.
The Minister also inaugurated the new kitchen and dining hall and the water testing laboratory established in the school. D.K. Murali, MLA, A.A. Rahim, MP and Director of Public Instruction K. Jeevan Babu were present.
Mr.Sivankutty later inaugurated infrastructural facilities in seven schools in the Vamanapuram constitutency.
“Writing, in general, is a very solitary process,” says Yauvanika Chopra, Associate Director at The New India Foundation (NIF), which, earlier this year, announced the 12th edition of its NIF Book Fellowships for research and scholarship about Indian history after Independence. While authors, in general, are built for it, it can still get very lonely, says Chopra, pointing out that the fellowship’s community support is as valuable as the monetary benefits it offers. “There is a solid community of NIF fellows, trustees, language experts, jury members, all of whom are incredibly competent,” she says. “They really help make authors feel supported from manuscript to publication, so you never feel like you’re struggling through isolation.”
Several principals of government and private schools in Delhi on Tuesday said the Directorate of Education (DoE) circular from a day earlier, directing schools to conduct classes in ‘hybrid’ mode, had caused confusion regarding day-to-day operations as they did not know how many students would return to school from Wednesday and how would teachers instruct in two modes — online and in person — at once. The DoE circular on Monday had also stated that the option to “exercise online mode of education, wherever available, shall vest with the students and their guardians”. Several schoolteachers also expressed confusion regarding the DoE order. A government schoolteacher said he was unsure of how to cope with the resumption of physical classes, given that the order directing government offices to ensure that 50% of the employees work from home is still in place. On Monday, the Commission for Air Quality Management in the National Capital Region and Adjoining Areas (CAQM) had, on the orders of the Supreme Court, directed schools in Delhi-NCR to shift classes to the hybrid mode, following which the DoE had issued the circular. The court had urged the Centre’s pollution watchdog to consider restarting physical classes due to many students missing out on the mid-day meals and lacking the necessary means to attend classes online. The CAQM had, on November 20, asked schools in Delhi-NCR to shift to the online mode of teaching.