Madhurima
NEW DELHI: The National Council Of Educational Research and Training or NCERT has a motto to train around 33,000 key resource individuals and 42 lakh teaching faculty in elementary schools by the end of 2020. This is being done to address the gap in the delivery of curriculum and to better the learning of the students.
Hrushikesh Senapaty, the director of NCRT Says, "There is a gap between the expectations of the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) and the present classroom learning, which is why high-scoring students fail to acquire skills to face life's challenges. NCERT books are designed following the National Curriculum Framework (NCF) developed in 2005 and follow a child-centric pedagogy. These books discourage rote learning."
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The director also addressed the language issue that precedes in the books which only increases the complexity and eventually becomes difficult in understanding, "The books are being taught for about a decade in the CBSE schools and across Kendriya Vidyalayas at different levels. If there were language issues, those would have been implicit by now."
Earlier, the council has also encouraged feedback from the teachers and stakeholders regarding rationalising the existing textbook and decreasing the content if needed. Senapaty also talked about the issue whether the NCERT will update the textbook as it has been in the news for distortion of many facts and historical events, "Once the new National Education Policy (NEP) gets implemented, plans are on to develop a new NCF. This will provide us with the guidelines for developing the new syllabus and textbooks, the work for which will be completed by April 2023."
The director firmly believes the issue is how the content is taught rather than what is being taught. He said, "This often drives students to resort to various reference books. The concept of a conducive learning environment is still a pipedream since teachers are busy transacting the lessons without acting as facilitators. In an age where we are emphasising on students' critical thinking and problem-solving abilities, students should be assigned different projects and activities where they engage in teamwork and share their interpersonal experiences."
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He revealed that the purpose of NCERT has been to enhance a pupil's problem-solving skills along with conceptual knowledge. Both these skills if attained properly will lead to success in all kinds of competitive exams and even board exams, "If the purpose is to develop 21st-century learning skills among the students, they should not be spoon-fed through guidebooks as a shortcut to success."
