Starting from redesigning the courses to changing the pedagogy of teaching, experts here believe that the content of textbooks need to be region specific keeping the rural demographics in mind.
Terming the ASER report extremely worrisome, academicians in Ahmedabad feel that time has come to rethink the syllabus. Starting from redesigning the courses to changing the pedagogy of teaching, experts here believe that the content of textbooks need to be region specific keeping the rural demographics in mind.
Anju Musafir, founder, Mahatma Gandhi International School (MGIS), said, "According to the World Development Report 2018: Learning to Realise Educations Promise, released on Tuesday, India ranked second after Malawi in a list of 12 countries wherein a grade 2 student could not read a single word of a short text. India also tops the list of seven countries in which a grade two student could not perform two digit subtraction. The situation is getting bad to worse. We have inherited the British model of education which was based on centralised textbooks.
Now, NCERT makes textbooks in India. How can you have a same textbook for children in Dangs forest and those living in the North-East. Very often the content is decided by a group of people sitting somewhere else and they do not realise that children are different due to diversity of culture, linguistic, ethnic, and georgraphic dimensions. The content alienates the child. Testing children is not a way to improve learning and hence the system of examination needs to be changed. We have outdated content and outdated methods and it is not preparing us with skills in a world that has changed in last 10 years."
Surender Sachdeva, Chairman, Sahodaya complex of CBSE schools, said, "The government needs to ensure that elementary education is given utmost importance so that our young people reach adulthood with the knowledge, skills and opportunities they need to build the nation and their own future. Otherwise, demographic dividend will be lost due to lack of quality. ASER 2017 is a clear indication on this situation and we must soon start discussing about the way forward to ensure that knowledge and skills are accumulated over the period of age 12 to 18."
Manan Choksi, Executive Director, Udgam Group of Schools, said: "It is about time that the government moves out of quantitative and goes into qualitative aspects. Imagine a 15-year-old unable to read the time is something startling. If a 15-year-old is unable to read an ORS instruction, he or she will die faster than an illiterate. The government needs to rethink the syllabus as it is faulty. The syllabus should be redesigned as per the need of the hour and not what is ideal."
Educator Renu Seth comments: "I am not surprised and blame our education system for this report. Teacher training centres have a practice of hosting teacher centred classes. We hardly give a chance for to the children to think and hence the involvement of students is very less. Whenever they are asked any question, they are not in the habit of answering so many times even if they know the answer, they do not reply. In fact, the course of BEd also does not match the needs of the times. The emphasis is not laid on practical approaches. Hence, a lot of research needs to be done in our country. Rethinking of the syllabus of different courses is the solution."
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