Placing pupil at centre of education

“Education is not preparation for life; Education is life itself.” This remark of John Dewey clearly speaks about that the process of education should consist of real life situations which will mould the pupil as an individual who will face the challenges projected by the life. Thanks to the NCF-2005, the SCF-2011 and the RTE-2009 – they have greatly helped bring in a shift in the paradigm of school education, underlining the responsibility of school in fetching all-round development in pupil.

Though it was a well-known fact that through right education only the realisation of modern India is possible, but for the last six decades we have miserably failed to impart it to future citizens. Right education is which provides life skills like analytical power, creative and logical thinking, self-discipline, adjustment with society, ability to respond and resolve the problems which are essential during the course of life.

But in reality, the parent and pedagogic perception is dissimilar to this and reduced the education system to only fetching ranks and seats, and transforming pupils as machines of rote learning. The National Curriculum Framework-2005 (NCF) pointed out the pathetic state of textbooks, examination system which are leading the future citizens towards a lopsided development, distant from real life situations.

To revitalise the education system, it has been suggested that instead of perpetuating the system of passive listening and learning of textual matter, knowledge be imparted by actively involving them in diversified activities. The NCF has clearly mentioned that the objective of examination should be the realization of the educational objectives not to achieve marks and ranks. All these suggestions have found their place in the RTE Act-2009.

The RTE-2009 has stressed class wise academic standards and appropriate classroom activities. Further it also suggested that children not be forced for achieving marks and ranks and took the steps for evaluating the children continuously and comprehensively for the all-round development of the learner (RTE-Chapter-V, Section-29, Sub-section-2). To assess the learner achievement comprehensively, the NCF-2005 and the RTE-2009 envisage that evaluation be carried out in a stress free atmosphere.

To assess the comprehensive development of a child we should not confine to only textbook knowledge, we need to gauge their cerebral, emotional, social, cultural development through various tools, so it is necessary to opt for Continuous Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE). Hitherto there evaluation means conducting written exam, which only tests the learner’s memory. This defect in the examination system has made education system hollow and its produce as timid in life.

Introduction of CCE makes textbooks thought-provoking, inter active, self-learning, providing scope for team work and making the students correct themselves with remedial learning. Education becomes student-centric and students get to exchange their views and engage in discussions with their peers. It is not at all correct to say that with the introduction CCE everything has been greatly changed in the education system.

Now the learners and teachers are in transition period and surely there is a great scope to observe all round development in our pupil which will make them more self-reliant and self-confident towards life and face the challenges thrown by the life. But the AP government has not yet taken a decision to implement this which is detrimental to government schools and beneficial to corporate schools.

(The author is a faculty and can be reached at [email protected])

By E Gajendra Nath Reddy