Southern States - Karnataka   

Govt. to overhaul education system

By Our Staff Correspondent

MANGALORE APRIL 25. The Government has prepared a blueprint to overhaul the primary and secondary education system through various reforms aimed at reducing academic and physical burden on students, the Minister of State for Primary and Secondary Education, B.K. Chandrashekar, has said.

Informally talking to presspersons here today on his way to Kavu in Puttur taluk, Prof. Chandrashekar said the Government was serious about reforming the syllabus, making lessons shorter, and eliminating repetitions, errors, and unwanted parts. He said some portions of the Prof. Yashpal Committee report would also be incorporated in the blueprint.

Talking about the academic and physical burden on the children. Prof. Chandrashekar said the Government's efforts were aimed at creating a situation where children were not forced to learn but to use their creativity to learn and improve their skills.

This meant less homework and fewer books to carry. He said a working group had already laid out a set of guidelines and standards and he had a round of talks with educationists, academics, teachers, and parents, who welcomed the reforms. If all went well, the reforms would be implemented from the next academic year. He said the Government would also be issuing a notification to all the schools to reduce homework and keep the textbooks in the school. Children should be given a chance to play, read, and improve their knowledge base outside the school.

In order to reduce the fear of examinations, the Government would ask all schools, boards, and the Education Department to reduce the length of the examinations from three hours to two hours, have fewer of them, and completely do away with class tests and other such exercises. However, terminal examinations and final examinations would continue for the time being, Prof. Chandrashekar said.

To improve results of rural schools, he said he was working on a strategy to improve the teaching of science and mathematics as a core subject and English as a language. He said a study done by him had revealed that students in urban areas were strong in these subjects, resulting in good grades. If rural students were given good coaching in these subjects, the results would go up from the present average of 45 per cent to 65 to 70 per cent in the SSLC examinations. This would give rural students a chance to compete with their urban counterparts.

The Government had also worked out a plan to bring technology to the aid of the teachers to improve classroom teaching.

He said the Chief Minister, S.M. Krishna's interest in improving rural education and interfacing it with technology was being viewed with enthusiasm by the Education Department, academics, and parents. The Government was in constant touch with IT companies for helping rural schools in procuring computers and training teachers to impart computer education.

Many private companies were willing to participate in this programme under a `revenue model' to make it affordable to the students and also generate some income to the companies investing in the programme.

In Tamil Nadu, computer education started in the fifth standard in government schools, while in Karnataka it started in the eighth standard. The State was trying to introduce computer education from the fifth standard, he said

On pre-university education, Prof. Chandrashekar said the syllabus would undergo a major overhaul, and a working group of senior teachers and academics were reviewing the existing syllabus, which had not been updated for the past seven years.

Even the textbooks would get a new look. The Government was trying to improve the quality of pictures, print, and presentation, apart from incorporating the changes in the syllabus suggested by the committee. From this year onwards, the printing of textbooks would be further decentralised and all the printers given strict instructions to deliver the textbooks in time.

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