The United Democratic Front (UDF) has taken another step towards formulating a new education policy for schools based on the keyword ‘people's curriculum.' The basic idea is to hold a series of workshops on education across the State, spearheaded by the Opposition coalition's Expert Committee on Education set up a few months ago.
The workshops will focus on the various problems Kerala's school education sector is facing and come up with a policy framework, according to G.V. Hari, member-secretary of the expert committee.
The first of the workshop series will be held at Indira Bhavan, headquarters of the Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC), here on March 12. The State-level workshop, to be inaugurated by former Education Minister T.M. Jacob, will be followed by 14 district-level workshops. The workshops will discuss two general issues related to school education, four core issues and 11 theme topics. The core issues include topics related to the primary, high school, higher secondary and vocation school sectors. The 11 theme topics will focus on issues such as the practical aspects of implementing the single window system for higher secondary admissions, issue-based curriculum, the role of teachers in enhancing quality of education and the Right to Education Act, to name a few.
Popular participation
“The basic idea is to evolve a curriculum framework through popular participation. Parents, teachers, students and social workers will get an opportunity to present their views. The opinions emerging at the workshops will be codified and taken up for further discussion by the expert committee,” says Mr. Hari, who was coordinator for the KPCC's expert committee that studied and submitted a report on the controversy related to the 7th class social science textbook last year.
