editorial
Reforming K12 Education in India
Advisory Board Prof. Asha Kanwar, Vice President, Commonwealth of Learning Dr. Jyrki Pulkkinen, CEO, Global eSchools & Communities Initiative (GeSCI)
School education today is undergoing huge transformations. The changes have been reflected in the diverse range of activities that schools are now entering into. New teaching patterns have adopted tools and techniques that promote engagement of students in the learning process and make the entire process more student friendly. The Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE) system is an innovative and modern way of approaching the problems plaguing school education system today. The system which was earlier based on lecture methods will now encourage greater interaction between the teacher and the student and will give precedence to making education more joyful for learners. One of the key areas that CCE emphasises upon is on assessing the coscholastic achievements of students. This can have tremendous potential of not just highlighting the academic abilities but also inculcating life long skills, sporting abilities and social skills. In this respect we see the increasing acceptance and recognition being given to co-curricular activities and skills training for the students. As has been pointed by Prof Yashpal in his interview to digitalLEARNING, education cannot be imposed; it has to be assimilated through observations and experiments. The School Education Conclave 2010 has been our effort to find out what the stakeholders have to say about the current reforms and how it has brought about renovations in their daily functioning. The overall response from the stakeholders has been positive and encouraging, as the principals themselves know the importance of having student centered reforms. Although need to address some limitations like teacher training and teaching resources was also emphasised. The participation from the K-12 education community at the Conclave had been overwhelming and the deliberations were insightful and thought provoking. We seek to carry forward this initiative and forge a lasting relationship with the school education fraternity in achieving common objective of achieving better implementation of education reforms. The coming months will feature more such initiatives.
Shri Subhash C Khuntia, Joint Secretary, Department School Education and Literacy, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India Prof. V N Rajasekharan Pillai, Vice Chancellor, Indira GandhiI National Open University (IGNOU)
Dr. Ravi Gupta Editor-in-Chief Ravi.Gupta@digitallearning.in
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digital LEARNING
DECEMBER 2010
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