Reforms in school education
The school education system has been under the scanner for the last many years and many changes were proposed in the past. It was in the year 2009 that government decided to change the evaluation pattern and the first step was taken to implement it in classes IX and X which was done in the mid session in CBSE affiliated schools from Oct. 2009.At that time not many people were aware of the system and its consequences. Many training programmes were introduced by CBSE in which first the Heads of the schools were trained and also the senior teachers and the managers and chairmen of the schools. It took time before the important stake holders could understand the concept of continuous and comprehensive evaluation.Some people were of the opinion that should it has been introduced in such a hurry. Also the doubt was why should it be introduced only in one board and not across the country irrespective of the board the school is affiliated to. The reason for the same probably was that discussions were on for quite a numbers of years without any step towards the implementation of the reforms and it was done in CBSE schools only as a pilot programmes and if it succeeds in these schools than the same can be adopted by other boards also.The board examination for class X was made optional and doubts were raised on that also. The reason being that if the overall impact of the board exam is considered than it comes out to be 40% only of the weightage of class X and if class IX is also included (which will be included in the final report card of class X) than the impact comes out to be app. 20% only. Now if 80% weightage is of school based evaluation than how much is the importance remaining 20%. Many people argue would it not have been appropriate to do away with board examination completely.
There has also been a debate that has this system made children careless towards the studies or they are stress free and learning is now more effective than what it was before. There is no perfect way of finding what the real effect is on the learning of the children because the educators do not have the same opinion on the impact of the new system of evaluation. Unfortunately in smaller cities and the towns there are many parents who do not know much about the reforms which affect them and their children directly. The scenario may be different in bigger cities but this is also true that all schools are not situated in metros and all parents are not that aware as they may be in Delhi or Mumbai or Chennai. Also the infrastructure required should also have been taken into consideration. All agree that the new system is good but the implementation leaves too much to think and do.This system is very good but strength of the class should be controlled and ideally it should not be more than 20-25students in each section.
But the real situation is altogether different. Number of students are found to be 40-50(40 is the optimum strength allowed by CBSE) and in many schools it is up to 70-80 students per section. Now it is beyond comprehension how can a teacher evaluate an an individual child in a period of 40 minutes with such a large number of the students in the class. It has been observed in the last one and half years that the teachers teaching classes IX and X are more busy in maintaining the records than the real teaching learning in and outside the class.The report is that the teachers had to spend a lot of time in sending the records to the board and that definitely disturbed their real task. It is expected that there will be some problems initially and when all get used to the new system this will become easy.But one important thing must not be forgotten and that is better and more rigorous training of the teachers and provision of related resources in the schools. Now the children are required to access Internet but do all children have the availability of that. Not only this the schools in rural area face the problems of electricity and Internet connection.
A proper survey should be carried out and real and honest feed back should be taken to ensure that whether the objectives of the reforms are achieved or not. This task of survey can be given to some independent and competent agency.The stake holders should also be very honest while giving the feedback and should not try to be good in the eyes of the ones who think reforms are for the good. It is not good to criticise some thing in your drawing rooms and not suggest and put forward your views and problem faced to the honorable people who are at the helm of affairs and really worried about our children. At the same time we should understand that all the things done by other countries may not be good for our country.Also an important question is that in the name of reducing the stress should the standards and quality of the teaching learning be down graded?Stress is not always negative but has some positive impact also.Of course stress beyond certain limit is harmful and dangerous.We should remember that assessment is important but at the same time equal emphasis should be on the teaching methodology and teaching techniques.
There has also been a debate that has this system made children careless towards the studies or they are stress free and learning is now more effective than what it was before. There is no perfect way of finding what the real effect is on the learning of the children because the educators do not have the same opinion on the impact of the new system of evaluation. Unfortunately in smaller cities and the towns there are many parents who do not know much about the reforms which affect them and their children directly. The scenario may be different in bigger cities but this is also true that all schools are not situated in metros and all parents are not that aware as they may be in Delhi or Mumbai or Chennai. Also the infrastructure required should also have been taken into consideration. All agree that the new system is good but the implementation leaves too much to think and do.This system is very good but strength of the class should be controlled and ideally it should not be more than 20-25students in each section.
But the real situation is altogether different. Number of students are found to be 40-50(40 is the optimum strength allowed by CBSE) and in many schools it is up to 70-80 students per section. Now it is beyond comprehension how can a teacher evaluate an an individual child in a period of 40 minutes with such a large number of the students in the class. It has been observed in the last one and half years that the teachers teaching classes IX and X are more busy in maintaining the records than the real teaching learning in and outside the class.The report is that the teachers had to spend a lot of time in sending the records to the board and that definitely disturbed their real task. It is expected that there will be some problems initially and when all get used to the new system this will become easy.But one important thing must not be forgotten and that is better and more rigorous training of the teachers and provision of related resources in the schools. Now the children are required to access Internet but do all children have the availability of that. Not only this the schools in rural area face the problems of electricity and Internet connection.
A proper survey should be carried out and real and honest feed back should be taken to ensure that whether the objectives of the reforms are achieved or not. This task of survey can be given to some independent and competent agency.The stake holders should also be very honest while giving the feedback and should not try to be good in the eyes of the ones who think reforms are for the good. It is not good to criticise some thing in your drawing rooms and not suggest and put forward your views and problem faced to the honorable people who are at the helm of affairs and really worried about our children. At the same time we should understand that all the things done by other countries may not be good for our country.Also an important question is that in the name of reducing the stress should the standards and quality of the teaching learning be down graded?Stress is not always negative but has some positive impact also.Of course stress beyond certain limit is harmful and dangerous.We should remember that assessment is important but at the same time equal emphasis should be on the teaching methodology and teaching techniques.
The people of the country have started asking a question that if the reforms undertaken by CBSE are so good than why other boards are not adopting them. These doubts should be cleared at the earliest otherwise this step taken by the government will not be taken by the stake holders in the right perspective.
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