Paper on value education also says there should be ‘seva diwas’ and ‘anubhav diwas’ for schoolchildren in Karnataka
Paper on value education also says there should be ‘seva diwas’ and ‘anubhav diwas’ for schoolchildren in Karnataka
Ten bag-less days a year have been recommended for students of Classes VI to VIII by experts in the position paper on value education. In addition, ‘seva diwas’ for Classes VI onwards and an ‘anubhav diwas’, wherein children visit places where social workers are helping the needy, have also been recommended.
As part of the National Education Policy (NEP)-2020 implementation in the State, 26 focus groups have been formed to write position papers which will provide direction for creating the State Curriculum Framework.
The 10-member value education focus group is part of the five, cross cutting themes applicable to 12 curricular topics.
The paper says during the bag-less days, students will intern with local vocational experts such as carpenters, gardeners, potters, artists, and others.
For ‘seva diwas’, various types of activities can be planned, like cleaning the school, upkeep of school garden, decorating the school premises, cleaning of a locality, decorating public places, helping the needy in the locality, teaching in slums, and others, the paper says.
Also, one day can be used as ‘anubhav diwas’, where children visit places of care where social workers are helping the needy, such as an orphanage, an old-age home, a school for the blind, and others.
‘Anubhav diwas’ can also be used to give an experience of various local traditions and cultural aspects, such as a puppet show, visit to a heritage site of the locality, a Janapada centre, and the like, it says.
School complex
DSERT of Kolar district has submitted the position paper on school complex. The concept of school complex aims to break the isolation of schools and provides for sharing instructional works, material facilities. In addition, it also provides cooperative efforts for improvement and provides to facilitate in-service training.
There are, in all, 86,769 schools functioning, out of which 63,707 are elementary, 17,511 secondary, and 5,551 are of higher secondary level. About 82.26% of lower primary schools are managed by the government. The overall private management participation in school education (up to class X) is 26.5%.
The paper also says that it is a huge challenge to bring foundational learners like nursery, LKG, UKG, and anganwadis under the school complex. “Mobilising the learners to the feeder school is a challenge in all aspects due to their age. Regular change of teachers might have an impact on their learning. There are areas where the families live largely apart and segregated into different localities. In some areas like the Malnad region, coastal area in south Canara and the Western Ghats, schools are sparsely situated. Arranging transportation facilities requires special attention in terms of both expense and time,” it says.
The paper says selected school complexes can be used for trying out and evaluating new textbooks, teachers, guides, and teaching aids. “The ill-equipped primary schools can be provided certain facilities and equipment to impart instructions successfully. The complex may be used as a unit for the introduction of better methods of evaluation and for regulating the promotion of children from class to class or from one level of school to another. Better library and laboratory facilities can be provided to the primary schools,” it says.
