SoS (Save Our Schools & Schooling).
A proposal to the GOI for NEP2020 & school curriculum. Sent to the education ministry & legislature committee on education viz rsc_hrd@sansad.nic.in (last date 15thJuly)
For peer review and implementation. Do please share comments so it may help us to improve.
Attempting here to collate points shared in discussion groups & forums like.. Margadarsi & Project Hitashala,. Which could benefit as feedback for our policymakers & curriculum makers in education system.
1. Need to help innovation with maintaining & improving the quality & equality in education. By enabling cross-dissemination of good practices in education. There could be Experts-audited appraisal & Quality management system for School Teachers & admins by combined inputs of all Edu-stakeholders i.e Students, Both Parents, co-teachers & School Mentoring panels at Union & State levels(Also inputs from Unesco). This will aid and fasten innovation and quality in Education. Keep Gender Ratio of Male:Female Teachers as 50:50. Currently there is a Gender imbalance in schools with 90:10% Skewed Gender dynamics.
2. International student exchange programmes at high school also can help us in India to learn from other standard national educational systems. Eg from Finland, Japan or China. Iys not for the competing tendency with students but building the collectives- Competencies.
3. Promote Indian Patriotism, rationalism & egalitarianism in letter & spirit to achieve our constitutional goals through right education. To distribute Indian Constitution as a textbook for reduced price make it accessible to all citizens. It’s the most important subject any Indian needs to learn & study. (CQ) Constitutional-Quotient may be more important for India it will enable us in IQ Or EQ. Every Indian home may or may not have Religious books, but having the COI & Civics textbook will enable better-Citizenship. Reduce Criminalism(Corruption) & improve Contributism (Co-operation).
4. To capitalize on Inter-generational learning Have regular effective GPTAs Grandparents-Parent Teachers meetings.. which can help the families. China’s power is in its familial piety we are falling behind. This will aid the Mental & social wellbeing of Student-Parents-Teachers as a Social-Family Unit. Matha-Pitha-Guru-Daivam.(Father-Mother-Teacher-God & Me)
5. Have Multimedia-books instead of only outdated uninteresting ‘text’-books, Have supplementary content platform and apps QR coded connected with as extensions of textbook to enable e-Education through interactive animations & collaborative buddy documentation.
6. Have Financial literacy, Digital literacy and media literacy, integrated in curriculum to amplify rationalism and critical thinking.
7. Evaluate each chapter and contents on it enabling improvement in 3 just criteria for the inherent value it can provide for the reader and students. A. Intelligence Quotient(IQ), B Emotional Quotient(EQ) or C. Social Intelligence (SQ). The current Content in text only has RQ that is Route-learning Quotient just Take in memory and vomit in exams. This has less ability to impact any of the 3 criteria. This 3 criteria will help in Relational-Literacy which may be a prime factor in Social-Success not just private or personal success.
8. Cherish Team-Spirit and enable Collaborative Collectivism instead of Individualism and Personal-Competitions. This may help national-integrity by having interpersonal integrity in classroom. The unhealthy competition is giving way to Bullying, Ragging & S.A.D Situational Deaths(SuicideStress, Anxiety & Depression)
9. In Textbooks Prioritize Life-Skills(Why-to) as equally to Technical-Skills(How-To). Because India can easily become a Economic or Technological superpower the real challenge is to be a Moral & Social Superpower with Life-Skills. Else life-Kills.
10. Critical Reasoning & Moral Reasoning needs to have focus so we have an empathic creative society. Have Group-Discussion & Debate skills for rational dialogue and conflict resolution this would reduce juvenile delinquency, crime rates and improve Secularism, Democracy & true-socialism.
11. We can Inculcate more practical hands on problem understanding and collective solving in communities through stories and realife accessible contemporary Indian model citizens and civic idols. Like APJ Abdul Kalam, Olympians etc. It will help in overall personality.
12. Train P.T teachers not only for Physical Training but Personality Training which builds Team-Management and Startegic thinking in students. (J.Simon) also let them have a book and curriculum with lesson plans. Similarly for Music, arts or Hobby extra curricular classes. Our Olympic Medal score is dependent on this.
13. From a reallife incident:
Yesterday I met a shy student of 9th standard from Northern districts of Karnataka, I asked him what’s his favourite subject, he said science.. I felt happy shared with him about Indian Inst of science in Bangalore, next asked him which particular science he liked I.e Biology, Chemistry or physics. I felt amused when he replied ‘no’, he liked ‘social Science’..
I was intrigued, I further inquired with him: “ok, which stream of social science” he liked he replied history.. then our conversation moved to Bangalore’s history..
I think we need to rethink about social-studies or social-science..
Response From a fellow margadarshi Dr.Guru Prasad Rao:
Yes, thanks for your incident share…it is opening up a lot of things…
- Student view of Science
- View about History as a part of social studies / science
- What made him think ?
- Our own minds architypes of the world
- We need to introspect About Learning, knowing, Science, Knowledge etc.
- There is need for reclassification
From Shravan: I feel history and culture should be given a hierarchical importance. More on local, then in the district, state, country, continent and the world. GRP: please include this suggestion too
Agree, this suggestion too came up in the discussion we had @Pratap, Indra & @dr.gowri on sunday
Priority-History based on geo-spatial relevance to the student.
14. Textbooks need to have these Outcomes in mind.. 1. Proctive Ideal Citizenship, 2. Social awareness & integration, 3.Character-Building not only Skill & Knowledge building. 4.Empower the Preamble goals of Justice, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity with Collective-Responsibility. To reduce Systemic-Inequalities, Discrimination/Biases like Genders, Caste, Race-skin, Regionalism etc..and improve Egalitarianism & Indianity.
15. Ideal- Indian Textbooks can be made so valuable that the students keeps it for life as their legacy, as a manual for their life as an Indian & global Citizen & an Holistic-educated human being a Life-Champion. Make it a Souvenir of hirs educational journey of 10th/12th. Have workbook space for the ‘studenTeacher’ to create their own content & life lessons. It should be like a treasured book on the students personal library till his last breath. This could be the gold standard for a school text book. Values of Money, Power, fame, royality & Knowledge should come after value of Truth, Trust & Relationship & loyalty to principles rather than materials.
16. Take inspirations from Nalanda, Taxashila, & Alexandria to make Library science, research and other Non-Engineering and medical subjects equally lucrative that non- Brain drain occurs intra-sector, so that we have gud quality and quantity of professionalism across the sectors and jobs. Its not only employability that is goal of education but Social-Integrity is prime concern.
17. Special education textbooks to be also developed for Diversity and inclusion in the society for the socially marginalized(Bahujan Dalits & ethnic minorities) or people from the socio-economic lower strata of society.
Physically marginalized, Visually, auditory, verbally challenged.. etc on similar lines as above so they are on par and not left behind in personal Development & social-integration. Learning from the Nordic or Japanese Education systems which are setting global standards.
We hope these points are considered to give us not just textbook for a subject in scientific or materially advanced Apes of Western society, but life-books for our originality and Indian Happy society. We need to be a good Vishwa-Shishya (Global Student) before we become a real Vishwa-Guru.
Regards,
Margadarshi Prasad for Project-Hitashala.
More about Projects In Best Interest, welfare & future of Indian Students:
1. Project-InSaaf:
2. Project SOS. Safer Campuses.
GRP_VCare2Dare 
One thought on “S61: Suggest Indian NEP_2020; Indian School Reforms, @HitashaleMargadarsi2021.”