NCERT calls for better curriculum
Friday, February 1st, 2008 at 2:37 pm
India’s top school education body is calling in experts from SAARC countries to devise a school curriculum that will help students imbibe the common ethos of the region.The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) is inviting experts from Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, the Maldives, Afghanistan and India to prepare the roadmap for a comprehensive school curriculum.
All these countries form part of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC). Around 50 experts from these counties are likely to participate in the deliberations, likely to be held in mid-February or March.
"The whole idea is to inculcate a sense of cultural belonging among the children of neighbouring countries from the very beginning," a senior NCERT official said."Southeast Asian countries share a common culture amidst their diversities. Education is an important tool that binds us in more ways than one. We share a common legacy directed by the colonial system of education," he added.
The official also informed that it’s going to be a four-day event, during which the policies, practices and educational issues relating to the school curriculum would be discussed among the SAARC nations. The major topics to be deliberated upon at the event include innovation in school curriculum, reforming teacher education, assessment, evaluation and public examinations, and pedagogy in practice.
The occasion would provide a forum for sharing and exchanging the efforts addressed to improve the quality of school education for mutual learning. There is tremendous scope for mutual cooperation in the field of school education, it is expected.
Bisnu Charan Patro, NCERT spokesman, said, "The deliberations would specifically focus on the instrumentality of curricula and their related policies and programmes to enhance quality education, and accordingly update SAARC curriculum." He added that the sharing of seasoned and varied experiences in the education realm would help in promoting the regional ethos through schoolbooks effectively for which, there’s a need to have broad educational networking among SAARC nations.
NCERT is India’s top educational agency engaged in developing curricula and teacher-training programmes.
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