INTRODUCTION :
For a fairly long time now, we have been engaged in the great task of educating the children of India, an independent nation with a rich variegated history, e x t r a o r d i n a r i l y c o m p l e x c u l t u r a l diversity, and commitment to democratic values and general well-being. Given the
enormity and importance of this task, it is necessary that we create occasions from time to time to sit back collectively As an apex national agency of educational reform, NCERT is expected to review the school curriculum as a regular activity, ensuring the highest standards of rigour and deliberative openness in the process. Consequently, in 2004, the NCERT initiated the review of National Curriculum Framework for School Education– 2000. In the context of this exercise, a National Steering Committee chaired by Prof. Yash Pal and 21 National Focus groups were set up. These focus groups were created to generate ideas and to reflect upon curricular areas, national
concerns and systemic reforms. Each Focus Group through discussions and intensive deliberations produced a research-based Position Paper providing a comprehensive view of existing knowledge in the area and future direction. The position papers prepared by the NFGs provided inputs to the National Curriculum Framework–2005. All these position papers are available in print form and also on NCERT’s website. For the readers of the Journal of Indian Education we present
here the text of one such position paper Aims of Education. and ask ourselves, ‘what are we doing in our engagement with this task? Is there a need to ask ourselves afresh some of the basic questions such as what ought to be the purpose of education?’ The constitution of the focus group on the aims of education is perhaps meant to provide such an occasion.
AIMS OF EDUCATION : THE PRESENT SCENARIO :
§ Establishment of schools on the lines economic and social background (corporate schools for the rich, English Medium schools for the Middle class families and government schools for the people of lower standards).
§ Linear thinking assuming that engineering an medicine courses are the ultimate.
§ Disappearance of childhood rote memory replaces joyful learning.
§ Exam oriented study.
§ Schools have turned into agencies that provide guidance only for exams.
§ Commercialization of Education.
§ Disparity between aims and methodology.
§ Vagueness on expectations and abilities.
§ Assumption of confining education to classroom.
§ Repulsion towards new methods.
§ Lack of coordination between society, school and administration, not catering to the needs
of the society.
§ Development of passivity.
§ No scope for the enrichment of cognitive resources of the child such as questioning,
observation, inquisitiveness and expression.
§ Diminishing of values, cooperation collaboration patience, self-confidence, discretion and rational thinking.
§ Absence of human values, individual values and social values.
§ Mechanization of the child’s mind by the current education system.
§ Focus only on enrollment.
§ No stress on quality education.
§ Inequality, lack of freedom, negligence and irresponsibility.
§ Inferior training programmes, monotonous teaching training, training institutes and universities far away from the real world and lack of psychological element in education.
§ School is just information centre and exam centre.
§ Laborious Learning and intolerable schools.
§ Dumping of monotonous syllabus into lower levels in the name of curriculum revision.
§ Education promoting dependability, not self-confidence.
§ Gulf between labour and intelligence.
§ Children of the poor engaged in physical work whereas children of the rich capture power and administration.
§ Teacher-centered classes and only text books provide true knowledge.
§ Satisfying the officials and lack of decision making.
§ Disbelief among the teachers, the management and the society.
§ Lack of resources and lack of utilizing the resources available.
§ Completing the syllabus in time is the ultimate goal.
§ No idea of the aims and objectives of present education.
§ Lack of awareness of the aims of education.
§ The consequences of the present system.
§ The role of the school, the teachers and the society.
THE PROPOSED AIMS
§ Education should provide foresight and proper guidance.
§ Education is an instrument to achieve democracy, social equality and justice.
§ Thoughtfulness and independent work with values.
§ Concern for the others.
§ Learning how to learn and updating what is learnt.
§ Creative responses, creative thinking and implementing the new knowledge in various situations.
§ School should promote social awareness and human relations.
§ School as the resource centre comprising books for reference, books for the young, books for the children, etc)
§ Laboratories equipped with all materials and apparatuses.
§ Qualitative education aiming at educational goals.
§ Teacher as social volunteer.
§ Reformation in evaluation system so that the abilities of the children are assessed.
§ Protection of environment, natural resources reducing wastages and disaster management.
§ Promoting Self-reliance, social awareness, responsibility and inquisitiveness among the children.
§ Professional and vocational trainings.
§ Respecting Art Education, literature, culture study and traditions.
SOME IMPLICATIONS FOR PEDAGOGY AND EVALUATION
It may be useful to consider some of the implications of what has been said so far f o r p e d a g o g y a n d e v a l u a t i o n . T h e strangeness of the school environment can be mitigated by imaginatively linking the experience of school with the child’s experience outside it in the community. While school might have many new and exciting experiences for the child, it must
not appear as rejecting or eve ignoring the child’s experience in the community. Pedagogy will gain but incorporating children’s experience of what the Greeks used to call oikos, and likewise and it can teach them fresh ways of experiencing t h e w o r l d o u t s i d e t h e s c h o o l . F o r example, if a child has grown up in intimate contact with the nature around h i m , a s m o s t c h i l d r e n i n t r i b a l communities do, school can enrich and enhance this intimacy by sharpening the child’s awareness of his own natural environment–something that sadly does
not happen in most of our schools. The role of the teacher here is absolutely crucial. One is reminded of the nineteenyear-old teacher who came to help Tagore with the teaching in his school:
With him boys never felt that they were confined in the limit of a teaching class; they seemed to have their access to everywhere. They would go with him to the forest when in the spring the sal
trees were in full blossom and he would recite to them his favorite poems, frenzied with excitement…He never had the feeling of distrust for the boys’ capacity of understanding …. He knew that it was not a t a l l n e c e s s a r y f o r t h e b o y s t o understand literally and accurately, but that their minds should be roused, and in this he was always successful he was
not like other teachers, a mere vehicle of t e x t b o o k s . H e m a d e h i s t e a c h i n g
personal, he himself was the source of it, and therefore it was made of life stuff, easily assimilable by the living human nature.” Pedagogy must draw upon resources of creativity and exploration, such as literature in its various forms and history in its uncovering modes, e.g., unmasking
the mind of the colonisers as well as that of the colonised. I t is impor tant to e s t a b l i s h c o n n e c t i o n s b e t w e e n apparently discrete events and things, between things and events close to one and those distant in time and space– connections which can bring sudden
light to the workings of the child’s own mind. If the world of education is, in a sense, moral education, and if means a n d e n d s i n m o r a l m a t t e r s a r e organically or internally connected, the teacher, who is the primary vehicle of education, must be seen substantially as
an embodiment of virtues in his role as a teacher.
CONCLUSION :
National Policy of Education (1992) laid down many objectives for the development of education system in India India
The reservation on the basis of caste and religion is also a negative point in Indian education. Corruption is visible in the allocation of seats of institutions of higher studies and student politics is another sore point. These are some of the issues, which need to be worked upon.
Though there are disparities between the objectives and their implementation in education but still education system inIndia
The reservation on the basis of caste and religion is also a negative point in Indian education. Corruption is visible in the allocation of seats of institutions of higher studies and student politics is another sore point. These are some of the issues, which need to be worked upon.
Though there are disparities between the objectives and their implementation in education but still education system in
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2. "Really Old School," Garten, Jeffrey E. New York Times, 9 December 2006.
3. "Education in India
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5. India still Asia 's reluctant tiger, by Zareer Masani of BBC Radio 4, 27 February 2008
6. SPECIAL REPORT: THE EDUCATION RACE, byNewsweek, August 18–25, 2011 issue
7. "Science and Technology Education". Press Information Bureau. Retrieved 2009-08-08.
8. How To Save The World's Back Office, by Sramana Mitra ofForbes, 03.14.08
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