Deputy Chief Minister and Education Minister Manish Sisodia held the second joint review meeting on Saturday, with the committees which are preparing the scheme and framework for the formation of Delhi Education Board (DEB) and new curriculum.
The meeting was held along with Secretary (Education), Director (Education), Director SCERT and Education Advisor. In the Annual Budget 2020-21, the Government of Delhi had announced its plans for Curriculum Reform and creating a New Board of Education for Delhi.
The committees consist of eminent education experts from government agencies and education-based organizations from different parts of the country. Committee members shared the progress report of their work along with the tentative timelines.
"We need to strictly stick to the timelines so that we can launch the new curriculum for children up to 14 years by next academic year," Sisodia said.
Giving his inputs on the progress so far, Sisodia said, "We need to introduce a framework based on attitude-skill- readiness for the next learning stage. However, if we focus only on the readiness part, leaving the attitude and skill behind, the purpose of education will be half-served".
Emphasizing further on the same, he said, "Healthy attitude towards everything in life matters. Our education system should build the attitude of dreaming big, being true, honest and happy, critical thinking, etc in the student." "Learning skills in school becomes extremely important for preparing students to live their lives happily and responsibly.
Skills like listening, asking, doing things, expressing, etc. are absolutely necessary," he said.
"NCF, 2005 says that Math should help students to think logically but in reality, Math class becomes mainly about learning formulas and solving equations.
There is a misalignment between the learning process and learning outcomes right now," said the deputy CM. "We need to determine what a 6, 8, 11 and 14-year-old child should have in terms of attitude and skills and readiness for the next stage.
At every stage, there should be a minimum set of learning outcomes, which our education system should aim for," he said. The Board Committee laid down its "Focus on holistic development and continuous assessment". While reviewing the work done by the Board Committee, Mr Sisodia said, "The committee should recommend the process of continuous assessment internally in school and set up a framework of the end of the stage third-party assessment of the attainment of learning outcomes capturing skills and attitude also. Delhi has a fair amount of digital penetration and we should use it for continuous learning assessment of the students using technology. We have provided tablets to our teachers and going ahead, we will digitally enable our schools further hence the implementation of continuous assessment should not be an issue." He also stressed that once the plan is in place, SCERT Delhi will focus on preparing the content and extensive training of teachers with the guidance of these two committees.
