WE THE PEOPLE
Outdated Curriculum denting education system severely, students hit hard in Valley of Kashmir
Hence BOSE should take immediate steps to stem the rot and revise syllabus to enable students to compete at national level
By: R. Makhdoomi
Srinagar: The graph of competitive school education in Kashmir may dip further, if the Board of School Education (BOSE) does not take immediate steps to stem the rot present in the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) syllabus taught in majority of schools in the Valley, both in private as well as public schools.
In what could be termed as a big blunder, the BOSE still mentions in the 10th class Social Science i.e. Civics book that the Secretary General of United Nations has not been changed since 1972 while the reality is entirely different. The book provides wrong knowledge to the students in the civics section at page no 130 that the Kurt Josef Waldheim, the former Secretary General United Nations, who left the office in 1981, is still functioning as Secretary General of UN. Ironically, Kurt Josef Waldheim who passed away on June 14, 2007 was an Austrian diplomat and politician who joined as Secretary General of the United Nations in 1972 and continued to remain in the office until 1981.After Waldheim, Javier Perez de Cuellar of Peru joined as the UN Secretary General in January 1982 and continued until December 1991.Cuellar was followed by Boutros Boutros Ghali of Egypt between January 1992 and December 1996 and Kofi Annan of Ghana between January 1997 and December 2006.The present Secretary General of the United Nations, Ban Ki Moon of South Korea joined the office in January 2007.But it seems that our syllabus designers have turned a blind eye towards this important fact . Mathematics is one of the most important as well as among least understood school subjects in Kashmir valley. Most of the schools in Kashmir valley follow a completely outdated curriculum and pass techniques in teaching this important subject to students; as a result our students are not able to compete at National Level competitive Exams, as mathematics is the pivotal part of such exams. Moreover the revised edition of the social science book prescribed by the BOSE for the 10th standard still identifies the erstwhile Soviet Union as the United Soviet States of Russia which should have been mentioned in the book as per contemporary status Russia only and hence this wrong information adds to the confusion of the students who have more than one source of information nowadays and persistently visit internet cafes. The erstwhile USSR disintegrated some 17 years back in 1991 which led to the creation of 15 countries Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan.
Educationists, pupils, Teachers and parents of pupils have expressed a grave concern on the outdated nature of curriculum taught to students of our valley. While talking to this correspondent of the "Mirror of Kashmir", Professor Kashmir University Education Department and renowned educationist, Nazir Ahmad Nadeem said, "The curriculum taught in majority of our schools is outdated, Board of School Education (BOSE) should learn a lesson from Kashmir University where we upgrade and revise syllabus after every two years. Basically the NCERT syllabus consists of seventy percent core and thirty percent flexible, neither of the two has gone major revisions from some decades now, as NCERT Syllabi related workshops have not been conducted for the past two decades in our valley that would have proven fruitful in devising competitive syllabus." Sanam Nazir, a teacher said, "Our syllabus at present fails to meet the competitive needs of students. Every school has got its own pattern of syllabus, for the same class schools in our valley have differential syllabus. The syllabus upgrading takes place after decades in our valley. Outdated information and techniques prescribed by our curriculum acts as a major impediment in the development of a student." Mujeeb Ahmad, a student said "We should upgrade and revise the whole syllabus immediately, so that it matches the global competitive needs. We can only crack high level exams like Common Admission Test (CAT), Indian Institute of Management (IIM), and Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) when our authorities wake up and immediately design our curriculum in such a manner that matches the competitive needs of contemporary time."
Analysts and ground reality suggests revised curriculum with other problems like constant Curfews, Hartals and protests is denting our education system shoddily ;there can therefore be no room for outdated curriculum, because this major lacunae if not checked and suggested remedial measures will automatically couple with above factors and would thus make our education system virtually defunct.
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