Terry Durnnian, chief of education, UNICEF India, has called for increasing investment to standardise the Kerala model and adapting success stories from other countries that have achieved the goal of knowledge society.
He was speaking on ‘Leverage the promise of Kerala’s education: moving towards a knowledge economy and society’ at a seminar on school education in Kerala in connection with the ongoing Keraleeyam here on Friday.
Mr. Durnnian said that the State’s aspirations to become a knowledge economy fit well with its education vision and successes. However, to strengthen education, disparities in learning and skilling between social groups should be addressed. The proportion of highly skilled students should be increased and their transition to further education, training or employment ensured.
Mr. Durnnian said the curriculum should be strengthened to emphasise critical thinking and problem solving, and continuous teacher development ensured to address new generation issues among students. He underlined the need for moving away from traditional examinations and taking up project-based assessments instead. Support for lifelong learning through adult education and upskilling programmes was another criteria, he said.
‘Special responsibility’
In her talk on ‘Are we committed to democratic education for a robust democracy?,’ Anita Rampal, a State curriculum committee member, underlined that what was happening in the rest of the country placed a special responsibility on Kerala and education in the State.
Referring to the Kerala Sasthra Sahitya Parishad’s report of the Kerala Education Commission released nearly 25 years ago, she said the commission had recommended integrating knowledge and skills. However in the State, there were 389 vocational higher secondary schools, segregated from the system in an undemocratic manner. “Today, we should not be looking at knowledge and skills as different at all. It is all knowledge,” she said. Instead of the term vocational, work-based courses should be used, and no child should be tied to a single trajectory at a young age.
Ms. Rampal said the Union Education Ministry had in 2009 weighed against centralised assessment for children up to the age of 14. However, the new National Education Policy talked of standardised assessment from class 3. This, she said, was against the Right to Education.
Practical courses
Farah Farooqi, faculty of education, Jamia Milia Islamia who spoke on ‘Teacher education for an inclusive ethos’ spoke about the theory and practise divide and called for supporting student teachers to test and interpret the usefulness of theories and develop their own ideas. To achieve this objective, there was need for practical courses in B.Ed. so that students could make connections and linkages and learn that classrooms are microcosms of society that are affected by socio-political and cultural forces.
Gurumurthy Kasinathan, director, IT for Change, Bengaluru, who spoke on the ‘Kerala model of integrating digital technology in education – highlights, experience, and the way forward’ said that the State was unique in its decision at the outset to use only free software in school education. Free software was important as it would allow sharing of resources not only in school but in the wider community, thus making it more equitable. It also had the advantage of sustainability and cost-effectiveness. However, Kerala should be able to take these ideas to the rest of the country too, he said.
Mika Tironnen, Finland knowledge expert in India, who spoke about renowned education model of Finland and lessons to be learnt from it said learning was made enjoyable for students there. They learnt by seeing, hearing, and touching, while teachers had full academic freedom.
Minister for General Education V. Sivankutty attended the seminar. Other speakers included Sonajharia Minz of Jawaharlal Nehru University, Kerala Infrastructure and Technology for Education (KITE) CEO Anvar Sadath, Vidyakiranam consultant C. Ramakrishnan, and Palakkad District Institute of Education and Training (DIET) lecturer V.T. Jayaram.
