Be Creative in Learning

The education market is currently valued at $100 billion and is set to double by 2020. It is therefore deemed imperative that the 21st-century skills are further integrated to empower students to thrive in today's competitive world, says Dr Saroj Suman Gulati

The word education is rightly observed but not received; it is achieved, as it is a journey through self-exploration and self-discovery. Unfolding the annals of history, we will find that civilizations that have thrived over the years have been the ones who gave due impetus to the education of its people.

India enjoys a place of great repute and reverence as it has produced some of the greatest scholars and philosophers who remain the rock foundation of all learning.

Education has always been the basis of Indian society from early time. In the era of Ramayana and Mahabharata pupils lived in Gurukuls with gurus to acquire knowledge, clearly shows that the society paid importance to education.

The guru was responsible not only for the development of the cognitive skills of his students but also to refine their core life skills that empowered them to acquire values of empathy. Anecdotes of Krishna and Sudama, enthrall us till date. They are a live example of how holistic education was imparted in the days of yore thus empowering and enriching the learning process of the pupils.

The age of Gurukul categorically reveals that the module of primary education being followed in our country till date exemplifies the Gurukul era, with the mother-teacher taking over the role of the guru. However, the time has changed and the whole approach towards the teaching-learning process has made a paradigm shift.

In order to combat the challenges of the 21st century, it is now being strongly felt that education, at the primary stage, must nurture the child's curiosity about the learning. Emphasis needs to be given to exploration, innovativeness and creativity along with creating an environment where children are not questioned, on the contrary, are motivated to ask questions so that their inner urge to learn. No doubt classroom learning is important but equally important is the child's active participation in the process of learning through observation.

One cannot deny that two plus two will always be four, but when concepts at the primary level are strengthened through analysis and application the learning gets registered for a lifetime. In order to achieve this mission, I strongly agree with Dr APJ Abdul Kalam when he categorically voiced that it is high time 'Schools moved from being educational centres to becoming knowledge and skill centres' as the need is, 'to train students to become autonomous learners'. To quote the revered scholar once again, 'The entire education system,' from the grassroots level, has to be based on a capacity building comprising five components: research, creativity and innovation, capacity to use high-end technology, entrepreneurship and moral leadership'.

The question is, how it can happen at the grassroots level?

Education in India has improved dramatically over the last three decades. The RTE (Right to Education) Act guarantees the quality education to a wider range of students than ever before.

With the enactment of the RTE legislation in 2009, around 260 million children attend school in India today, making it the world's largest school system. There are around 1.5 million schools with over one million run by the Government. The education market is currently valued at $100 billion and is set to double by 2020. It is therefore deemed imperative that the 21st-century skills like collaboration, communication, critical thinking and creativity are further integrated to empower students to thrive in today's competitive world.

The biggest concern has been to incorporate new-wave strategies like multimedia learning process, project-based learning, scenario-analysis based learning, brainstorming, team teaching, peer tutoring, collaborative learning, concept mapping, enquiry-based learning, case-study, in the school system thereby revamping the teaching-learning process. By doing this, the students in the schools will feel empowered to become responsible for their learning and to become a responsible human.

For improving the quality of learning at the Primary School level, we require innovative changes as part of new curricular dynamics with rich content transacted in the classroom by empowered and updated teachers.

Teacher training is thus pivotal to the success of the programme in Primary Education where teachers are trained to follow an educational module designed to revolve around the 5E's, that is, Engage-Explore-Explain-Elaborate-Evaluate. Such constructive changes will definitely contribute to realising our dream of empowering our children.

There are 850 universities (as of April 2018) and 42,026 colleges according to the Ministry of Human Resource Development. If the entire educational institution will follow the same our children will grow-up as innovative thinkers and emerge as 'employment-generators' and not as 'employment-seekers'.

Be creative in learning - The education market is currently valued at $100 billion and is set to double by 2020. It is therefore deemed imperative that the 21st-century skills are further integrated to empower students to thrive in today's competitive world for more information visit: https://www.dailypioneer.com/

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Created on Aug 7th 2018 07:33. Viewed 123 times.

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