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Enhancing school education to counter some everyday problems

From the various discussions on Praja we observe everyday problems such as
- Corruption
- Traffic congestion and chaos
- Unorganized & uncontrolled urban growth
- Complete lack of civic sense and amenities
- Pollution (land, air and noise pollution) and it's affects on health


I feel that one of the approaches of countering the above problems should be by making an impact on impressionable minds..the citizens of tommorrow..by introducing them to such issues and involve them in problem solving by introducing some enhancements in their current curriculum. We see hundreds of subjects being studied but nothing that to a large extent introduces students to high priority daily life issues like above which are hindering the overall quality of life & growth of the city/state/country.

It is not enough to introduce this as a subject and then learning by rote from a textbook for an exam. Perhaps this needs to be done:-

- introduce these problems through case studies and joint problem analysis with active participation and coordination between the students and teacher.
- videos,photos & other material from successful countries can be shown & examined to discuss how other countries do things differently. Many folks (I was one of them) who have never been outside the country don't know a different world exists out there that thinks and does things differently till they go, see & experience things. This is simply because we are used to doing things one way and we will continue to do so.
- group discussions can be held where teams of students present their ideas/projects where corruption can be reduce/tackled; or perhaps they can come up with a design for a neighbourhood with some urban planning principles in terms of good roads, sidewalks & adequate amenities thereby explaining the advantages of having good urban planning.
- road traffic rules and regulations can be studied in the form of videos and students quizzed on them. Videos and photos of how other countrie's drivers behave and follow rules can be shown.

What has been stated above is just a general direction and not the only way of doing it. Educational experts can come up with a suitable mandatory subject in a curriculum with appropriate content.

murali772's picture

CMCA

The Public Affairs Centre, Bangalore, runs a programme called CMCA (Children's Movement for Civic Awareness) in a number of schools in Bangalore, specifically with this purpose in mind. I had volunteered my services with them for two years, when I used to be taking classes for high school level children once a week.

Muralidhar Rao

Muralidhar Rao
tsubba's picture

education

awesome! awesome!! very well put. i couldnot agree more. i am serious. you have no clue how much i agree. i want to write more, but really am pressed for time. thanks for writing this and saying it out loud.
blrpraj's picture

Re: CMCA

Murali,

Awesome to know that something on these lines is being done. Murali, could you share with everybody what the curriculum is? Could you walk us through how these classes are and what the students learn? (with details on the content and the manner in which this education is imparted). Murali, I feel this needs to be formalized and standardized for introduction in all schools as a mandatory subject since in my humble opinion the skills learnt here could be categorized as highly important for future citizens to survive and help build a healthy society. What would it take to make introduction of this as a mandatory subject in all schools a reality? We need to figure out a way to lay emphasis on the practical aspect as well rather than learning by rote for marks. I am advocating introduction of this as a mandatory subject (with a practical & theory examination at the end) so that students take this subject seriously.

thanks

blrpraj (for all issues)  a.k.a bialterminal(airport & aviation issues)

murali772's picture

all about CMCA

Check: http://www.cmcaindia.org/

Muralidhar Rao

Muralidhar Rao

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