English is considered and seen by many from the underprivileged sections of society as a gateway to an improved life, and in this view they desire that government schools teach the language to children from the start, this was expressed in a report put forth by a council which comprised of secretaries set up by the Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi.
Further, recommendations along the lines of favour towards detention policies in several classes and including sports and yoga to the educational curriculum for increased physical aptitude of the students were made by the report as expressed by sources familiar with the matter.
The Group, through this report to the Apex Minister, has reflected and brought to centre stage the aspirations of the parents of the poor strata who can’t afford to send their children to private schools who deliver their curriculum in ‘English Medium’ and thus feel deprived, as their wards’ schools don’t teach the English language from an early age.
The council who shared the information gleaned from the parents of such downtrodden sections of the population went on to recommend that the language of English be included in government schools from the start.
A key focus was towards their suggestions on how to raise the levels of skill and knowledge development to standards that are globally accepted. Another interesting recommendation of the panel was to conduct detention of students at various levels to raise the bar of learning, according to the sources consulted.
The concept of no-detention that currently prevailed meant that even students who learnt nothing were promoted, and reinforcing such disregard for the individual student’s learning was fundamentally detrimental to their development, the Secretaries mused.
This policy, as prescribed in the Right to Education Act (RTE), states that children can’t be failed till class 8. However, the HRD ministry is now reviewing the same. In the matter of physical education and development of the students, the Secretaries’ Group has recommended the integration of Sports or even Yoga with the curriculum under the blanket of ‘physical education’ to right the unbalance.
The same report filed by the Secretaries has also recommended that the nation must strive to participate in evaluations like the PISA (Programme for International Students’ Assessment) to better get a scope of the outcomes of the education provided. Students from India have participated in PISA before, and the panel warns to hold disappointment in case the outcomes of the same in the future are not favourable.