As the new millennium approaches, the focus in primary and secondary education will significantly shift towards more interactive and cooperative learning rather than the top-down instructional approach that is prevalent today. There will also be an increasing emphasis towards using modern methods of communication and interchange to impart a more integrated education, particularly at the secondary levels. There would also be an increasingly meaningful partnership between education and business in the years to come.These and other relevant issues were raised and discussed at an international convention, entitled Partnership in Education towards 21st Century, organised by the Delhi Public Schools Society at Noida near Delhi last week. Spread over three days, the convention featured speakers from both around the country and abroad.
Speaking on cooperative learning, one of the major focus areas that emerged at the convention, John Gibbon, education consultant to the government of South Africa, provided thebasic concepts of actually implementing such a system of education where students learn through interaction in a group situation rather than singly pursuing their objectives. Other speakers, too, agreed on the desirability of more interactive and co-operational methods of imparting instruction, but it was Gibbon who brought together the various concepts discussed and illustrated how these concepts can actually put to practice in a classroom situation.
Speaking on the role of value education for a better future, M V Prasad, Principal of Daly College in Indore, stressed on the need to inculcate value systems early in a child's life. According to him, the educators themselves have to be aware of what value-based instruction entails to achieve this efficiently. It is up to today's teachers, particularly at the school levels, to impart this much needed service to the society, he said.
Yvers Beernert, noted academician from Belgium, focussed his presentation on the cooperation between schools, even across stateand geographical boundaries, for imparting quality education. According to him, in this era of globalisation and better means of communication, it has become relatively easy for schools separated by wide distances and from diverse cultures to communicate and arrive at significant interchanges that would directly benefit the school system. He pointed out the fact that the school systems all over the world are moving towards an integrated system and the day is not far when schools would have similar systems in place, which will made communication that much more easier.
The role of industry and business in education, especially in regard to schools, was also one of the main issues discussed at the convention. Chris Lowe, headmaster of William School Oundle in Peterborough in the UK, took the main initiative in introducing and providing basic concepts in this area.Lowe, who was responsible for coordinating with delegates from abroad, spoke about education and business in partnership with the help of casestudies in the UK. He pointed out that in the era of liberalisation, primary and secondary schools are increasingly looking towards business houses to invest in education. This has become necessary as emphasis gradually shifts from state education systems to privately funded ones.
Throughout the convention, different speakers touched upon the fact that the present system of evaluation based on marks is highly undesirable. Though all of them were in agreement that the `marks system' cannot be totally done away with, its role in measuring performance and efficiency needs to be more broad-based. This could be done, and is already being practised in some schools in India, by a system of continuous evaluation based on various parameters other than marks scored at examinations.
At the end of the convention, there appeared to be a broad consensus on the issues of cooperative learning, increased communication, both within and without schools, and on the fact that business patronage and investment is necessary tomake the schools system more efficient and productive.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
