Delhi’s new education system will focus on developing positive attitude: Sisodia

NEW DELHI: Manish Sisodia, Deputy Chief Minister and Education Minister, Government of Delhi, on Saturday, August 22, stressed on having an educational framework based on developing a healthy attitude, skills and readiness for the next learning stage. Sisodia emphasized this point while speaking at the second joint review meeting of the committees preparing the scheme and framework for Delhi’s own education board and a new curriculum.

He said, “We need to introduce a framework based on attitude-skill-readiness for the next learning stage. However, if we focus only on the readiness part, leaving the attitude and skills behind, the purpose of education will be half-served.” He added that a healthy attitude towards everything in life is extremely important and Delhi’s education system will try to instill the attitude of dreaming big, bring true, honest, happy and of critical thinking, among other things.

He said that according to the National Curriculum Framework (NCF) 2005, Mathematics should help students in thinking logically. However, in reality, it becomes a subject that forces children to mug up formulae and solving equations without understanding the solution properly. “There is a misalignment between the learning process and learning outcomes right now. We need to determine what a 6, 8, 11 and 14-year-old child should have in terms of attitude and skills and readiness for the next stage. At every stage, there should be a minimum set of learning outcomes, which our education system should aim for.,” said Sisodia.

The board, during the joint meeting, also focused on “holistic development and continuous assessment”. Sisodia said that once the plan is in place, State Council for Educational Research and Training (SCERT) Delhi will focus on preparing the content and extensive training of teachers with the guidance of these two committees. After the committee members shared the progress report of their work along with the tentative timelines, Sisodia asked them to stick to the timelines so that a new curriculum for children up to 14 years could be launched by next academic year.