Union Human Resource Department Minister Prakash Javadekar on Sunday said that the department is planning to reduce the classroom syllabus in a phased manner in order to emphasize more on the “experiential learning” of children. He also asserted that extra-curricular activities should have equal importance as classroom learning.
Speaking at the inauguration of Malpani Foundation’s Dhruv Global School at Nande Village, near Pune. “We need to have equal focus on experiential learning, sports, physical education and life skills education for the holistic development of the child. We are trying to reduce the burden of classroom syllabus in a phased manner to facilitate this thought”, he said.
He said that the government is reducing the syllabus by 10% this year and by 20% in the following year so that the kids are able to get the appropriate time to acquire experiential skills, life skills, etc. He said both private and public school have the same role to play when it comes to education.
“Under ‘Samagra Shiksha’ drive more than 11 lakh schools are being given a special grant ranging between Rs 5000 to Rs 25000 for procuring books for the library and buying sports equipment separately”, he said.
Javadekar said, “Around 3000 ‘Atal Tinkering Labs’ have been set up in schools across the country for introducing children to modern science in an appropriate way”.