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Science Chemistry Model Paper # 02
The National Curriculum
Framework, (NCF), 2005, recommends that children's life at school must be
linked to their life outside the school. This principle marks a departure from
the legacy of bookish learning which continues to shape our system and causes a
gap between the school, home and community. The syllabi and textbooks developed
on the basis of NCF signify an attempt to implement this basic idea.
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They also attempt to
discourage rote learning and the maintenance of sharp boundaries between
different subject areas. We hope these measures will take us significantly
further in the direction of a child-centred system of education outlined in the
National Policy on Education (1986). The success of this effort depends on the
steps that school principals and teachers will take to encourage children to
reflect on their own learning and to pursue imaginative activities and
questions.
We must recognise that, given
space, time and freedom, children generate new knowledge by engaging with the
information passed on to them by adults. Treating the prescribed textbook as
the sole basis of examination is one of the key reasons why other resources and
sites of learning are ignored. Inculcating creativity and initiative is
possible if we perceive and treat children as participants in learning, not as
receivers of a fixed body of knowledge.
These aims imply considerable
change in school routines and mode of functioning. Flexibility in the daily
time-table is as necessary as rigour in implementing the annual calendar so
that the required number of teaching days are actually devoted to teaching. The
methods used for teaching and evaluation will also determine how effective this
textbook proves for making children's life at school a happy experience, rather
than a source of stress or boredom.
