The insatiable quest to nurture and nourish imagination and creativity, analysis and application in the confinements of school classrooms has shifted the curriculum from Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE) to the New Assessment Structure at the middle school level. An eight-year rigorous training and implementation of CCE with its multifarious activities could not establish a convincing connection between secondary and senior secondary classes.
Change is inevitable and, indeed, the need of the hour. The remodelled assessment structure speaks volumes about this change. The curriculum and learning method are designed and delivered in active partnership with enrichment activities and maintenance of notebooks to hone organisational skills for a holistic development of a child. The semester system of CCE has undergone a welcome change to a complete course, session-end examination. The formative assessments have been replaced with periodic tests spread over the year with 90% weightage towards scholastic arena. The paradigm shift is to make the learners conceptually strong and fundamentally fit for facing future challenges. The curriculum is meticulously structured to remain tuned to the previous lessons and apparently remain stress-free during the annual examinations.
However, the onset of board examinations means a high level of anxiety, peer pressure parental expectation, school policies; and the stress becomes an all-time high.
It is certainly a matter of pride that with the new age learning pedagogy while the focus is on hands on training use of activities, videos, PPTs, interactive learning and E-class rooms, the 21st century learners are better informed, sometimes more informed than what they really have to receive from the other end. So, when this quest is half-accomplished, the learners wish to remain independent and rely on their likes and dislikes.
Time has changed. Teenagers of today are not the submissive lot of the Eighties and Nineties. Tolerance and acceptance have become a distant reality.
Failure to school policies may break their teenage souls. At this juncture, proper stress-busting initiations by parents, assurance and right guidance by teachers and understanding by peer groups will go a long way to help meet the changes and challenges of education.
As teachers, we need to research and prepare modules according to the need of exam pattern, clarify concepts and broaden the application domain to infuse interest and engage the children in learning to educate them to adopt in the ever-adapting challenges of the change.
In this regard, the DAV Chandrasekharpur established on August 4, 1989 has been striving towards excellence in both individual and collective activity to develop scientific temper, spirit of inquiry, to protect and improve natural environment, compassion for animals, value our composite culture and work towards the upliftment of the society and dignity of humanity through various observations, celebrations, healthy competitions and orientation programmes.
(The writer is an academic supervisor and a senior faculty at DAV Public School, Chandrasekharpur, Bhubaneswar-21)