MINUTES OF THE MEETING OF THE CABE HELD ON 2ND MARCH, 1994
The 50th Meeting of the Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE) was held in the Commission Hall No. 5, Vigyan Bhavan, New Delhi on 2nd March, 1994 under the Chairmanship of Shri Arjun Singh, Minister of Human Resource Development. The list of participants in the meeting is at Annexure-I The agenda of the meeting is at Annexure- II. List of documents circulated in the meeting is at Annexure-III.
2. Before the proceedings of the meeting started, the participants observed one minute's silence to condole the death of Shri Raj Mangal Pandey, former Minister of Human Resource Development and former chairman of the CABE. A copy of the condolence resolution is at Annexure-IV.
3. Welcoming the members of the CABE and invitees to the meeting, Shri S. V. Giri, Union Education Secretary and Members-Secretary of the CABE, said that this meeting of the CABE was exclusively for discussing two very important reports, viz., (i) Report of the National Advisory Committee set up in March, 1992 to suggest way and means to reduce academic burden on school children while improving the quality of tearing and (ii) the Report of the CABE Committee on sports and physical Education. Shri Giri mentioned that the decision to set up the National Advisory Committee, popularly called the `Yash Pal Committee' after its Chairman Professor Yash Pal, former Chairman of the UGC, was to address the concerns expressed at various fold from time to time regarding excessive academic burden on school students due to non-renewal of school curricula, unsatisfactory school facilities and inadequate teacher performance and the resulting erosion in quality of learning. The Committee held wide-ranging consultations and invited views from the students, teachers, parents and general public. Shri Giri mentioned that the Committee's in July, 1993, was discussed at meeting of the CABE held on 15th The CABE then felt that the report discussed and debated because of the crucial nature of the recommendations and the fundamental nature of some of the viewpoints expressed in the report. Shri Giri added that the general feedback received in the Ministry was that most of the States had held workshops and seminars as part of such debate.
4. Shri Giri also referred to the Report of the CABE Committee on Sports and Physical Education. He said that the Committee was set up under the Chairmanship of Shri K. P. Singh Deo. Minister of Information & Broadcasting, to examine and suggest measures for both students and teachers to take up physical education activities and for development of low-cost sports and physical education infrastructure. The report was circulated in the last meeting of the CABE but could not be discussed, Shri Giri pointed out that the report contains many recommendations which have no financial implications and on which it should be possible to arrive at a consensus.
Shri Giri also said that a major concern coming up in all meetings to education was the follow up of EFA proposals. Both elementary education and adult education came within the ambit of EFA. He also referred to the decision in the recent Chief Ministers' Conference held on 15th February, 1994 to give EFA the highest priority and to provide support for that in terms of decentralised management, increased resource and improved monitoring mechanisms.
6. In her address, Km. Selja, Deputy Minister of Education and Culture said that the transaction of school curricula was coming more and more under public scrutiny. The concerns about deterioration in educational standards in schools were no longer confined only to the body of educationists but have become an important issue for parents. Therefore, the Government as well as the teaching community had now become much more accountable to the general public than in the past. Km. Selja added that the Yash Pal Committee recommendations on reducing the quantum of school textbooks and homework were of great significance. She stressed that learning should be a joyful experience, and the classroom environment should be relevant to the children in order to reduce the drop-out rate particularly of children belonging toot disadvantaged section. Referring to the holistic nature of education of which a school forms just on part - the family, nature and community being the others, she said that compelling the child to spend more time with the text-books deprived him or her of the pleasure of learning for other sources. She expressed confidence that in many recommendations of the yash Pal Committee a national consensus could be forged for early action, while in a few of them there might be practical difficulties in implementation. The text of the speech of Km. Selja is at Annexure-V
7. Shri Mukul Wasnik, Minister of State of Youth Affairs and Sports welcomed all members and state that the National Sports policy emphasized the need for making sports and physical education an integral part of the curriculum in schools and colleges but very little had been done to translate the policy resolve into practical action. He said that any programme of action for improvement of sports in the country should recognize the basic fact that the playing population of our country was very small and that we need to expand its size. He also mentioned that an important aspect in sports promotion was the health and physical attributes of the child and only healthy children possessing good motor qualities could develop into good sports persons.
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8. Shri Wasnik added that emphasis on physical education at the early stage of education would make students take to sports and games as a career. He observed that the recommendations of the committee set up by the CABE to examine the constraints like non-availability of play fields, sports equipment, trained instructors and coaches, were well thoughtout and practical. He pointed out that the committee's recommendation to make sports a compulsory part of the curriculum and assign at least 40 minutes every day can be implemented by all States immediately and added that, it is necessary to provide a system of evaluation, to assess the fitness and overall participation of the child in physical education and sports throughout the year.
9. Shri Wasnik appreciated the pragmatic view taken by the Committee of providing physical education training to all teachers, through pre-service and in-service education courses and suggested that DIETS and B. Ed. colleges and the Department if necessary, should come forward to train the trainees. The Department of Youth Affairs and Sports could offer the training facilities available at LNCPE at Gwalior and Trivandrum, to DIETs.
10. While referring to the setting up of a sports Fund through equal contribution by the Centre and the States and also collection of sports fees from students for creation of sports infrastructure in schools, the Minister said that Government of India hoped to make its contribution in a small way during 1994-95 and emphasised the need to mae a beginning by the states too.
11. Shri Wasnik also stated that all the State Governments should at least identify one school per district as sports school for nurturing talented sports-persons. He also mentioned about the Committee's recommendation to impart Yoga practice from secondary school onwards. He requested the State Governments' support in implementing the report which will ultimately raise the standard of Indian sports. The text of Shri Wasnik's address is at Annexure-VI.
12. Welcoming all the members of the Board to the 50th meeting of the CABE Shri Arjun Singh, Chairman, CABE in his inaugural address noted that this was golden jubilee meeting of the CABE and said that it would be in the fitness of things if this meeting could become historic. Underlining the urgency in coming to grips with the situation the Board wanted to address itself to, Shri Arjun Singh invited attention of the members of CABE to the considerable public attention that had been focussed on both the issues under consideration. He noted that there was a very strong public opinion to support the Government's resolve to implement Yash pal Committee recommendations and, therefore there was an urgency for action in the matter. Shri Arjun Singh noted that a sizeable and meaningful debate in most of the States had taken place about recommendations, of Yash Pal Committee. Observing that implementation of the recommendations would give an entirely new orientation to elementary education in the country h felt that the State-level seminars and workshops were essential in order to gain popular acceptance of the recommendation. He therefore, felt that just in case the seminars and workshops had not been held in some States, another meeting of the CABE could be held in the next couple of months or so to discuss the response from such States.
13. Referring to the Report of the CABE Committee on Sports, Shri Arjun Singh said that the initiative in this regard had come from the Prime Minister himself at a meeting of the Sports Authority of India about 5-6 months ago. He also drew attention of the Members to his promise in the last CABE meeting that the report would be discussed in a meeting of the Board early so that implementation could begin from the next academic year.
14. Shri Arjun Singh mentioned that during the last six months there had been a heightened national interest in Education, particularly after the last meeting of the National Development Council, which had brought. Education and all its attendant subject to the Centre-stage of our national development. Recalling the `Education For All' Summit of nine high population countries held in December last and adoption of the historic Delhi Declaration, Shri Arjun Singh mentioned that in the Conference of Chief Ministers held on 15th February, 1994 as a follow-up to the EFA-9 Summit, the resolve to increase the investment in education to 6% of the GNP from IX Plan onwards was announced and this resolve was included in the Address of the Hon'ble President of India to both House of Parliament. After this quantum jump in investment from the present level of 3.7% of GNP to 6%, the plea of inadequacy of funds as an impediment in the way of educational improvement would no longer be valid. As such, it was high time for identifying the qualitative tasks and physical targets to be accomplished within a definite time-frame so that people's expectations from the Government in school education could be fulfilled. The text of the Speech of the Chairman is at Annexure-VII.
15. After the inaugural address of the Chairman, the minutes of the previous meeting were considered. On a query from the Chairman, Education Secretary mentioned that comments of only one member, Dr. Shankar Dayal Singh, were received on the Minutes of the previous meeting. Subject to the comments of Dr. Shankar Dayal Sing, the minutes were confirmed.
16. The Chairman then requested Prof. Yash Pal to briefly introduce the report of the National Advisory Committee on school curriculum load for discussion. Prof. Yash Pal emphasised the need to initiate some concrete action urgently He invited specific attention of the members to the following concerns of the Committee :
(i) A lot of problems in school education arose from the fascination of curriculum and textbook developers with explosion of knowledge' and the urge to `catch-up' with western nations. The retention capacity of the human brain being limited, continuous storage of increasing- information in the child's brain would be impossible. Assessment of children on the basis of their capacity to remember
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information should go away. The emphasis should, therefore, shift from `storage capacity' to building up the `capacity of students to navigate through information'.
(ii) School textbooks are written by the experts in respective subjects and not by the school teachers; the fondness of the experts with their respective subjects lead to multiplicity of topics in the textbooks resulting in the textbooks being incomprehensible to the children for whom they are meant.
(iii) Load of non-comprehension, which was more serious than the gravitational load of weight of textbooks, had arisen due to their content being unrelated to the immediate environment of the child.
(iv) The hierachical structure of educational authorities did not allow the school teachers to voice their opinons adequately. The teachers were consulted in textbook preparation only occasionally.
17. Prof. Yash Pal urged that the child should be at the centre of the processes of curriculum development and textbook preparation. Agreeing with the Minimum Levels of Learning (MLL) approach, Prof. Yash Pal pointed out that even in that approach the side-effects of `explosion of knowledge' and `catching-up' syndromes ought to be taken into account. He urged for a careful consideration of the Committee's recommendation for keeping textbooks in schools as school property and their issue to the students by rotation. He felt that this was a highly cost-effective device in view of the enormous expenditure being incurred in supply of textbooks to all the children. Referring to the Committee's recommendation for limiting CBSE-affiliation to Kendriya Vidyalayas and Navodaya Vidyalayas, lie said that though he did not feel very strongly about this recommendation, the desirability of precribing to all States uniform textbooks having no local relevance and, their becoming heavy due to their incomprehensibility to local children should be kept in view. Lastly, he urged the setting up of a Committee to examine utilisation of the `Gram-SAT' channel for creation of child-centred social ethos in the country.
18. Shri Sikander Bakht, Member of Parliament stated that the metropolitan city of Delhi has only two stadia and there are not enough playgrounds/playfields. He urged for shifting the emphasis from construction of stadia to provision of play grounds. No Player can be produced without proper playgrounds playfields. He suggested that sports equipment should be given free of cost to the players. lie also approved the recommendation to prescribe a period of 40 minutes in schools in the morning for physical training. He criticised the functioning of the sports federation where bureaucrats are functioning as office bearers and stated that the federations should be kept free from politics. He was of the view that after the talent is identified intensive training should be given and coaches should be provided for the players, individually. He also suggested that the maximum age limit for the players should be fixed, i.e., 20-25 years, so that chance could be given to the other players also.
19. Referring to Yash Pal Committee's recommendation for setting up education committees at village, block and district levels, Shri Salim Zakaria, Minister for School Education, Maharashtra informed the meeting that Primary Education in Maharashtra had already been tranferred to the Zilla Prishad and Secondary Education to the private educational in situtions. He said that this decentralisation had given a big impetus to provide access at the villages, particularly in hilly and tribal areas. He mentioned that two State-level seminars were organised jointly by NCERT and SCERT, Pune and the views emanating from the seminars sent to the Central Government. Referring to the committee's concern for the burden of homework, he said that the teachers should devote more time to help the students to complete their homework in the school itself. As regards the Committee's plea for adequate programme of teacher preparation, Shri Zakaria mentioned the intention of the State Government to cover 40,000 primary school teachers through inservice training from this year.
20. Shri Arun V. Divekar, Sports Minister Maharashtra said that in Maharashtra promotion of sports was given due importance from the primary school level. He stated that children were given proper guidance so that they can become better sports persons in future. He suggested that every taluka and district should have sports complexes. These complexes should be provided with equipments and coaches and Government of India should come forward with guidelines in this regard. He was of the view that proper training in sports to the children could be given especially during the Diwali or summer vacations.
21. Prof. Ponnusamy, Education Minister, Tamil Nadu mentioned that the Yash Pal Committee report was discussed by the five different group of school teachers and members of parent-Teacher Associations. Agreeing with the Committee's recommendation for involving school teachers in preparation of school syllabi and textbooks, he felt that the teachers should be encouraged to take into account the local needs while doing so. He also agreed that the text-based and quiz-based questions should be replaced by concept based questions. He also made a plea for adoption of seminar system in examinations to lessen the burden on students.
22. Referring to the Report on Sports and Physical Education, Prof. Ponnusamy said that in Tamil Nadu, a separate syllabus for Physical Education had been framed for students studying from standards I to V and 2 periods were allotted per week for Physical Education from Standards VI to XII. Apart from this children from Standard I to XII play, games for one hour after school hours. In order to impart effective physical education, trained physical education teachers in High Schools and Physical Directors in Higher Secondary Schools have been appointed . To encourage active participation of students in sports and games, the State Government conducts every year two State level competitions namely, Bharathiyar Day Games and Republic Day Sports and Games and the winners and runners-up are provided with Rs. 600/- and Rs. 400/- scholarships respectively.
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23. Prof. Ponnusamy also stated that there were 4 Government aided Sports Schools with Sports Hostel and 5 Government Sports Hostels for bringing about excellence in children in sports and that the State government also intended to. open more sports schools and hostels. With Central assistance, 200 men and women physical education teachers have been trained for two months in Yoga at Vivekananda Kendra, Kanayakumari and Yoga has been made a compulsory physical education subject in the Syllabus.
24. Prof. Ponnusamy further said that the State Government had introduced a Rural Sports Centre Scheme to tap rural talent. Four acres of land in each block Headquarters would be identified and a 400 metre track would be laid to develop rural sports and games. A grant of Rs. 10,000/- per block for essential materials as well as a coach would be provided to the Rural Sports Centre which in turn would be linked with High Schools in that Block to provide intensive coaching to pupils of those schools. To encourage and develop talented athletes, a State level sports hostel for excellence is to be established where 50 selected talented athletes in the age group of 16-20 will be given specialised coaching and special diet.
25. Shri Mahendra Singh, Minister of School Education, Madhya Pradesh informed the CABE that a number of workshops involving educationists, teachers, teacher-educators, administrators and parents were held in the State to deliberate upon the report of the Yash Pal Committee and their observations would be sent to the Government of India within a month. He assured that the State Government would accord priority to reducing the curriculum load on school students and in adopting a child-centred and activity based approach. Referring to certain specific recommendations of Yash Pal Committee, he made the following observations :-