LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL
 

Malcolm S. Adiseshiah, Chairman, National Review Committee for Plus Two Curriculum of School Education.

My dear Minister,

Subject : Transmittal of Plus 2 Review Committee Report.

It is with pleasure that I transmit to you the report of the National Review Committee on Higher Secondary Education, with the appropriate title-'LEARNING TO DO.'

The central finding of the Committee is that learning must be based also on work; either through what the Ishwarbhai Patel Committee calls socially useful productive work which has been woven into the General Education course proposed in the report (we have because of its reverse connotations eschewed the term Academic Course) or through the vocationalised courses that we have recommended.

A second contribution that the Committee has made is to spell out in terms of curriculum, syllabus outline and evaluation the socially useful productive work component of the General Education courses, and a similar explicitation of the curriculum and syllabus outline of general foundation courses which all those entering the vocationalised stream must offer.

A third finding of the Committee is that for the immediate future, that is for the Sixth Plan, the vocationalised courses to be offered at the higher secondary level should be in agricultural and related rural occupational areas and in managerial, commercial, health and paramedical vocations,and not through opening vocational courses at his level in the manufacturing industrial and engineering occupations. The motivation for this recommendation was first pragmatic. Given the large scale unemployment of the products of the I.T.I.'s and to a lesser extent of the Polytechnics and Engineering Colleges as set forth in official reports, these offerings at the plus 2 stage are not needed. There was also the need for this stage of education to conform to the national priority to agriculture, rural development and adult literacy that have been sadly neglected to-date by the formal school system. In fact we recommend opening or locating of Higher Secondary Schools in rural areas with vocational courses in agriculture and related occupations partly to make up for this lacunae.

A fourth and final consideration that I would like to bring to your attention is our plea for careful preparation to ensure that the many facets of the reform of Higher Secondary Education are thought through, planned for, and provided against as the country's takes in this educational stage are high. One problem here is that almost all States as well the central agencies have already launched on the plus 2 stage. Hence for most agencies the recommendations in this report will have to be used as guideposts and lead points to review what has been embarked upon, and make such corrections and changes in the future as they may deem necessary and appropriate. In fact such a system of continuous evaluation should be built into our entire educational system, and for this stage could be undertaken by the Central and State Boards and the National and State Vocational Councils of Education that have been recommended. To err may be human, but to persist in it is inhuman.

It has been a pleasure for the Committee to work together on an aspect of the country's educational life which is so near and dear to all of us. I would like to take

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this occasion to express the gratitude of the Committee to its hard- working Member Secretary, Dr. R. P. Singhal, and to the Chairmen and Secretaries of the four sub-Committees without whose leadership and service, we could not have completed the task that you entrusted to us. For me, it has been once more a valuable learning experience.

I remain at your service to provide you with any further information you may require on this report.

Accept, Mr. Minister, my cordial considerations and grateful thanks.

Yours sincerely,

University of Madras February 28, 1978 Malcolm S. Adiseshiah

The Hon'ble Dr. P. C. Chunder Minister of Education & Social Welfare and President of N. C. E. R. T. Government of India New Delhi.