Need to Rejuvenate the Curriculum in Education to Attain Sustainable Development

NEED TO REJUVENATE THE CURRICULUM IN EDUCATION TO ATTAIN SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

Samir Ajmeri

ABSTRACT

The new era of globalization has brought multifaceted challenges in the form of business competitions in every sphere of life. The pressure to deliver effective, efficient, economical, environmental friendly and adaptive commodities uniformly amongst the denizen of this world is posing complex challenges for the policy makers, planners and academicians engaged in the process of sustainable development. The key solution to the complicated issue of sustainable development lies in �purposeful and meaningful education’. Academician will have to design curriculum for every level of education, starting from kindergarten to post-graduation, so as to interface the advantages and adversity of unplanned developments. Supplementary education in the form of projects, tasks, field trips should be made mandatory in the teaching learning process. Issues like deforestation, special economic zone (SEZ), nuclear treaty etc should not be the sole right of legislative bodies but should be discussed in the classroom as well. This will certainly make the mankind more responsible, disciplined and happy. This paper discusses some of the steps implemented at our college during pre-service teachers training programme.

NEED TO REJUVENATE THE CURRICULUM IN EDUCATION TO ATTAIN SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

Samir Ajmeri

The sustainable development of human society is the raison d’Ð"Єtre of all human activities. No development can sustain without the proper knowledge about its evolution, merits and demerits. Thus education plays a very fundamental role in shaping and nurturing these activities. With the changing world the scope and the nature of these activities are changing. The sustainable development means a mode of development (in any area of human endeavor) that is constant with peoples’ continuous welfare. The development that should not over exploit and deplete natural resources, should not harm environment, should not pollute atmosphere.

Current Issues: Some of the subjects which have become the prime rationale for sustainable developments are:-

пÑ"? Haphazard industrialization; Special Economic Zones (SEZ)

пÑ"? Global warming (greenhouse effect) due to uncontrolled use of hydrocarbon fossil fuels.

пÑ"? Diminishing forest cover: optimum 30 % of land should be under forest cover.

пÑ"? Desertification: more and more areas are becoming arid.

пÑ"? Unequal distribution of national wealth.

пÑ"? Present lifestyle aggravates problems.

Catch them young: The reasons why it is urgent and important to increase students’ awareness of issues concerning sustainable development are:-

пÑ"? There is joy in search of knowledge; there is excitement in seeing, however partially, into the working of physical and biological world; there is satisfaction in finding solutions to the human problems. It will lead the students to better understanding the range and limits to man’s relationship with nature.

Areas like Science, Environment, Economics, Agriculture, Social Science (Anthropology) should be included in school curriculum to increase students’ awareness about the problem ?

What should we do to sustain all round development?

1 The education policies should be dynamically updated to meet the requirements of the sustained development

пÑ"? curriculum should be updated as per the need of the day

пÑ"? the upcoming topics should be incorporated in the syllabi

пÑ"? the depth of knowledge imparted should be properly executed according to the level of the students

пÑ"? to supplement the text books extra work like projects, educational visits etc should be implemented

2. We should make sure that our industries

пÑ"? use resources frugally

пÑ"? use energy efficiently and develop renewable source of energy

пÑ"? produce goods that are useful rather than fashionable

пÑ"? generate a great deal of employment

пÑ"? use their surplus wealth and human resource in welfare of the community

пÑ"? dispose off waste harmlessly

3. We should make sure that our agriculture

пÑ"? uses land scientifically

пÑ"? produces enough food for a vast populace

пÑ"? produces cash crop like oil seeds, cotton etc to fulfill the country’s’ need

пÑ"? provide ample employment throughout the year.

пÑ"? does not depend on rain and uses water efficiently

4 The government should provide

пÑ"? infrastructure like roads, electricity etc

пÑ"? education and medical aid to all

пÑ"? training for changes in technology used in industries and agriculture

At our institution we have tried out many extra-curricular tasks, projects and field trips in addition to the curriculum of school text book. All the participants of these exercises enjoyed the practical approach of learning newer things through different inputs and have delivered excellent results.

What kind of INPUTS ?

* Modules * Task Cards * Field Trips * Projects * Tasks

пÑ"? MODULES supplement and enrich the curricular inputs. Every module should be self-contained