Towards 21st Century Skills

TOWARDS 21^ST CENTURY SKILLS

“I want to be a politician” was the response of one of the student on being asked about the aim in life. A little taken aback by this unusual answer I tried to delve a little deeper to discover the origin of this desire. To my amazement I found that the child was contesting a class election as a part of his Social science activity. I was thrilled to see the impact of an activity which made a child discover a leader in him. Never before were the class X students seen so involved in sporting and extracurricular activities even towards the end of the session which earlier used to be abound with revision, re-revisions & mock tests. Can we credit this to the CCE Scheme?

It is now two years since its implementation in senior classes and is just the right time to review its impact. In my role as a Principal I am fortunate to interact with all the stakeholders of education. Varied people, diverse opinions, multiple concerns. Let’s glance over a few.

Ask a student to respond on CCE and the general observation is a dropped face due to different reasons. For some the spice of competition has gone missing and for many it is a deluge of project work and activities from which wading out for a breath is next to impossible.

Ask a parent to respond on CCE and it would be ‘Yeah! It is good but I hardly see my child studying. The seriousness towards studies is grossly missing. S(he) spends most of the time on internet.

Ask a Teacher to respond on CCE and you would get a mixed reaction - It is helping many students to overcome their inhibition to speak in public , the classrooms have become more lively but it is practically impossible to assess all students for an activity in just one period. The record maintenance is huge, children are adopting more casual attitude towards studies.

It is time to ponder on “exactly what are we achieving out of this system”?  A system which is being debated so much in India is running successfully in many countries. Whenever I am on a recruitment drive, it is difficult to get even handful of right candidates. It is not unemployment but unemployability which plagues the country today. Is our education system developing all those skills in the students which are needed at work? Communication skills, inter-personal skills, team work, looking through the problem, being creative and innovative are the 21^st century skills which are indispensible and should be ensured by our education system. 

I see CCE as the only answer to our current problem. It is swiftly bringing people out of the marks syndrome and allowances are being made for co-curriculars. The activities which used to be an undeclared taboo for board classes are now a necessity. Students have to move out of their comfort zone and explore themselves a little more.

Let’s look at the challenges to this system. They are mainly the high student strength per class, non-flexi seating arrangement and time duration of a period. Another big challenge is planning the curriculum delivery which requires different subject teachers to get together and innovate on activities which are a blend of two –three subjects.  A project of social science can also be an English activity along with an Art assessment. E.g. A seminar presentation on “Democracies of the world” can be assessed by an English teacher on language& communication, by Social science Teacher on content & research and by the Art Teacher on the quality of displays.  Moreover focus should be more towards designing the activities such that it offers flexibility to the student to take up tasks which are in accordance to his/her dominant Intelligence.

Today we are fortunate to be living in the world where a hobby can find an expression as a lucrative career, hence, we just have to provide a system where the child is able to discover his innate talent and hone it further. The need of the hour is not to debate on the CCE system but to work towards its right implementation so as to assure a 21^st century skilled youth ready to confidently take over the biggest challenges.