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Primary education is going for a serious revival in the country with the top educationists churning their brain out for creating a stress free environment for the children. Shifting their focus on providing activity-oriented education the schools are now planning to free the children from carrying textbooks and schools bags.

On Tuesday, speaking on a conference to introduce changes in primary education Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) chairman Ashok Ganguly said that the board was planning to take the step till class II. "Students up to class II will not carry schoolbags or notebooks to school.  No homework will be given," Ganguly said while addressing the seminar.

Participants at the national-level two-day long seminar on 'Innovation in Education' appreciated the move of CBSE.

Implement ASAP

Educationists said that the step should be implemented at the earliest to assure a better education for the children.

"Books and homework create an environment of fear for the children. Moreover homework are done by parents and not by the children so it does not help in educating the children," said Kaushambi Kidzee head Sambhu Saran Singh.

"Nursery and primary education should be activity-oriented and must be made more enjoyable. We must look at it from the point of view of the children," he added.

Shifting focus

The focus too has shifted on making the child grasp the education rather than cramming up syllabus. "Books should be for the reference of the teachers and not for the students. In fact, children should be allowed to learn in a play way method by using clay, charts, projectors and other innovative methods like paper tearing and pasting.
 
It helps tremendously in understanding the concept of learning while developing the motor and muscular system of the child," said Jayanti Dutta, a primary school teacher who had done research on innovative methods for nursery  education. 

Schools are also looking forward to implement the system and some of them are also planning to extend the system till third class also.

"We also stress more on worksheets for which separate files have been maintained for each student and thus students are always free while coming to school. We are also following this system to some extent in our school and the focus is more on practice by the students," said Ruchi Seth, principal, Delhi Police Public School (DPPS).

But Dutta defended the concept of carrying books and bags by the primary students while saying that these were required for future development as someday or other the student would have to carry them. "We should start with lighter colour books and a lunch box for an example so that the students gets to know since beginning the concept of a bag and book," she said.