Page 63 - DEDU501_DEVELOPMENT_OF_EDUCATION_SYSTEM_ENGLISH

Unit 6: National Policy of Education, (1986)

3. The Cultural Perspective: The existing schism between the formal system of education and Notes
the country’s rich and varied cultural traditions need to be bridged. The preoccupation
with modern technologies cannot be allowed to sever new generations from the roots in
India’s history and culture. De-culturisation, dehumanisation and alienation must be
avoided at all costs. Education can and must bring about the fine synthesis between change-
oriented technologies and the country’s continuity of cultural traditions.
The curricula and processes of education will be enriched by cultural content in as many
manifestations as possible. Children will be enabled to develop sensitivity to beauty,
harmony and refinement.
4. Value Education: The growing concern over the erosion of essential values and an
increasing cynicism in society has brought to focus the need for readjustments in the
curriculum in order to make education a forceful tool for the cultivation of social and
moral values.
In our culturally plural society education should foster universal and eternal values,
oriented towards the unity and integration of our people. Such education should help
eliminate obscurantism, religious fanaticism, violence, superstition and fatalism.
5. Languages: The Education Policy of 1968 had examined the question of the development
of languages in great details; its essential provisions can hardly be improved upon and
are as relevant today as before. The implementation of this part of the 1968 Policy has,
however, been uneven. The Policy will be implemented more energetically and
purposefully.
6. Media and Educational Technology: Modern communication technologies have the
potential to bypass several stages and sequences in the process of development encountered
in early decades. Both the constraints of time and distance at once become manageable. In
order to avoid structural dualism, modern educational technology must reach out to the
most distant areas and the most deprived sections of beneficiaries simultaneously with
the areas of comparative affluence and ready availability.
The media has profound influence on the mind of children as well as adults; some of it has
encouraged consumerism, violence etc., and thus had a deleterious effect. Radio and TV
programmes which clearly militate against proper educational objectives will be prevented.
Steps will be taken to discourage such trend in the films and other media also. An active
movement will be started to promote the production of children’s films of high quality
and usefulness.
7. Work Experience: Work experience, viewed as purposive and meaningful manual work,
organised as an integral part of the learning process and resulting in either goods or
services useful to the community, is considered as an essential component at all stages of
education, to be provided through well-structured and graded programmes. It would
comprise activities in accordance with the interests, abilities and needs of students, the
level of skills and knowledge to be upgraded with the stages of education. The experience
would be helpful on entry into the workforce. Pre-vocational programmes provided at the
lower secondary stage will also facilitate the choice of the vocational courses at the higher
secondary stage.
8. Education and Environment: There is a paramount need to create a consciousness of the
environment. It must permeate all ages and all sections of society, beginning with the
child. Environmental consciousness should inform teaching in schools and colleges. This
aspect will be integrated in the entire educational process.
9. Teaching of Mathematics: Mathematics should be visualised as the vehicle to train a child
to think, reason, analyse and to articulate logically. Apart from being a specific subject, it
should be treated as a concomitant to any subject involving analysis and reasoning.
With the recent introduction of computers in schools, educational computing and the
emergence of learning through the understanding of cause-effect relationships and the
interplay of variables, the teaching of mathematics will be suitably redesigned to bring it
in line with modern technological devices.

LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY 57