Resonating the World in Textbooks

Kerala’s general education sector is a model even for the developed countries of the world. The transformation and development of our education sector has come about with the support of social renaissance movements. The creation of a secular democratic society laid the foundation for the achievements in the education sector. We launched the Public Education Protection Mission in 2016 by taking on the very important political, social and academic responsibility that public schools are the invaluable assets of the land and should be protected. Our goal was to develop the infrastructure of government schools and thereby enhance the academic quality and transform them into public spaces of democratic secularism and raise them to international standard. For this goal, we have invested about 5,000 crores. There has been a huge leap in the infrastructure of all schools. The use of technology in the education sector has become inevitable, and more than 45,000 classrooms have been converted into digital classrooms. Thus, the state government has adopted an approach to protect and strengthen the public education sector.

Preparing for Future Challenges

While retaining the achievements in school education, the sector needs to brace itself to face the challenges of the new era. With the aim of creating a knowledge society, the state’s Department of General Education has undertaken comprehensive curriculum reform activities from pre-primary to higher secondary levels. Taking on the responsibility of reforming the curriculum, which has not been reformed for more than 10 years, SCERT completed this work in two and a half years. Kerala has always formulated policies in the field of public education by considering the opinions and aspirations of the people. The process of formulating the curriculum framework began by collecting public opinion. For the first time in history, curriculum formulation meetings were organised in classrooms and opinions of lakhs of students were heard. This was followed by preparing position papers in 26 areas and further developing the curriculum framework in four areas – school education, primary education, adult education and teacher education. Subsequently, the syllabus grid and textbook production were undertaken.

Evolving Texts

Kerala has formulated a curriculum that is designed to develop 21st century skills such as creativity, collaboration skills, critical thinking, analytical skills, communication skills and problemsolving skills. Knowledge society, knowledge economy and consequently creative economy have become a reality in the world. These times call for a change in the perspective that textbooks are the only means of learning. In a society that changes day by day, studying the same textbooks for years would be suicidal. Therefore, the idea of an evolving text has been given importance in this reform. This means that textbooks will be subject to change every year. In the first phase, 238 title textbooks for classes 1, 3, 5, 7 and 9 were revised in 4 languages. In the second phase, 205 title textbooks for classes 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 were also revised. Kerala also produced textbooks for parents for the first time in the country. This book discusses the skills that children need to acquire at each stage and the physical and mental support that is essential for children. In addition, the teacher text was completed within a time-bound manner, which is a commendable achievement.

Creating Multi-skilled Citizens

In order to realise the knowledge society, our classrooms also need to be prepared for a major change. Health and physical education, art education and career-integrated education have been considered with great importance in this reform phase. If this knowledge can be given to children through experiential learning, then they can acquire capabilities essential in the modern world. Efforts to provide ICT literacy, scientific literacy, financial literacy and knowledge about our cultural diversity have been made as part of this curriculum reform. Workbooks have been prepared so that children can acquire basic literacy and numeracy by second standard. Books have also been prepared with great importance given to art education.

The books have been prepared focusing on the areas of dance, music, drama, cinema and painting from classes 5 to 10. This is the first time in Kerala that textbooks have been prepared for classes 5 to 12 with great importance for job-oriented education. In the modern world where knowledge, ability and skills are given importance, textbooks have been prepared in 12 areas so that children can choose different areas according to their interests. Artificial intelligence has been included as part of the IT textbook from class 7 onwards for children to learn and become familiar with. Assessment is a vital component of curriculum reform efforts. We need to follow the continuous assessment process, experimenting with more performance-based assessment methods, and developing assessment tools based on modern technology.

We cannot ensure quality through textbook reform alone. Only when every teacher, by focusing on curriculum-based methodology and acquiring innovative ideas through self-study, transforms his or her classroom into creative classroom, can we provide quality education to our children. These reform efforts are being carried out in line with the democratic secular values that Kerala has always upheld and the goals set forth in the Constitution. It is hoped that these reform efforts, which consider gender justice, environmental awareness and scientific temper, will galvanise Kerala’s surge forward.