Teachers say no to project works; Telangana education department unlikely to relent

Teachers have said raised concerns pertaining to the health of the students and claim that due to sitting for long hours to do projects, pain in neck and shoulder has common among children.

HYDERABAD:  Days after the State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) released a draft document on the implementation of Continuous Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE), the Telangana Private Teachers Forum (TPTF) has suggested a complete revocation of project works and reflections from the revised pattern.

The SCERT had on 4 May released a proposed draft of CCE in which it suggested a reduction of project work from four per subject per academic session to just two project for each subject annually.

Book reading or reflections and experiments or subject related activities have also been slashed by half, with two per subject per year. It had also sought suggestions from teachers and schools on the proposed guidelines by May 15. “Instead of project work and reflection, some innovative grading can be designed for 100 marks question paper. Project work tend to be a burden on both parents and teachers because most of the time it is parents instead of children who make these projects.

And for teachers it entails huge amount of corrections. With little or no involvement of children, no learning possibly happen through project work. Hence, it is should be junked,” said Sheik Shabbir Ali, president, TPTF. In a representation to Seshu Kumari, director, SCERT, TPTF has also suggested induction of physical education, moral and value-based education, library period and life skills into the curriculum. “Computer classes should be given priority and the number of computer and programming classes also needs to be increased,” he said.

Teachers have said raised concerns pertaining to the health of the students and claim that due to sitting for long hours to do projects, pain in neck and shoulder has common among children. Not everyone is convinced that project should be done away with in CCE.

Shanti, principal, St Peter’s Grammar School told Express that it is the from students’ perspective, CCE is the best and child-friendly too. SCERT in its draft had mentioned that it has taken cognisance of the issues teachers are facing in making multiple marksheet and report and has decided to digitise the process.

Teachers just need to enter the marks and the system will generate reports and grades as per the CCE requisites. It also proposes to do away with elaborate exercises and replace them with more of reading books in after school hours.

Seshu Kumari, director, SCERT, however hinted that project and reflections are here to stay. “At this juncture I cannot say anything but yes doing away with project would mean diluting the CCE itself,” she said and added that “In about a week’s time we will sift through these and release the final guidelines.”