Soon,schools will teach through short films too

After a series of brainstorming sessions,Gujarat Education Innovation Commission (GEIC) came out with a proposal of instilling values,life skills,motivation and to some extent even subject knowledge not through books but short films using local resources which the target group can easily relate to.

These films are originally being made in Gujarati. Once the core team receives and evaluated the feedback on these films from students and teaching fraternity,these will be dubbed in English and Hindi. Apart from showing these films in classrooms,these will also become a part of NCC,NSS,teachers training and telecast from BISAG studio.

According to Jayanti Ravi,Higher Education Commissioner,who is also the CEO of GEIC,these micro-level experiments have to be carefully recreated on a larger scale,keeping with the present time and contexts and adherence to the basic tenets and vision of the highest ideals that they sowed and nurtured with passion and commitment.

“These short films will be a part of school curriculum across the state. The students will be provided with booklets before featuring the films. So far,more than 340 films have been made on Bhagat Singh in different languages in the country,but how much has the message been sent across is a known fact. Thus,GEIC decided to come up with a medium for the children that could be easily accessible but with maximum reach and impact to which the students could easily relate,” said Dharmesh Ramanuj,the project co-ordinator.

To avoid any kind of controversy in representation of the characters,the idea of animation was rejected. Even making documentaries could not materialise due to lack of funds and feasibility factor. Intentionally not going for sets and studios,the team had used local resources from infrastructure,costumes,make-up,artists to all the props used in these films.

“These films will be distributed to schools through an identified channel. From GEIC,these will be distributed to District Institutes of Education and Training (DIET) which will be passed on to Block Resource centres (BRCs) followed by Cluster Resource Centres (CRCs) and finally reaching the schools in every district,” revealed Sachin Patel,who is also a part of the project and assisting Dharmesh Ramanuj.

One of the students of Badpura Prathmik Shala,Mansa who had portrayed the character of Swami Vivekanand as a child proudly said,“If I can be Swamiji,why not other students like me. Reading and listening to stories on Swamiji’s life would have never taught us what it did while enacting the scenes where Swamiji has shown immense humanity and mercy by saving life of a British armymen.”

Scripts are carefully chosen and written after going through maximum available content on the personalities. For instance,120 books on Swami Vivekanand were used in a three-day workshop of 50 teachers to decide on 10 films to be made on him. His life was divided into three segments – childhood,turning point and his values,and contribution to the society. This will be followed for others as well. Another important message,GEIC wants to send across to schools is to encourage them that even they can be a part of this drive by making similar videos. If required,assistance will be provided to schools interested in such an activity,Ramanuj added.

This initiative will be continued in the coming year as well. Focussing on the theme of social work,the list of personalities for 2013 had already been decided that includes Taraben Modak,Madam Cama,Rani Laxmibai and Kasturba Gandhi.