Govt forms panel to revamp D.Ed syllabus

An expert committee was formed in the past too and it had come up with suggestions for a revamped syllabus. Its suggestions were put up on the website of Maharashtra State Council for Education, Research and Training inviting public opinion. However, a need was recently felt to review the suggestions of the earlier expert committee and come up with a final draft for new syllabus.

While a formal meeting of the recently announced committee is yet to take place, Deshmukh said an informal meeting had already taken place where various ideas came up for discussion, including audio-visual elements in teaching methods, activity-based learning, continuous evaluation of students, training teachers in latest government acts. “It has been at least a decade since the D.Ed syllabus was changed last. The committee has been formed to review the method of teaching in the foundation course which deals with teaching Std 1 to 5 in first year and Std 5 to 8 in second year. Recently, there have been many new advances in the philosophy of education and theory, child psychology and methods of teaching, which need to be adopted,” said Deshmukh.

He said the committee would look at three broad areas. “One area is the idea of Digital India and why it is important for every teacher to understand technology. Under this course, there needs to be a two-year computer literacy programme where each prospective teacher should be first taught how to operate computers, emails, access websites and save downloads and later taught how to apply the technology they learnt in classroom teaching. The second area is fluency in English language and remedial training for teachers in this direction on need basis. The third direction in which committee would deliberate is new thoughts in school education, like activity-based learning or training teachers about new schemes of the state government like continuous and comprehensive evaluation (CCE) of students, Right to Education Act and its parameters, idea of progressive Maharashtra and so on,” said Deshmukh.
The committee has been asked to submit its suggestions by October 31.