Opinion
The importance of the inclusion of productive work in the curriculum throughout the educational system
Work and education are separate entities but they are integral parts of the curriculum. Work establishes linkages between the syllabus and life situations. It links the school with the community, with the people, with conditions and the realities of life.
During the British rule in India, Lord Macaulay, in his well-known minutes of 1835, spelt out clearly that the aim of educating Indians was to create a class Indian by birth, blood and colour but British in taste, manners and outlook, who could staff the vast political and administrative machine as clerks. Further, both Wood and later Abott (1937) also stressed the need for manual activities in education for the sake of harmonious development of personality.
Though Rabindranath Tagore had already deplored the ineffectiveness of mere book learning and stressed the need for (manual) work for a total education, it was Gandhi who proposed the scheme of Basic Education. The Wardha National Education conference (1937) formally approved the scheme of centering education around some form of manual and productive work. The second objective was to remove the distinction created between the labouring classes, who work with their hands, and the white collared class, who work with their head.
After India’s Independence, realisation grew that there was lack of interaction between education and productive work. The Kothari Commission's Report (1964) introduced Work Experience as a curricular component of education at all the stages of school education. The objective was to provide a connection between the classes and the masses while enabling education to contribute to national productivity.
Prof Ishwarbhai Patel in June 1977 suggested that there was a need to maintain flexibility in education and further suggested introducing socially useful productive work into the curriculum of the school. Thus the socialisation of the individual, along with his personal development, was to make a bigger contribution to national development while promoting national integration.
The National Educational Conference held in New Delhi in 1977 under the chairmanship of S. Sriman Narayan stressed that education be devoted to productive, creative and recreative activities, at least half of which should be focussed on Socially Useful Productive Work of various kinds.
Although Socially Useful Productive Work has been introduced in the school curriculum at all stages in our country, Work and Education are still considered as separate entities. Normally people have the concept that they are educating their children to escape manual labour. A few craftsmen feel that if their children can earn their livelihood through manual work, there is no need of education.
Further, the people of India have a notion that only education too often leads not to jobs but to unemployment, because the educated people want only white-collared jobs. Pupils have entered the educational system not prepared for work but to escape from the kind of work that makes the hands dirty. Unemployment among educated people is only due to an indifferent attitude towards manual work. The main aim of education – that work should be relevant to educational goals – has not been achieved due to the following reasons…
1. There are no attractive, well-organised and job oriented technical schools, where students can be prepared for specialised technical jobs after passing class VIII. Students who fail and drop out can join only a few trades of ITIs of the state governments, but the number of ITIs is insufficient to cope with the present situation.
2. No parent desires to put his ward into such technical trades as black-smithy, carpentry and motor mechanical in ITIs because the members of our society still look at such technical works as menial work done by the lower strata of society. Normally students who have failed in class VIII, X, or XII join the ITIs as a last resort. As such the environment of ITIs is not congenial for the other good students interested in technical jobs.
3. The number of courses in ITIs is limited, whereas private institutions provide coaching for a wide variety of courses such as beautician, interior decoration etc. One can start one’s own business with the help of adequate funding, or work in private jobs.
4. There are polytechnic and engineering colleges in all the states, where students are admitted on the basis of marks obtained at the last public examination. Normally the last student admitted to such institutions has secured marks above 85. It shows the number of such institutions is not sufficient to fulfil the needs of the interested students in our society.
To provide jobs to the educated population is a burning problem of the day. It is, in fact, an international problem throughout the world.
Although SUPW has been introduced at all stages in schools the aim of earning, while learning, could not be achieved. Love for technical work could not be created due to the heavy syllabus of other subjects, indifferent attitude and lack of interesting and attractive facilities in the schools. The inclusion of productive work in the curriculum throughout the educational system is a must.
Now the concept of work should not clash with the child labour laws. The work should be relevant to educational goals, but at the same time, it should contribute to improve the employment and career prospects of the individual.
There is a strong need to change the attitude, not only of students and teachers, but also of the parents who are sending their wards to school in order to acquire white collared jobs. This can be achieved by teaching moral values, character building and interaction between work and education in society. Dr Zakir Hussain was of the view that work is worship; work is disciplined perseverance for the realisation of a worthy ideal.
Normally parents do not know the capabilities of their children. They are only interested in making their wards an engineer or a doctor, irrespective of their capabilities, because of the social status. The wards of over-ambitious parents sometimes fail to achieve these goals. Parents should take the help of the Vocational Guidance Bureau to enable their wards to choose a career, so that they may develop satisfactorily in their future life. Moreover, parents should accept the suggestions of the Vocational Guidance Bureau even if they do not match their own desires.
Work and education are separate entities but they are integral parts of the curriculum. Work establishes linkages between the syllabus and life situations. It links the school with the community, with the people, with conditions and the realities of life. The developmental process must include education of head, heart and hands of the individual; otherwise it is non-developmental type of education.
About the Author:
Captain S.N.Panwar is a retired Education officer of Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan, New Delhi.He is an eminent Educationst and a free-lancer writer. He has served the field of education as a lecturer for 8 years, Captain of Army Education Corps for six years, Principal of kendriya Vidyalaya for 18 years and an Education Officer for five years. He has written many articles pertaining to the problems of education and society.
This article was originally published in the Anniversary (August 2017) issue of ScooNews magazine. Subscribe to ScooNews Magazine today to have more such stories delivered to your desk every month.