Mita Mukherjee
The Council for Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE) on Friday reiterated its decision to implement minimum ten bagless days in every school for students in Classes VI to VII as recommended in the New Education Policy (NEP)and spelt out the guidelines to the schools about effective implementation of the recommendation.
A document containing the guidelines, prepared by Pandit Sunderlal Sharma Central Institute of Vocational Education, Bhopal, an autonomous organisation of Government of India, was sent to the heads of all ICSE schols on Friday.
The main purpose of introducing bagless days is to make learning at schools joyful and stress-free for students and the document covers all important aspects of implementation of the recommendation.
Organising educational tours or field visits to help students learn concepts in a better manner and sensitizing them to social and environmental issues is one among the important suggestions given in the guidelines. For example, for teaching history, students can be taken to local museums and monuments.
Natural exploration activities like visiting national parks, mountain climbing, sleeping under the stars and watching wildlife have been suggested to help children learn more about the natural world.
Schools have been asked to arrange surveys and interviews by students on local problems. Students would collect related data and information regarding the problems, frame their own questions and talk to people in their surroundings so that they get a first-hand experience of the problems and find out solutions by themselves.
Addressing a gathering of principals of Anglo-Indian schools recently, Gerry Arathoon, secretary and chief executive of CISCE had said that though the council had already introduced many of the salient features of the NEP, having ten bagless days in a year, is still not practiced in most schools. Therefore, the schools need to start the preparations to introduce minimum ten bagless days in a year at the earliest.
Thf idea of bagless days also aims to inculcate the feeling of love of going to school everyday and reducing the burden of school bag of students, the document says.
The NEP proposes to expose at least 50 per cent school students to vocational education. According to the policy, the process of exposing every student to vocational education should start as early as Class VI. Introducing bagless days from Class VI will help the schools to achieve the target of exposing half of students to vocational education, according to the document.
The council has made it clear that it is mandatory for the schools to allot minimum 60 out of 1000 hours in a year in practicing bagless days. But, it has given the freedom to the schools to make flexible changes according to local requirements.
“The CISCE is currently in the process of implementing the recommendations made in the New Education Policy (2020)….. I urge you (schools) to take all necessary steps to encourage experiential and creative learning, by providing adequate opportunities for our students to express themselves fully in an all -inclusive equitable environment. The teachers are free to use the ideas given in these guidelines, make flexible changes as needed and add local flavors,” the council wrote to schools.