COMPUTER SKILLS
CBSE introduced Computer teaching in the school curriculum for two reasons; 1) to enable the students to keep up with new trends, and 2) impart know-how of an essential tool like computer to assist in all spheres of daily life. I am not sure if CBSE knew while implementing this subject those computers will penetrate our life so deep that for almost everything we will be dependent on IT. The board has always strived to lessen the burden of by-heart learning on its students and emphasized on practical learning especially in IT and similar subjects. The board wants to inculcate THINKING skills in the students to stimulate RESEARCH and INNOVATIONS and hence wanted to do away with ROTE learning, this was behind implementing CCE too. Teachers were supposed to provide a basic operational / start up guidance and let the students learn, discover and develop their knowledge base on the IT platform. Unfortunately IT skill has turned out to be yet ANOTHER SUBJECT. There is a PERIOD allotted to this subject to learn the theory and handle the computing machine. The burden to learn and remember the definitions and processes of IT are killing the subject and made it THEORETICAL SUBJECT.
Many people including me did not get basic training in IT. I had a computer in my office and loved to fiddle with it though it wasn’t necessary at all to use it in late 90s. I learned to typewrite the text, write documents on word, powerpoint, excel and now I have a BLOG, can design and maintain a web site, optimize web pages and search engines etc…Many of my friends who trained in IT skills aren’t unable to go beyond regular e-mailing, meaning thereby that a leaning is driven by INTEREST and zeal not by marks or theory though both complement and cannot be isolated from subject.
Imagine a Little SACHIN made to learn by heart about different varieties of bats, balls and dimensions of a cricketing ground, why it is played in white dress etc…what if he was to attend a 40 minutes period to learn these and including practice, we wouldn’t have had the honour to watch him make a mark in cricket history today. I bet many a Chef were interested in HOME Science but couldn’t develop it as a subject or hobby as it turned out into a ROUTINE subject, similarly MUSIC, DRAWING has failed to identify and nurture talented students into mastering them.
Educationists need to RE-THINK and apply a strategy similar to sporting skills in imparting education for subjects with practical skills. These HOBBY skills if I could call them, shouldn’t be allowed to turn into THEORETICAL SUBJECTS alone, so that they do not increase the burden of learning instead of lessening any further and make learning a PLEASURE.
