With the view that all disciplines pursued by students require creative thinking and problem-solving abilities, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has in a circular to all its affiliated schools called for the implementation of art-integrated education for all academic classes.
This, the board has said, should be adopted from Class I to Class XII and announced that it will soon issue detailed guidelines.
The CBSE, however, differentiated between art education and art-integrated education calling art education, a necessary precursor to the latter.
“This, however, is neglected by most schools and we’ve seen that several institutions chose to strictly focus only on subjects related to the board examinations,” noted B. Purushothaman, correspondent of the Everwin group of schools.
Welcome move
He said that a majority of the students and parents would welcome this move to make learning more engaging in the classroom. “To ensure that this is effectively implemented, the board has to ensure that some amount of marks are allotted for such activities which integrate daily learning and art,” Mr. Purushothaman added.
Most CBSE schools in the city have anywhere between two to four periods allotted for music, dance or art.
“When it comes to bringing in something like theatre into the classroom, children will be extremely responsive. Not only does it promote them working in groups, it is something that will be enthused about as it not a part of their daily classroom learning at present,” said members of Light and Blind productions, a city-based theatre group.
Recalling a recent experience of working with a school in the city for theatre production, they said the students had been extremely responsive and ready to participate. “In the classroom, they can be made to put up skits or enact simple concepts in groups which will definitely engage them better in the learning process,” they added.
More recently, the CBSE has also called for training of all principals and teachers of their affiliated schools.
“For the implementation of art-integrated learning, simply a circular or a manual will be inadequate. Schools need to be given enough time to draw up a methodology and teachers too need to be adequately trained,” said K.R. Maalathy, an educationist.
Likening it the move to integrate art to the methodology followed in schools with an international syllabus, Ms. Maalathy said that a system which encourages creative expression and learning beyond books would greatly benefit students
This decision to promote art-integrated learning in a big way comes close on the heels of the CBSE emphasising the importance of learning outcomes. According to a document by the NCERT, the board has asked for meaningful and joyful learning experiences for students and encouraged teachers to go beyond using the curriculum and assessing students only based on it.
