Move to bring state syllabus in line with NCERT

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal">gandhinagar: the state education minister anandiben patel said on thursday that she planned to bring about basic changes in school curricula "quite in line with the changes being brought about at the national level." speaking in the gujarat assembly, anandiben announced that a committee has already been formed to look into the kind of changes that the state education department should make.a pilot project would be started in the school curriculum in june 2002, and a year later, it would be implemented all over the state. education department sources confirmed that the changes would be in line with what union education minister murli manohar joshi has been seeking to make in the national curriculum through the national council for educational research and training (ncert). a booklet, written by anandiben and distributed to newspersons as part of the plans during the 2002-03 budgetary provisions for education, said "there is a need for a state-level campaign for providing a direction to implementing the national curriculum in gujarat by june 2003." ''in all the schools, the principals would be involved in the seminars with the participation of teachers to implement the curriculum," anandiben said. "already, the state government''s agencies involved in education -- state textbook board, primary school board, secondary school board and gujarat council for educational research and training (gcert) -- have decided to chalk out a time-bound programme to implement the directions given by the ncert," she said, adding, "dr ravindra dave, well-known educationist, and other experts have been involved in the process." officials in the education department are keeping their lips tight about the type of changes the experts might recommend. "a report on the changes has been sent to the central government for approval, and only when it is approved can one say what these changes would be. they would relate to primary, secondary and higher secondary level syllabus, and well in line with the aspirations of the 21st century, involving language teaching, science courses and social studies," a bureaucrat said, adding, "the state resources committee is coming up with the changes." an indication of the changes in language training to be introduced has been given in the booklet prepared by anandiben. it says, "well in line with the state language education policy, hindi is being taught from class 4 and sanskrit from class 6. in this, the contribution made by the educational institute sanskrit bharati needs to be especially mentioned. it has helped the gcert prepare hindi and sanskrit textbooks." plans are being worked out for teachers'' training for the changes in syllabus the state may introduce. the curriculum suggested by anandiben introduces such books as <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">upanishak kathao,</span> <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">mabharatna prasango,</span> <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">lokjuvalna lilera balidano</span> by ashok harsh and biographies of netaji subashchandra bose, vir savarkar, shamji krishna verma and others. the book on upanishads is written by anandiben''s husband mafatbhai patel, while the one on shamji krishna verma by ex-editor of rss mouthpiece <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">sadhna,</span> vishnu pandya. during her speech in the assembly, anandiben suggested that the state education department would be using the intra-net for teachers'' training. "we have started the connectivity, quality of education and computer literacy project under which the gcert would have an intra-net facility. already, we have tried out the facility by giving training to teachers in kutch sitting here in gandhinagar. soon, the training would be given to teachers in six districts of ahmedabad, vadodara, jamnagar, surendranagar, junagadh and sabarkantha." </div> </div>