Chennai: To make the pre-school learning a joyful one, the first ever kindergarten (KG) draft syllabus released by Tamil Nadu State Council for Educational Research and Training (TNSCERT) on Thursday has done away with written assignments for Pre-KG, LKG and UKG students in the state.
Presently, the nursery schools are giving a lot of written assignments to young kids, setting ambitious targets like writing sentences and in spoken English.
The draft syllabus focuses only on introducing numbers and letters to all KG students. It has restricted the numbers and letters taught to the students in LKG and UKG. For LKG students, the schools should teach only English and Tamil alphabets besides numbers up to 50.
The UKG students also should be taught only syllables in English and consonants in Tamil. Schools should teach numbers 1 to 100.
Instead of assignments, the proposed syllabus suggested various activities including colouring, clay modelling, spray painting, maze, sand filling, joining the dots, circling, odd one out, matching, tracing (on sand / paper) and filling on given outline using objects like stones, leaves for school readiness.
The syllabus is based on the NCERT’s curriculum framework for pre-KG and KG sections.
TNSCERT has sought the suggestions from teachers, educationists and parents, students about the draft syllabus before October 30.
As per the instructions from the school education minister K.A. Sengottaiyan, school education secretary Pradeep Yadav the new syllabus, SCERT said in its announcement.
“The draft new syllabus envisions KG class rooms without notebooks and written assignments to give a joyful learning experience for kids. They need to get familiar with numbers and letters in KG classes besides reciting poems,”said G.Arivoli, director, SCERT.
“There is no restriction on the drawing. Students will be introduced to their physical environment, hygienic habits and storytelling in LKG and UKG,”he said.
After incorporating the valid suggestions, the school education department will implement the syllabus for all the nursery schools in the state from the next academic year.
“The new syllabus will remove the fear about the schools among young children. It is designed to encourage children’s creativity and express their ideas,”an expert involved in the preparing draft syllabus said.
It also introduced various activities like free play, theme activity, music, dance and arts and outdoor play for the students in the age group of 2 to 3.
As per the new syllabus, the nursery schools should only focus on thematic conversation, cognitive and physical development, socio-emotional development and school readiness activities.
It also proposed a schedule for kindergarten sections from morning 9.30 am to 4.30 pm to be followed by all schools.
Andrew Sesuraj, state convener of Tamil Nadu Child Rights Observatory said the draft syllabus has suggested various activities for the kindergarten students from morning to the evening.
“A wide spectrum of activities given for KG sections is good. But, we cannot follow a strict schedule for KG sections as it would become tedious for young children. The schedule needs to be fluid and should give freedom to teachers while implementing activities,”he suggested.
