Evolving national norms in education

Updated on: Monday, February 15, 2010

Bridging the gap between the quality of education available to the rich and poor, and the urban and rural people is important if equality of education has to become a reality. This gap has been created by the presence of a multiplicity of education boards at the school level, and the different kinds of universities and colleges offering a medley of courses at the higher education level.

The National Testing Service-India (NTS-India), functioning under the Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL), Ministry of Human Resources Development, in Mysore, has launched a mission at arriving at a Comparable Standard in Education across the country. “A boy who completes the 12th grade in Tamil Nadu should be comparable in standard to one who completes the same grade in Kolkata. The M.Sc. Maths course offered by the University of Madras should be comparable to the same course offered by the Delhi University. The idea is that equality is possible only when there is comparability, which should happen across the courses, the schools, colleges and universities,” said Pon. Subbiah, Head, NTS-India.

He was explaining the objectives of the mission to The Hindu Education Plus on the sidelines of a Refresher Training Workshop for the college teachers of Vellore and Tiruvannamalai districts, organised by Adhi Parasakthi College of Arts and Science, Kalavai, Vellore district. The college has been selected as one of the 10 Regional Field Units (for college level) in Tamil Nadu, from among the 60 RFUs in India, for implementation of the NTS.

The NTS-India, a public-funded scheme of the MHRD is trying to evolve a centralised mechanism, to cater to the evaluation requirements of the country and also to advise the Government of India on academic auditing to account for the huge public funds spent on education. While the aim is to evolve national and regional norms for all subjects, to begin with, NTS-India has taken up language and literature. “Without interfering with the syllabi already followed by the various institutions, we will pick up the universals (commonalities) in all syllabi and frame our own syllabi, and submit them to the Government of India,” said Prof. Subbiah.

The NTS, which has already developed a Concept-Based Continuum of Graded Syllabi (CCGS) for language and literature, would be submitting the draft version to the Government of India by March-end. “We want to take every section of teachers into confidence before the scheme is implemented,” Prof. Subbiah said.

Evolving national norms in education

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