Page 24 - EducationWorld June 2020

Expert Comment

Corona in the

curriculum

KRISHNA KUMAR

NESCO’S JOURNAL, PROSPECTS HAS sched- It’s never too late to imagine doing
uled an entire issue later in the year to the impli-
cations of the coronavirus crisis for curriculum things differently. A pandemic is as
Udesign. Its guest editor will be Prof. William Pinar good a time as any, if not better, to
of the University of British Columbia, Vancouver (Canada).
The idea is to explore how future curriculum developers in reflect on present-day limitations of
different countries can incorporate the corona pandemic the system and the effort required to
and its lessons into school curriculums. transcend these limits
It’s difficult to say how India’s education system will re-
spond to the matter. Right now, our national exam boards
and state government directorates are preoccupied with
the task of conducting exams. The pandemic has disturbed spread to different countries, using air travellers as vectors.
the annual routine of class X and XII school-leaving board The math teachers will select country-wise and states data
exams. Delayed exams will be followed by delayed results. of tests and their outcomes. Geography teachers will help
Colleges and universities will not progress far in their ad- children draw patterns of infection rates correlated with
mission process for first year undergraduate classes without change of season from the winter of 2019 to the summer
the marks-sheets of class XII school-leavers showing the and monsoon of 2020. Economics teachers will draw upon
total of ‘best of four’. contending claims made about financial losses and com-
Some states have reverted to board exams in classes V pensation packages. And language and literature teachers
and VIII, following the amendment made in the Right of might select photographs of people walking on highways to
Children to Free & Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009. ask children to write essays and narratives.
These exams are completely unnecessary from a pedagogic nyone who has worked in our education system will
point of view, but they matter to the bureaucracy. The same Aread the above paragraph with total disbelief. Perhaps
is true of the class X exam. While the corona crisis is far a handful of principals and teachers will identify themselves
from over, the state enterprise of harassing the young with with the possibilities I have indicated. Some of them may
unnecessary exams is still going full speed. already be doing this kind of pedagogic homework. On the
A day will soon come when corona-related questions will other hand, the majority of teachers are busy covering the
figure in these exams. Imagine the class X boards of 2022. syllabus with online classes and preparing children for de-
You can expect multiple choice questions (MCQs) about the layed exams. One cannot criticise these tens of thousands
trains that were run after weeks of delay to carry migrant of teachers for losing an opportunity to use the corona crisis
workers home from cities such as Mumbai and Delhi. We as study material. They are not free or autonomous enough
can anticipate a question like this one: “What was the name to do so. Nor have they had any substantial experience of
given to the trains introduced for carrying migrant workers curriculum planning. They were recruited to follow a rou-
home: (i) Corona Express; (ii) Mazdoor Express; (iii) Sh- tine which requires teaching exclusively from prescribed
ramik Express; (iv) Garib Rath. Children will be expected textbooks on which exam questions are based.
to recall the correct answer from an essay that will prob- It is never too late to imagine doing things differently. A
ably form a chapter in their social science textbook. How pandemic is as good a time as any, if not better, to reflect
this chapter will cover the various details and the chronol- on present-day limitations of the system and the effort re-
ogy of the novel corona outbreak is not hard to imagine. In quired to transcend these limits. Maybe some half dozen
all likelihood, it will present the official version, carefully schools will make the effort for now, and the story of their
omitting critical details that might suggest any confusion effort will gradually spread to others. Let me recommend
or lapses in handling of the crisis. We can also predict that to their teachers a unique children’s storybook Vimla in
the chapter will be full of statistics and dates, offering a Virusland (NCERT, 2010). It was originally written by Dr.
field day to paper-setters and their good friends: writers Khurshid M. Pavri, a former director of Pune’s National
and publishers of exam guides. Institute of Virology. In 2010, it was updated by Dr. Deepak
Am I being too cynical? To avoid this charge, let me A. Gadkari of the same institute. It is the story of Vimla, a
portray an alternative scenario. In this portrait, we start school girl, who has caught a viral fever. As she sleeps, she
by letting schools decide how to introduce the corona pan- is introduced by the virus to many different types of viruses,
demic as a study topic. Teachers will be free to suggest a how they live and why they occasionally create a crisis for
wide range of resources to encourage children to investi- human beings.
gate what happened. Science and social science teachers (Dr. Krishna Kumar is former director of NCERT and former professor of
will work together with children to research how a new virus education at Delhi University)

24 EDUCATIONWORLD JUNE 2020