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Friday, Apr 22, 2005

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Lighten load of students: Kalam

Staff Reporter

`Creativity has to be built in the primary schooling of children'

DREAM BIG, WORK HARD: The President, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, presenting the National Bal Shree Award 2004 to visually-handicapped Manashri Uday Soman of Mumbai at the Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi on Thursday. — Photo: Anu Pushkarna

NEW DELHI: The President, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, on Thursday urged the Centre to explore ways to reduce syllabi for primary schools and lighten the load of students. He was addressing the presentation ceremony of the annual National Bal Shree Awards 2004 at Rashtrapati Bhavan.

Mr. Kalam congratulated the winners and suggested to the Human Resource Development Minister, Arjun Singh, to make the necessary changes on the syllabus load. ``Creativity has to be built in the primary schooling of children in the age group of five to 11. This period is the learning time for our children and should be devoted to creative lessons like building model aircraft, rockets, spacecraft, cars, tractors, chemical experiments, electronic devices, computers, paintings, sculptures, music and dance. That means our present syllabus has to be reduced and the learning process should concentrate on creative lessons and creative products in the classrooms,'' he said.

Earlier the country's First Citizen entered the Ashoka Hall from behind a heavy blue velvet screen and straightaway confessed that the morning was like ``none other in his 34-month-long stay at home''.

As for the 22 children and their parents gathered there, they could not agree more, as a virtual mini India made its way into the grand hall for the award presentation. Eagerly waiting for their moment of glory, the awardees selected from across the country then shared the platform with the President and 141 previous winners.

The award ceremony witnessed a number of soulful moments, as the parents shed tears of joy and congratulated each other, while some others — choked with emotion — stood up time and again during the one-and-a-half-hour-long ceremony.

The mood in the hall seemed to overflow with love, pride and admiration when the President himself walked down to present the award to 13-year-old Vinod from SOS village Karnataka, 12-year-old Manshri Uday Soman from Maharashtra, 15-year-old son of a vegetable vendor Natvar Raghubhai Surela from Gujarat, and 13-year-old K. Janarthanan from Tamil Nadu — all children with special needs.

Making a special mention about these children, the President in his speech asked the children to dream big and to work hard. ``And the universe will conspire to make you a success,'' he said. Other awardees included S. Sathvikaa, K. Janarthanan, Vishala Mishra (all from Tamil Nadu), Ish Dhand (Punjab), Anand Satheesh, Niyathi R. Krishna, Aparna Venugopal and Bhuvan M. (all from Kerala), Raj Kumari Sanathoi Chanu (Manipur), Santosh G. Nair (Andhra Pradesh), Sumeet Sanjay Patil (Maharashtra), Preetam Das, Antara De, Prabahan Chakraborty, Torsa Ghosal (all from West Bengal), V.S. Vaidyanathan (Pondicherry), Sayeed Laxmikant Kamat (Goa) and Bishwajit Gogoi (Gujarat).

The President concluded with a suggestion to officials at the Bal Bhavan to promote creativity: ``I suggest the creation of Bal Bhavans in the rural areas for promoting creativity and innovation among our rural youth; awarding 10 `creative' teachers as a part of best teachers honour presented for recognising creativity among students; and creating a research cell as part of Bal Bhavan to study the creative potential among children. Bal Bhavan should also look at introducing a feed back column in their website for periodic interaction between the awardees and the Bal Bhavan Research Cell,'' he said.

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