The Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India (Department of School Education and Literacy) recently invited suggestions from the citizens on rationalising curriculum/syllabus/subject contents for class I to class XII with the objective of all round development of students.
The vision was to balance the curriculum for cognitive and analytical areas with curriculum in other life skills including creativity and sports. The objective is intended to make the content more balanced in various subjects offered from class I to class XII as prescribed by NCERT/CBSE, a government report suggested.
This is one of the few times that public opinion was sought through notices in mainline newspapers across India.
Pune365 spoke to a cross section of informed citizens on the imminent need to seek mass opinion in matters of public interest:
Dinesh Tapadia, Activist: Yes definitely. Seeking public opinion is priority, when it comes to making decisions that can affect the citizens at large.
More importantly, the inputs or feedback received must be put to good use. Often, the only thing done is to release public notices and then sit back happy that they have sought public opinion. This happened in the Pune MahaMetro case where several conferences and meetings were held to interact with the public.
But I do not think any of the recommendations were taken into consideration when the plan got implemented.
Harsimran Kaur, Human Resource Executive: Everyone knows the current state of the education system in India.
It is not only faulty but does less for the overall development of a student. With the outrage over hike in school fees and the treatment meted out to the faculty, it definitely showed the ugly reality.
However, it is good that the ministry has invited suggestions on streamlining the educational system and standards for the all-round development of students. Seeking public involvement on macro national issues will go a long way in the overall development of the country.
Prajakta Giddey, works at a city-based NGO: It is indeed a welcome move that the government invited people to give their opinion on such topics, since it is the public at large that gets affected finally.
On topics such as education, new construction, massive investment, roads, transport, woman safety, environment concerns, seeking advice from people is imperative. There are so many people who are experts in several areas and their ideas can be put to good use.
Ravikant Maney, Software Engineer: Citizens are today concerned about everything anything that goes on in the country. Be it women’s safety, to GST to riots and communal arrest, they have an opinion in everything.
In situations like this, it is wiser and logical to ask for suggestion and opinions. In this manner, we can brainstorm and be included as part of the process, rather than just watching our money being spent on elections, or taken away by bank frauds and misappropriation.
Sumedha Yadav, Copywriter: I always wondered why our pinion is not being sought on issues where they are finally using our hard earned money.
But the fact is, they just get away with giving a small notice in a newspaper that often goes unnoticed by readers. Why only full page ads on promoting their parties? Why cant this be done for such matters?
I believe this is just a method to keep people happy by intending to take opinion and come across as public friendly…
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#All views expressed in this column are those of the individual respondents and Pune365 does not necessarily subscribe to them.
Reach her at loveleen@pune365.com or tweet @KaurKaur18
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