IIT experts ask to define the academic standards for schools

At IIT Delhi's Management Institute, 6th International conference on 'Excellence in school education-Creating High Achieving Schools' was organized by the IIT experts that witnessed the attendance of about  500 principals of private and government schools across the country. The three-day conference was scheduled to be held from December 28-30 at IIT, Delhi.

The Delhi IIT experts believe that presently there is an urgent need to define the academic standards which a student is required to achieve for being promoted to next class in schools.

Harish Chaudhary, Faculty, Department of Management Studies, IIT Delhi, presenting his views said that, “It should be well defined that in what standard what level of knowledge a student should achieve. If a student of class X doesn’t know to write proper English or has no knowledge of Newton’s laws then it can’t be taken as his failure in that particular class but in the earlier standards from where he has got promoted so far".

This time the agenda discussed in the conference were “Defining standards for each class during schooling" and "Integration of scholastic and non-scholastic activities".

"Although every class has a predefined curriculum but when it comes to the academic standards for each school then there is no uniform policy being followed for the same. What a student has to learn in a particular class should necessarily be taught then only instead of rectifying it at later stages," said Chaudhary, who was the conference co-ordinator.

According to Chaudhary, “the teaching standards need to be improved without making any alterations in the current 'no retention policy' followed in Indian schools".

“Though the higher education system is responsible for knowledge and skill development but its performance is all dependent on the schooling system's output," he added.

Prior to the conference, three workshops were also scheduled for Principals on 'Creating Cyberspace Schools', 'Financial mantras for school principals' and 'Greener India starting with green schools'.

While the conference was free for principals from government schools, there was a fee of Rs 5000 for private schools.