Nurturing Citizens in Social Studies

Context: The proposed move of rationalising the syllabus by excluding social science topics is detrimental to the target of training good citizens.

Concerns associated with exclusion of Social science:

• Lack of formal instruction: on the principles of the Constitution may not be available to the younger generation.
• Political consciousness: cannot be attained at an early age without formal instruction on fundamental principles of our polity.

• Younger generation has to resort to informal knowledge acquired through media or social media with a lot of prejudice.

• Counter to the target of training good citizens: The proposed move of load-shedding reduces citizen’s access to training and civility.

• Democratic societies the world over have developed methodologies of nurturing young citizens in essential values and procedures despite the pandemic.

Way Forward:

• Implementing the recommendations of the Draft National Education Policy 2019.

• Development of Constitutional Values such as: 

• Democratic outlook and commitment to liberty and freedom. 
• Equality, justice, and fairness.
• Embracing diversity, plurality, and inclusion. 
• Humanness and fraternal spirit.

• Developing an understanding of Constitutional values and capacities for their practice. 

• Implementing salient features of curriculum: for the senior secondary school curriculum by CBSE.

• To provide scope for the physical, intellectual, and social development of students. 
• To uphold Constitutional values by encouraging value-based learning activities.
• To nurture life-skills by prescribing curricular and co-curricular activities. 

• Focus on the next generation: requires good citizens who in turn need to be educated in good governance.