AN ANALYSIS OF WORK EDUCATION PROGRAMME UNDER ELEMENTARY SCHOOL CURRICULUM OF ASSAM

Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Date
2016-07
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
AAU, Jorhat
Abstract
Work Education is the pedagogic medium which integrates different need based productive cum economic activities and community service programmes in school curriculum from preschool to senior secondary stage. The goal of education is to bring all-round development of human being which is best possible by inclusion of work education programme in school curriculum. But work education is considered as extracurricular and being neglected in majority of the schools in Assam. Hence the present study was undertaken to explore systematically the existing status of implementation of work education curriculum and various factors affecting proper functioning of work education programme in elementary schools of Assam and also planned to develop a model for effective implementation of work education programme in elementary schools. The present study was carried out in three district of Assam namely: Dibrugarh, Jorhat and Marigaon. Three blocks from each district were selected randomly and from three educational block of each district, fifty (50) upper primary schools were selected. Two respondents (the head master and the teacher concerned) from each fifty selected schools from each district comprised of 100 respondents and finally the total of 300 respondents from the three districts of Assam constitute the sampled respondents of the study. Findings of the study revealed that majority of the schools (99.30%) were fulfilled the minimum norms of ‘Right to children for free and compulsory education Act’ 2009 (RTE, 2009) in terms of numbers of teachers (one teacher for each class i.e. 3) and teacher pupil ratio (1:35) for upper primary school (96.00%).The percentage of professionally trained teachers in the sampled schools were only 36.78 percent . The study highlighted that the highest percentage (44.15%) of students were from the family having daily wage earning as a means of livelihood and 54.97 per cent students in the sampled schools were girls. About 83.30 per cent schools have pucca building, and on the other hand, permanent boundary wall was found in 26.00 percent only. It is revealed from the study that the schools did not posses any equipment necessary for productive activities other than cleaning equipment (jharu, barhoni kor, Pasi) and cooking utensils for mid day meal. It is noted that a large majority of the teachers (73.30%) used to collect different products at the time of examination for work education which violets the principles of work education. A large majority of the schools (86.00%) had separate periods for work education in their class routine and the rest (14.00%) did not have the provision of work education period in their class routine. Another important aspects observed in the responses of the teachers that all the activities (Total=73) under different areas of work education covered by the study were found to be important for the student of upper primary classes with programme important score (PIS ≥1). But the percentage of implementation was found very low. Lack of fund, lack of proper guide book on work education, lack of necessary equipment, lack of boundary wall, lack of laboratory, lack of awareness among parents were the major problems as expressed by the teacher for which the work education was not being implemented in the schools. While considering the knowledge and attitude of teachers it was found that high level of knowledge was found only in 9.70 per cent and a large percentage (59.00%) of the teachers were found to have unfavourable attitude towards work education programme. The study revealed that the training of teacher and level of importance showed highly significant relationship (r=0.202), which indicate that the teachers with professional training found to have high level of importance in comparison to untrained teachers. Teaching experience and problems of teachers was found to have a negative and highly significant correlation with (r= ─0.142), which means that teachers with longer period of teaching experience have faced less problems in implementing work education programme in their school. Again, teachers’ knowledge and implementation of work education programme have shown positive and highly significant correlation (r=0.206). This relationship indicates that teachers’ knowledge has a pronounced influence on implementation of work education programme. The model of Work Education showed effective and proved that special training and exposure is essential for developing knowledge, skill and attitude of teachers which builds confidence to carry out any innovative programme in schools.
Description
Keywords
null
Citation
Collections