Class I students should be encouraged to name common objects in English like man, dog and are expected to carry out simple instructions while Class II students should be provided opportunities to write few simple sentences about stories or poems.
The desired learning outcome for class II children is that they should be able to verbally express their opinion and ask questions about the characters, storyline, etc in English or home language.
Children in class III should be encouraged to read aloud short texts or scripts on the walls while in class IV they should be given opportunities to read independently and silently in English or Braille, adventure stories, travelogues, folk or fairy tales etc.
These are samples of suggested teaching process and learning outcomes that the NCERT has prepared on which the CBSE has sought opinion of the people.
The HRD Ministry has decided that defined Learning Outcomes will made part of the rules of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009.
These rules will be applicable to all schools including government, aided and private schools.
The NCERT has developed draft Learning Outcomes for each class in Languages (Hindi, English and Urdu), Mathematics, Environmental Studies, Science and Social Science up to the elementary stage.
The Learning Outcomes developed by NCERT are the minimum levels of learning to facilitate the monitoring of students against expected benchmarks.
For example, a learning outcome for a class I child in Maths is that he or she can apply addition and subtraction of numbers 1 to 20 in daily life, while in class VIII, child should have the ability to finds squares, cubes and square roots and cube roots of numbers using different methods and even work with algebraic expressions.
According to the learning outcomes, a class VI Science
student should identify materials and organisms such as plant fibres, flowers on the basis of observable features i.E. appearance, texture, function, aroma, etc.
For class VIII, students should be able to differentiate materials and organisms, such as natural and human-made fibres; contact and non-contact forces; liquids as electrical conductors and insulators, plant and animal cells; viviparous and oviparous animals, on the basis of their properties, structure and functions.
In Environmental Studies, students of class III should be able to identify simple observable features (e.G. Shape, colour, texture, aroma) of leaves, trunk and bark of plants in immediate surroundings.
However for students of class V, the learning outcome is that they should voice opinion on issues observed and relate practices or happenings to larger issues of society. (Eg discrimination for access/ownership of resources, migration/ displacement/exclusion, child rights).
Learning Outcomes are assessment standards indicating the expected levels of learning that children should achieve for that class. The HRD Ministry has sought comments for this draft document by midnight January 31.
