CBSE tables proposal for integrating arts into the school curriculum

Vinod Kakumanu
May 31, 2019, 10:48 a.m.

In an effort to restore the versatile art forms of India into the national consciousness through mainstream education, CBSE has taken the decision to integrate arts with the teaching and learning process .The knowledge of arts, it is acknowledged, needs to be propagated through experiential learning and relegation of arts to the realm of extra- curricular has to be stopped. The proposed steps will be introduced from the new academic session. The integration of Art will be carried out with the teaching-learning of all academic subjects from class 1 to 12. The affiliated schools will be formally directed to make arrangements for incorporation of Arts. In addition to that, two periods per week will be allocated for the study of Art Education for every class.

The NCERT position paper (National focus group on Arts, Music, Dance and Theatre) http://www.ncert.nic.in/new_ncert/ncert/rightside/links/pdf/focus_group/art_education.pdf becomes the basis of CBSE’s decision to incorporate arts into the school curriculum.

The national board has made a recommendation for upper-primary classes to the effect that in addition to the primary arts that include visual arts, music, dance and theatre, culinary arts should also be introduced. The culinary arts correspond to the art of cooking, baking etc. The stated objective of the CBSE for such recommendation is establishing a multi –disciplinary link across subjects. The students will learn about food and nutrition besides various crops and spices indigenous to India, use of pesticides and extraction of oil from oilseeds etc. under the discipline of culinary arts.

CBSE has taken the decision of integrating arts into the teaching-learning process multilaterally by taking all the stakeholders including school management, principals and teachers besides NCERT artists and professionals of different art forms in the loop.