Date:05/09/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/09/05/stories/2007090562581100.htm

National

New courses to be launched by CBSE

Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI: After introducing a new course “Financial Markets Management” for students of Class XI this year, the Central Board of Secondary Education may launch more such programmes from the next academic session at the plus 2 level, CBSE Chairman Ashok Ganguly said on Tuesday.

Speaking on the sidelines of the “CBSE Teacher Awards-2006” function here, Mr. Ganguly said the Board was planning to introduce academic-oriented courses such as ‘Heritage Crafts,’ ‘Visual Arts and Graphic Designing,’ ‘Human Rights and Gender Studies,’ ‘Art Appreciation’ and ‘Film and Media Studies.’

“We are working with the National Council of Educational Research and Training on these courses. They will be launched in a phased manner and two or three of them could be introduced next year itself,” he said.

The CBSE will also offer some industry-support courses after Class X.

New programmes such as ‘General Health Care,’ ‘Fashion Designing’ and ‘Retail Management,’ could be introduced from the next academic year.

However, these would be offered in joint certification with the industry. For instance, for ‘Retail Management’, discussions were being held with the Confederation of Indian Industry and Reliance, he added.

As for the introduction of the grading system in Class IX and X, Mr. Ganguly said: “The grading mechanism that we have evolved has inputs from Indian Institutes of Technology and Indian Institutes of Management. I think we need to implement the grading system. From our side, everything is ready. We are just waiting for the Government’s nod.”