“How Punjabi language being taught at primary levels in three boards in Punjab”: research done by Punjabi University
Kanwar Inder Singh/ royalpatiala.in News/ September 24,2023
A research has come out at Punjabi University, Patiala about how Punjabi language is being taught at the primary level in Punjab in the three education boards and what are the differences in this regard among these three boards. The three Boards compared in this Ph.D. research are ICSE (Indian Certificate of Secondary Education), CBSE (Central Board of Secondary Education) and PSEB (Punjab School Education Board.) The Ph.D. research has been done by Kulwinder Kaur under the guidance of Dr.Joga Singh in the Department of Linguistics and Punjabi Lexicogrpahy.
Prof. Joga Singh told that in this research work, a comparative study of Punjabi language teaching materials has been done. He said that many important points have come out in this research. One of these is that the subject content of the textbooks of class I to V of Punjab School Education Board (PSEB) has been developed at the government level itself while the CBSE and ICSE schools choose their books as part of their curriculum from various private publishers or editors. Thus, there is a lack of uniformity in the content of the three boards. He said that in CBSE, different schools have even different textbooks for the same class. The primary schools of all the three boards have come into existence to fulfill their specific objectives. Because of this, the importance and objectives of Punjabi language teaching are different for the three boards. He also told that PSEB, since 1969, has contributed significantly in education program planning, policy formulation, educational problem solving and education reform. In the primary schools of other boards, on the other hand, Punjabi language education is imparted only to get through the examination. It was observed, he said, that in the materials of all the three boards there are many uses of different spellings for the same word even in the same paragraph in the same lesson of the syllabus prescribed by the same board. The texts of all three boards are full of incomplete and imprecise sentence structures. Sentences are lengthy and too complex. This problem is seen more in the textbooks of CBSE and ICSE.
The researcher Kulwinder Kaur said that the content of the text-material of the three boards is unable to touch curiosity of the primary level students. She said that the vocabulary of other languages (Hindi and English) has also been used in the textbooks of the three boards. The use of English vocabulary is seen in abundance. There is more such use in the textbooks of CBSE. Talking about the teaching methods, She said that the Punjabi language teachers in the schools affiliated to the three boards do not use linguistic teaching methods uniformly. The teaching methods adopted by them are just pretentious. Punjabi teachers in all the three boards refrain from using new teaching methods (language lab method, etc.). The CBSE and ICSE text material is better in terms of number of pictures and print quality but their major shortcoming is that the pictures do not match the subject.
“How Punjabi language being taught at primary levels in three boards in Punjab”: research done by Punjabi University . The Vice Chancellor Prof. Arvind congratulated the researcher especially and said that such research proves to be helpful in formulating new policies regarding education. He said that such ground-level research on the overall situation, which includes detailed investigation of various aspects, can play a good role in bringing about the much needed reforms in the primary education sector.
