Joan of Arc Extracts from Joan of Arc by Marc Twain Well, anything to make delay. The King's council advised him against arriving at a decision in our matter too precipitately. He arrives at a decision too precipitately! So they sent a committee of priests—always priests—into Lorraine to inquire into Joan's character and history— a matter which would consume several weeks, of course. You see how fastidious they were. It was as if people should come to put out the fire when a man's house was burning down, and they waited till they could send into another country to find out if he had always kept the Sabbath or not, before letting him try. So the days poked along, drea

Illumination, Heroism and Harmony Preface The task of preparing teaching-learning material for value-oriented education is enormous. There is, first, the idea that value-oriented education should be exploratory rather than prescriptive, and that the teaching- learning material should provide to the learners a growing experience of exploration. Secondly, it is rightly contended that the proper inspiration to turn to value-orientation is provided by biographies, auto- biographical accounts, personal anecdotes, epistles, short poems, stories of humour, stories of human interest, brief passages filled with pregnant meanings, reflective short essays written in well-chisell

2. On the National Agenda for Education The National Agenda for Education makes an appeal not to forget the essentials. For the burden of reforms that are being put forward by the Agenda could be so great as to make us oblivious of the essentials. We need to stress that to place the child and the youth in the centre of nation's attention is the most important message of the Agenda. It has been stressed with the greatest possible emphasis that the country must declare the sovereignty of the child and the youth. At a deeper level, however, we need to remind ourselves of the most instructive parable of Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore, where the trainin

3. Objectives of Education and Promotion of Excellence I Pursuit of excellence depends on three factors. First of all, it depends upon the cultivation of will among all to work on their own limitations and to surpass them; secondly, it depends upon progressive understanding of the principles underlying the process of self-exceeding; and thirdly, it depends upon clearer perception and commitment to the higher goals of individual and collective welfare. And, if we look at the educational history of thought and practice, we shall find that glorious periods of education have been marked by the participation of people in

Appendix Teaching of Sanskrit During the year of Sanskrit, a number of activities are being undertaken at various levels for highlighting the importance of Sanskrit and for considering ways and means by which the study of Sanskrit can become more and more widespread. At its meeting of 25-26 October 1999 of the National Level Committee on Sanskrit several programmes were formulated and recommended such as those of religious harmony of India, importance of teaching methodology of Sanskrit with special reference to the teaching of Sanskrit through Sanskrit, identification of suitable authors for Sanskrit science series and for Sanskrit educational series

4. Primary Education: Vision, Objectives, Problems and Recommendations I In India, we have been striving to increase allocations to primary education, and we notice that sixty-five per cent of the plan allocation for the year 1999-2000 has been earmarked for elementary education. A new initiative has been envisaged for participation of the girl child. Allocation to operation black board has been enhanced from Rs. 304 crores to Rs. 400 crores and allocation to DPEP has been increased from Rs. 727 crores to Rs. 754 crores. A sum of Rs 160 crores has been assigned to the national strategy for participation of girls and there has been an upward re

1. A National Agenda for Education Preamble All eyes seem to be set on education. The contemporary scene of India compels everyone to turn to education as the central key to the road to regeneration. Unfortunately, our educational system is suffering from long-standing negligence and maladies and unless drastic steps are taken to bring about radical and revolutionary changes, it would be futile to expect education to perform any miracle. The national agenda for education must be conceived and implemented with full realisation that the nation derives its raison d'etre from the protective wings that it can spread over the children and

Publisher's Note In response to the felt need in our country for reforming or even revolutionising education in our country, the Mother's Institute of Research, which is devoted to educational research, has constituted a few working groups, under the Chairmanship of Kireet Joshi. A number of working papers were recently prepared. A selected number of these papers have been brought here together so as to contribute to the national thinking on changes that need to be brought about in the field of education. The first paper in this publication entitled "A National Agenda for Education" is a result of several regional seminars and a nati

8. Higher Education in Humanities and Social Sciences I In the history of education, not long ago, humanities played an overwhelmingly major role. Even the study of the sciences was sought to be glorified as a part of the study of philosophy. But the ascendancy of science and technology in the succeeding centuries has reversed the balance and many of the studies in humanities are sought to be glorified as studies in science. The coinage of the phrase "social sciences" is a testimony of this trend. In recent times, increasing stress is being laid on applied knowledge, and not only on manipulation of machines, but also on ma

5. School Education: Vision, Objectives, Critique of New Curriculum Proposed by NCERT, Recommendations NCERT has rendered a valuable service to the country by bringing out a discussion document on National Curriculum Framework for School Education. The last document on the curriculum was developed in 1988. It should have been reviewed much earlier, since it is best to renew the curriculum at reasonable intervals. But the effort that has been deployed in producing this new document appears to be very laborious and bears the imprint of the latest developments of educational thought and of the lessons that can be derived from the experiences not only of