Art, music not for govt school students

Gurvinder Singh

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Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, November 19

While art and music are now considered an essential part of education and are a must for the balanced growth of individuals, students of government primary schools are being denied of this facility.

Many schools pay special emphasis on art and music and with increasing awareness, parents, too, want their wards to start learning art and music at an early age. But let alone having these subjects, students of government schools are not being taught in schools. There is no faculty and no infrastructure for teaching subjects in a majority of the government primary schools.

In fact, the Punjab School Education Board recently organised the Zonal-Level competitions regarding co-curricular activities, including painting, singing and declamation among other things for primary schools, but only a couple of government primary schools managed to get any award. Even the ones that won barely managed because of the special efforts put in for this purpose by teachers of the schools.

Speaking about it, Sukhdhir Singh Sekhon, president, Navchetna Bal Bhalai Committee, said it was highly unfortunate that in spite of paying attention on primary education and exposing children to the world of art and music, these subjects do not exist in the syllabus of government schools. There is no infrastructure like music room or arts room for children.

“Primary education is the time when children should be introduced to art and music for them to later flourish as artists and musicians, but they are not even introduced to these arts,” he said.

“Not just government primary schools, but even government middle and high schools do not have adequate infrastructure for teaching these subject to children,” a government schoolteacher said.

“We have roped in around 10 fine arts teachers to teach students of government schools, where fine arts are not taught to students because of paucity or absence of art teachers. We will organise classes for such students after school hours and provide them all support to help them flourish as artists,” Sukhdhir said.

Sad state of affairs...

• Many schools pay special emphasis on art and music and with increasing awareness, parents, too, want their wards to start learning art and music at an early age. But let alone having these subjects, students of government schools are not being taught in schools. 

• There is no faculty and no infrastructure for teaching subjects in a majority of the government primary schools.

• The Punjab School Education Board (PSEB) had recently organised zonal-level competitions regarding co-curricular activities, including painting, singing and declamation, among other things for primary schools, but only a couple of government primary schools managed to get any award. Even the ones that won barely managed because of the special efforts put in for this purpose by teachers of the schools.