Education Dept comes up with Punjabi word bank

Manav Mander

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, June 30

The Punjab Education Department has prepared a word bank in Punjabi for the students of Class VI to VIII with the aim to make an improvement in their Punjabi vocabulary. The list has been sent to all District Education Officers (DEOs) and school heads.

Inderjeet Singh, director of the State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT), in a communique to the school heads, said a word bank of 4,000 words, taken from the textbooks of students, had been prepared in Punjabi to enhance speaking, writing and reading skills of students of Class VI to VIII.

Instructions have also been given to school heads students were to be taught these words along with their syllabus. School-level competitions should be arranged in which every student would have to take part and the marks scored in these competitions would be included in the annual report of the student.

A special package of these words has been prepared, out of which as many as 200 words are dedicated to the 100 years of the Jallianwala massacre and 550 years of Parkash Purab of Guru Nanak Dev. Throughout the year, essay-writing, poem and paragraph-writing competitions would be held, which would give students a chance to put to use the words they had learnt.

For the convenience of the students and teachers, the word bank has been uploaded on the website of the department www.punjab.org.

Sunita, teacher at a government school in Samrala, said: “The step taken by the department will help students in the long run. The words which they will learn during this activity will definitely remain with them for the years to come. It is a good initiative taken by the Education Department.”

Meanwhile, presenting a counter view, another teacher from the district said: “Instead of preparing a word bank of Punjabi, they should have prepared a word bank of English words, a language in which most students are lagging behind. It would have helped them in improving their command over the English language.”

Instructions

• Instructions have been given to school heads that students will be taught these words as a part of their syllabus
• School-level competitions will  be arranged, in which every student will have to take part and the marks scored in these competitions will be included in the annual report of the student
• Throughout the year, essay-writing, poem and paragraph-writing competitions will be held, which will give students a chance to put to use the words they had learnt.
• For the convenience of students and teachers, the word bank has been uploaded on the website of the department www.punjab.org