Colourful, activity-rich textbooks with the new syllabus awaits students of Class I-III as schools reopen on June 4.

The new syllabus formulated in December has mainstreamed the Ennum Ezhuthum scheme, which previously had four distinct categories with separate workbooks and textbooks to cater to children falling under various types of learning.

“The fundamental driver was to move the child away from memorising lessons for examinations. We wanted the child to learn by understanding, enjoying and applying the learning in his life,” said school education secretary B. Chandra Mohan.

Pointing out that the unique factor of the textbooks was the teaching of the concept, he said that every concept is taught in a joyful, engaging and experiential manner. “Basic literacy and numeracy are introduced through stories, rhymes, songs, games, conversations and creative activities because children learn best when they are emotionally connected and actively involved in the learning process,” he said.

For the first time, the textbook also has a socio-emotional component where social skills are incorporated in students in the form of discussions and allows the students to open up in classes. “When a teacher notes that a child is not very participative, the teacher will spend time with them in other classes, such as value education, to get the child to open up,” an official with the school education department said

Chandra Mohan also noted that every chapter integrates values, life skills and age-appropriate motor skills into the learning process. “Along with literacy and numeracy, children also learn empathy, teamwork, discipline, cooperation and respect for others, because every lesson must build both competence and character,” he said.

Gender equality

Further, the books include small drawings at the end of each page depicting instances of sharing, cleanliness, and other themes. Noting that the Kerala textbooks depict gender equality, with a father cutting vegetables in the kitchen, the official said that Tamil Nadu textbooks have been showing this for the last 10 years.

“This year too, we have various pictures across lessons depicting men taking part in household chores and women taking up jobs. We have also made a conscious decision to showcase various types of families in the textbooks as families need not mean just father, mother and child,” the official said.

With that in mind, the textbooks now include single mother families, where in a lesson it shows a mother who works in a bank and the child counts the mother and the cat as a whole family. “Many children come from single-parent households; we need to show representation and validate them too,” the official pointed out.

Teacher’s handbook

As teachers will have to teach the new syllabus, the State Council of Educational Research and Training has prepared a teachers’ handbook which not only gives directions on how to teach a lesson, but also how to tackle the questions posed by students. Further, the handbook also has additional stories and songs to engage the students, officials said.

Keeping in mind that government schools would have a single teacher handling multiple classes of children in a single classroom, the handbooks also help the teachers with methods to teach the various classes. As the syllabus expands as the child moves forward in classes, the teacher would only have to expand on the idea which they would have previously learned.

Further, the handbook comes with QR codes which holds a video of the lessons and a model teaching lesson. The teacher would not even need to make a lesson plan, this video would help them to take an entire class, officials add.

In this regard master teachers were trained on the new textbooks at the State-level in the city the previous week. The Secretary said that these master teachers would train the teachers at the district and block-level. “The block-level teacher would be the point of contact for teachers regarding the textbook training which will begin on June 1 for them,” he said.