Pbi varsity research on how Punjabi is taught at the primary level out

Patiala, September 25

Research at Punjabi University has been released about ‘how Punjabi is being taught at the primary level in Punjab’ in the three education boards and what the differences are in this regard among them.

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). It has been done by Kulwinder Kaur under the guidance of Professor Joga Singh in the Department of Linguistics and Punjabi Lexicography.

A comparative study of Punjabi language teaching materials has been done, and many important points have come out of this research. Prof Joga said, “One of the notable points that has come to light is that the subject content of the textbooks for classes I to V of 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. Thus, there is a lack of uniformity in the content of the three boards.”

He mentioned that in CBSE, different schools may have different textbooks for the same class. “Because of this, the importance and objectives of Punjabi language teaching are different for the three boards. Since 1969, PSEB has made significant contributions to education programme planning, policy formulation, educational problem solving, and education reform”, he said.

“In the primary schools of other boards, on the other hand, Punjabi language education is imparted only to get through the examination,” he added.

The researcher, Kulwinder Kaur, said that the content of the text material on the three boards is unable to touch the 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”, she stated.

Talking about the teaching methods, she said that the Punjabi language teachers in the schools affiliated with the three boards do not use linguistic teaching methods uniformly. “The teaching methods adopted by them are just pretentious. Punjabi teachers on all three boards refrain from using new teaching methods, such as the language lab method. The CBSE and ICSE text material is better in terms of the number of pictures and print quality, but their major shortcoming is that the pictures do not match the subject.”