Parents do not explicitly understand the implications of the general education curriculum, as is usually given in the academic documents. They feel left out from what goes on inside the school where their children study, but expect that the school would take care of the interests of their children.

The common impression is that the learning in schools is largely confined to the coverage of the prescribed syllabi. This type of learning may at best result in acquiring knowledge of facts and concepts, but is not directly related to the immediate life of the learners or to their future needs. And, quite often one of the reasons for children dropping out of school is that parents find that what their children are taught at school is not immediately relevant to them in the contexts in which they live. Therefore, there is a concern that the precious years of schooling should be optimally used for developing skills, attitudes and values essential for effective living. If the general education curriculum is to be made relevant to the community, it will require a paradigm shift in the schooling process, and concurrently the teacher education programmes.

It has, therefore, become necessary to state the learning outcomes to be achieved through the schooling process in a form that can be unambiguously understood by the parents, the teachers and the children. It is envisaged that even in the changed educational process in terms of the concerns mentioned above, the learning will continue to remain around the traditional school subjects, namely, language(s), mathematics, science, social sciences, art and aesthetics, work experience, health and physical education. But the learning outcomes shall not be limited to mere acquisition of knowledge of concepts and facts of these subjects. Though the textbooks may continue to remain the principal source of teaching-learning, the task of the teacher should go beyond just covering of the prescribed syllabi and emphasise a better appreciation of the life's environment. Therefore, a new type of teacher will be required.

Preparation of teachers for the envisaged schooling process will require change in the existing teacher education curricula. The foci of teacher education curriculum, which are around building of general foundations for the teaching profession and teaching methodology skills, may now have to be suitably redesigned. In addition to teaching to pre-service teacher the traditional foundation courses, the teacher educators will have to provide a broad exposure to a variety of strategies that can be employed for ensuring that each child is able to acquire the skills, attitudes and values relevant as envisioned for the concerned stage of school education. This expectation from the teacher should determine the teacher education curriculum. At the same time, the schooling process will be directed for fulfilling the assurance given to the parents in the form of statements of skills that children will attain as learning outcomes. This paradigm shift in the school education will mean that teacher will take care that learning of children is not limited to mere memorisation of information contained in the textbooks. This, of course, would require a changed approach to the preparation of teachers.

In the above context, it has become important to outline the life skills needed by an effective citizenry, which can help in formulation of the scope of topics to be included in the curricula of different school subjects. For each of the three schooling stages, primary, upper primary and secondary - skills, attitude and values relevant to the context of the community to which the children belong may have to be spelt out for the different categories of life skills. In what follows statements of the curriculum in terms of skills have been given in the form of a grid, which is only suggestive. It has been evolved in consultation with a group consisting of some teachers, heads of schools and educational experts belonging to the city of New Delhi, and may be seen in some aspects to display an urban bias. The statements in the grid, therefore, should be understood in this backdrop for delineating any general education curriculum. Similar grids, particularly for the primary and upper-primary stages, could be constructed in consultation with the community and contextualised to specific rural and geographical variations.

It is a hard reality that the approach to learning in schools is largely determined by the requirements of public examinations. It may be appreciated that evaluation of the skills, attitudes and values will have to be the responsibility of the school and not of the Boards of School Education that conduct public examination for purposes of certification. Such aspects can best be measured in respect of an individual over a period of time and not in a one-time common public examination. This dichotomy needs to be broken; if the intended transformation is to be introduced into the existing school and teacher education curricula.

Let us now look at the various components of the present day school curriculum and make an attempt in defining the kind of life skills that each component is most amenable to develop in the children.

Language is central to all learning. The present day language curriculum of the school largely emphasises skills of reading and writing, predominantly the latter. What is needed is to give a thrust to this area of curriculum with a clearer focus on development of communication skills in their total perspective. The entire gamut of language skills viz. listening, speaking, reading and writing with comprehension has to be developed in totality through any language curriculum. A grid elaborating communication skills that need to be developed in children across different stages of school education is presented in what follows:

There has been considerable discussion on the scope of mathematics that should be taught to children as a part of their general education. Basic competence in the four fundamental operations, namely, addition, subtraction, multiplication and division and their right conceptualisation by the children should inform the main thrusts of the mathematics curriculum. This is not to suggest that knowledge in such areas of mathematics as algebra and geometry is less important. The deductive logic, which is an important life skill, comes from the study of geometry. What needs to be appreciated is that children do not remain deprived in their general education of the mastery of basic computational skills used in various day to day activities, for example, computation of percentage, profit and loss, ratio and proportion, interest, length, area, volume and time. Today's information media, whether print or electronic, increasingly utilise pictorial and visual modes of communication for better and effective impact on our minds. Graphical representation of data, bar diagrams, maps, etc. are commonly encountered in print and electronic media. It is suggested that the computational skills as listed in the grid below across different stages of school education could be an importance and pragmatic approach in re-looking at the teaching and learning of mathematics in schools.

It has been generally seen that majority of the basic information and concepts that dominate the school science curriculum have significance for only such children as would pursue a career in science. What is expected as a part of general education is to ensure that science and technology education is used to inculcate in the learners a spirit of inquiry, curiosity, objectivity, creativity, problems solving skills, decision making skills and aesthetic sensibility. These attributes have been reflected at different places in the grid. This requires a total transformation in the approach to the design of science curriculum with a focus on the development of the above mentioned skills, attitudes and values. This, of course, has implications for re-designing the programmes of teacher education.

The components of social sciences include history, geography, civics/political science and economics. History connects our past with our present through familiarisation with our cultural heritage and social order. The constitutional values such as rights, duties, learning to live together, and understanding of the nature of governance will form an appropriately re-designed civics/political science curriculum. The concern for sustainable development and environment education will be taken care of by the curricula of geography and science. The questions of economy in the context of privatisation and globalisation require a different set of life skills. The general education curriculum has, therefore, to acquaint students through teaching these subjects with the expected orientation.

Except six to seven hours spent in the school, children spend the rest of the time at home. The time at home is spent doing homework, playing, and listening to music and in helping the parents with household tasks. Facility in using modern electronic gadgets with proper safety measures and participation in household activities will make children confident, responsible and supportive to their parents and siblings. Such skills will be crucial when growing up children become householders themselves.

In today's context, no school child can be taken to be educated unless she/he has the necessary confidence in the Information Technology (IT) literacy skills. Learning to learn on one's own has become very fundamental to our survival in the emerging learning society. This will require among others the basic IT skills in children so that they may be able to manipulate the vast amount and variety of information for their learning. This would also lead to liberating the child from the "tyranny" of confinement to prescribed textbooks. It will also consciously develop in children the ability of interactive learning at their own pace and even self-evaluation of the learning acquired.

For living effectively in the age dominated by communication and information technology it will be essential that students acquire such skills as make them information technology literate. Through designing appropriate learning experiences in the first ten years of schooling, essential IT skills that should be developed in students in the primary, upper-primary and secondary stages have been given in the following:

A sound mind in a sound body has been proverbially emphasised as the backbone of a healthful living. The school curriculum should emphasise the concerns of healthful living through teaching as well as through physical activities. Healthful living requires physical, mental and spiritual development. Skills needed for healthful living, which should be developed in each student in the first ten years of general education, are given as below:

Concerns of school education have simultaneous implications for teacher education. Learning outcomes that can be achieved through the transaction of the school curriculum through the teacher will depend on the teacher's abilities. Therefore, the quality of any educational intervention ultimately rests with teacher's professional acumen, motivation and competence. Effective teacher education programmes need to consciously focus on developing in the teachers the necessary knowledge, skills and values that enable translation of school curriculum into action. How does one go about this exercise?

Let us look at how teacher education curricula are presently structured. There are two vital aspects of teacher preparation, one of which is concerned with equipping the teacher with those areas of knowledge which are generic to the role expected of him/her to be a transformer of young minds and understand the implications of imparting education. Such an objective is realised through imparting knowledge of foundation disciplines of education, which draw inputs from the disciplines of philosophy, history, sociology and psychology. Then comes the question of developing skills and knowledge for effective classroom performance so that the teaching produces the intended learning through already identified curriculum areas.

As stated earlier there is a concern that the present school curriculum does not inculcate basic life skills, attitudes and values to an extent it does for bookish information load. For resulting in attainment of life skills and values through the schooling process it will be necessary to synchronise functional school education with equally functional teacher education.

There is considerable scope to give some practical orientation to the course content offered under foundation areas of teacher education, which are presently handled largely theoretically. Educational philosophy provides the needed foundation for discussing, practising and internalising the whole gamut of life issues/skills pertaining to 'learning to be', particularly the total value orientation to life through educational processes. The practical component of educational psychology could also lay emphasis on psychological skills for life as enumerated earlier in the tabulated statement as part of practicum in the subject. Development of social skills could constitute a substantial part of practicum in educational sociology through discussions, seminars, workshops, investigations, case studies, etc.

The second important component of teacher education curriculum consists of courses related to methodologies of teaching school subjects, e.g., teaching of language(s), mathematics, science, social sciences/studies, work experience, art and aesthetics and health & physical Education. The methodology courses focus on "teaching how to teach" by combining the conceptual structures of the subjects and the skills and competencies that naturally emanate from the study of these subjects. The life skills to be developed through the teaching-learning of the concerned subject should receive adequate attention in the teacher education programme in the form of learning strategies that will be found helpful by teachers in the actual classrooms.

Another important component of teacher education programme is called "working with the community". Teacher educators can effectively use this component of the course in helping the student teachers interact with the community for identifying the life skills that it wants the school to develop in its children.

In today's context of life's realities, the scope of general education needs to be extended beyond imparting the literacy and computational skills. The general education may have to be used as an instrument for consumer literacy, legal literacy and of course the IT literacy.

It is expected that the approach of spelling out the school curriculum in the form of statements of skills and competencies to be developed in children by the school, de facto will be the assurance of the school to the parent. The parents will be able to judge for themselves that the school attended by their child has been able to develop the skills that the school assured at the time of admission of their child. This will bring in accountability on heads of schools, teachers, teacher education institutions, the State and the non-governmental managements that have set up schools for taking care of education of the children.