Work-Centered Education:
Work-centred education implies that the knowledge
base, social insights and skills of children in relation to
their habitat, natural resources and livelihood can be
turned into a source of their dignity and strength in the
school system. It is to be recognised as a meaningful
and contextual entry point for organising the curricular
experience in the school. In this sense, the experiential
base can be further developed through more evolved
forms of work in the school, including social
engagement. This pedagogy is expected to facilitate
a child-friendly route to disciplinary knowledge,
development of values primarily drawn from the
Constitution and related to social transformation, and
the formation of multiple skills that are relevant for
facing the complex challenges of a globalised economy.
It is this educational process that calls for the application
of critical pedagogy for linking the experience of
productive and other forms of work with global
knowledge.
The introduction of productive work as a
pedagogic medium in the school curriculum will have
major transformative implications for various
dimensions of the education system—philosophical,
curricular, structural and organisational. Work-centred
education will call for the reconceptualisation and
restructuring of specific aspects such as academic
autonomy and accountability; curriculum planning;
sources of texts; teacher recruitment and teacher
education; notions of discipline, attendance and school
inspection; knowledge across subject boundaries,
organisation of the school calendar, classes and periods;
creating learning sites outside the school; evaluation
parameters and assessment procedures and public
examinations. All this implies that curricular reforms
and quality improvements are intricately linked to
systemic reforms.
