Initiative under NEP-2020: UP students to learn animation, making videos from Class 6 up

In an initiative aimed at equipping students with different skills early on, students enrolled in more than 44,000 government-run upper primary schools of Uttar Pradesh will be taught the basics of animation, Photoshop, making banners and project models as well as albums and videos from Class 6 onwards.

Under the new National Education Policy (NEP)-2020, major changes have been made in the curriculum including the subject of painting too. These changes are expected to be implemented from the 2024-25 academic session, officials of the state basic education department said. In this regard, a five-day teachers’-training workshop has started at the State Institute of Education (SIE)-Prayagraj, a unit of State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT), Lucknow, on December 18. The officials said this workshop will continue to run in five phases with different batches of teachers till February 2.

Confirming the move, principal of SIE-Prayagraj, Naval Kishore, said that NEP-2020 states that 60% of knowledge is to be taught through books and the remaining 40% through e-learning.

“Our training module will prove helpful in teaching and learning in the 40% e-learning based knowledge. This activity-based module will be useful in enhancing life skills as well as in developing self-reliance and spirit of entrepreneurship in students of Classes 6 to 8,” he explained.

Under this new initiative, students will issue commands to the computer which will translate them into the desired creation. Computer graphics have transformed the physical labour of art production into mental labour. The artist takes an active part in deciding colour combination, choice of subject or background, etc while the computer performs the artist’s work according to the instructions given to it, officials said.

Assistant deputy education director of the institute, Deepti Mishra, said that the subject can be made more realistic and be given a professional touch with the use of computers and can be a good means of earning a livelihood for the artist. Today, the most advanced form of computer science, Artificial Intelligence, is also being used increasingly in education. At present, it is difficult to teach any subject or start a business without the use of computers. The use of computer graphics has become indispensable in various aspects of businesses-like communication, marketing, accounting etc and the aim is to equip the teachers to arm students with these skills, she added.