The children studying in government schools would now learn Sanskrit poems of their curriculum sung by their teachers as per an effort by the state education department to make the ancient language an easy learning process for them, said officials.
The initiative is for the school children studying in classes 3-8 of the government schools in state. On Tuesday evening chief minister (CM) Trivendra Singh Rawat launched the CD comprising the Sanskrit poems in the form of songs along with some written content, added officials.
Sanskrit is the second state language of Uttarakhand after Hindi and is taught compulsorily from class 3 till class 12 in the government schools.
“The step has been taken to make the Sanskrit learning more interactive for the children as it is considered a difficult language,” said R Meenakshi Sundaram, secretary, school education department adding “Now after the CD is launched, it would soon be distributed to almost all the government schools in state.”
Speaking on the singers who sang the poems he added, “The department is proud that they were sung by some teachers of its schools only and no outside singers had to be hired for it.”
Seema Jaunsari, director, academics research and training, school education department, while Informing about the content of the newly launched CD by CM said, “The interactive CD comprises 12 poems from the curriculum of classes 3-8 which have been sung by eight government school teachers.”
She claimed the department filtered out the eight teachers from at least 30 teachers who had given audition.
“We had asked for video and audio clips of the teachers who showed interest. After listening to all of them we found the voice of these eight ones who ultimately sang the Sanskrit poems,” she said adding, “The teachers only composed the music for the poems adapted as songs.”
Before releasing the final CD of the songs, the department officials played them before some students to see their response.
“They liked it. We then gave a go ahead for the final production. The songs in the CD also consists a still picture of the the singer along with the chapter name of the poem and the class to make it easy for the children,” Jaunsari claimed.
She further added that the songs would soon be launched on Youtube also so that children can watch them on smartphones also.
“This initiative would be extended in the second stage with some animations also so as to make it more attractive and interactive for the children. This time it was not possible due to some budget constraints,” she said.
