GIS as a vocational elective from June 2011

            As 13 schools affiliated to the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) across India are set to introduce a course on ‘geospatial practices’, a vocational elective for Std XI and XII from 2011, principals and teachers will be trained by an industry partner on ways to implement the programme, next month in Mumbai. The course will be expanded to other schools later.

            Among the 13 schools, RN Podar School in Santa Cruz will be the first school in Mumbai that will introduce this course which focuses on various components of geographic information system/geospatial information systems (GIS) and remote sensing.

            GIS is an emerging field and there is a lot of demand for candidates who are trained in GIS applications and technology today. It has a lot of relevance and so far no school has been providing education in this field. The subject is inter-disciplinary and covers various areas like geography, physics and mathematics, to name a few.

            Rolta India will conduct a workshop in December to train the school teachers and principals from across the country who are offering this course, which will be formally launched in June 2011. Rolta India has developed the curriculum and will also help schools to implement it.

            The workshop will orient teachers towards the course content and ways to approach it. Further, since Rolta India is giving some software to the schools, it will also train teachers on ways to use it. It is good to see that students will be introduced to GIS as a subject so early in their educational phase!

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