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www.GOALias.blogspot.comwww.GOALias.blogspot.comwww.GOALias.blogspot.comiiiwww.GOALias.blogspot.comFOREWORDThe National Curriculum Framework (NCF) 2005 recommends thatchildren’s life at school must be linked to their life outside the school.www.GOALias.blogspot.comThis principle marks a departure from the legacy of bookish learningwhich continues to shape our system and causes a gap between theschool, home and community. The syllabi and textbooks developedon the basis of NCF signify an attempt to implement this basic idea.www.GOALias.blogspot.comThey also attempt to discourage rote learning and the maintenanceof sharp boundaries between different subject areas. We hope thesemeasures will take us significantly further in the direction of achild-centred system of education outlined in the National Policy onwww.GOALias.blogspot.comEducation (1986).The success of this effort depends on the steps that school principalsand teachers will take to encourage children to reflect on their ownlearning and to pursue imaginative activities and questions. We mustwww.GOALias.blogspot.comrecognise that, given space, time and freedom, children generatenew knowledge by engaging with the information passed on to themby adults. Treating the prescribed textbook as the sole basis ofexamination is one of the key reasons why other resources and siteswww.GOALias.blogspot.comof learning are ignored. Inculcating creativity and initiative is possibleif we perceive and treat children as participants in learning, not asreceivers of a fixed body of knowledge.www.GOALias.blogspot.comThese aims imply considerable change in school routines and mode offunctioning. Flexibility in the daily time-table is as necessary as rigourin implementing the annual calendar so that the required number ofteaching days are actually devoted to teaching. The methods used forteaching and evaluation will also determine how effective this textbookwww.GOALias.blogspot.comproves for making children’s life at school a happy experience, ratherthan a source of stress or boredom. Syllabus designers have triedto address the problem of curricular burden by restructuring andreorienting knowledge at different stages with greater considerationwww.GOALias.blogspot.comfor child psychology and the time available for teaching. The textbookattempts to enhance this endeavour by giving higher priority andwww.GOALias.blogspot.comspace to opportunities for contemplation and wondering, discussionin small groups, and activities requiring hands-on experience.NCERT appreciates the hard work done by the textbook developmentcommittee responsible for this book. We wish to thank the Chairpersonof the Advisory Group on Social Science, Professor Hari Vasudevanwww.GOALias.blogspot.comand the Chief Advisors for this book, Shri Yogendra Yadav andProfessor Suhas Palshikar for guiding the work of this committee.Several teachers contributed to the development of this textbook;we are grateful to their principals for making this possible. We arewww.GOALias.blogspot.comindebted to the institutions and organisations which have generouslypermitted us to draw upon their resources, material and personnel.We are especially grateful to the members of the National Monitoringwww.GOALias.blogspot.com