Hyderabad, December 18: The India-Sri Lanka cliffhanger at Rajkot has established once again that Indians are as much addicted to cricket as they are to spicy food.
As youths continue to go ga ga over sports, how could their interest be nurtured at a young age? The British Council, which is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year, has already set the ball rolling in training children in sports by making sports a part of school curriculum.
With this initiative, the interest in youths could be nurtured, says British Council Minister (Cultural Affairs) Ruth Gee, who took over as the British Council’s regional director for India and Sri Lanka on September 1. She says that the latest endeavour was to train students from the First to Fifth Grade in sports. “The Centre has cleared our proposal and sports is now part of the school curriculum in six States including AP,” she says. The initiative known as Physical Education Cards (PEC), was launched in India on August 25 in Delhi. It provides teaching resources to help primary teachers deliver sports activities within their schools.
The cards are multi-coloured, engaging and are designed to work through a series of games for Grades One to Five with easy-to-follow instructions for teachers to train their pupils. The British Council wants the facility extended to all CBSE schools.
Ruth Gee says the British Council not only focuses on school education but has a wider gamut of activities to ensure an emotional and cultural integration with the UK. “Ours is not a propaganda. We want a cultural integration. We want to let people in India know that they are not living in isolation,” she says.
The British Library, which happens to be the face of the British Council in India works as the conduit for the Council’s activities. The British Library’s functioning is not limited to providing books but is much more.
The traditional concept of a library that it is a place people go to read books is gradually changing. This is the reason why we are into e-libraries.
All the members of the British Library have access to 78,000 new titles introduced recently.
Those interested could just log into the e-library and read the books online, she says.
On the occasion of the 75th anniversary, the British Council launched a programme — Books on the Wild — where one could take a book from the library, read it and pass it on to another while giving one’s impressions about the book. Similarly, the British Library has movies too for its members on CDs which have a British connection. “We do not sit in the library and expect people to visit us.
Instead we want to go them. For instance, British Council’s Soundpad is organising a programme in Hyderabad on Dec 18 where Laura Marling and Munford & Sons will perform on the occasion of their first India tour, Ruth Gee says. Laura Marling is a British singer.
This apart, the British Council is into protection of environment too. “We have 77 climate change champions in the age group of 18 to 21 who work in a network. We have only given them leadership training and they are now on their own to protect our climate,” she says.
They could stay in contact with their counterparts in the UK too, thus ending the impression that they were working in isolation. They work on climate change projects and take up activities to protect the environment like bicycling to reduce pollution, beach cleaning and so on, she says.
–Agencies