By IANS
New Delhi : Noted filmmaker and actor Amol Palekar said the National Council of Education Research and Training (NCERT), the country’s apex organisation for educational training and research, must take steps to nurture talent in children and motivate and teach them the techniques of filmmaking.
“It will be an exciting, meaningful activity and will help us make understand children better,” Palekar said Sunday, addressing the awards ceremony and valedictory function of the 13th All India Children’s Educational Audio-Video Festival organised by the Central Institute of Education Technology (CIET) at Nehru Bhavan here.
SIET, Pune won the overall best video award (cash award of Rs.25,000), best direction award for the video film (cash award of Rs.20,000), best sound recording for video (cash award of Rs.15,000) and best camera work award (cash award of Rs.15,000).
The CIET won the overall best audio award (cash award of Rs.25,000), best set designing for video (cash award of Rs.15,000) and best sound recording (cash award of Rs.15,000).
Palekar also announced a new award for the 14th All India Children’s Educational Audio-Video Festival in the name of filmmaker Vijaya Mulay, the founder- director of CIET.
Vijaya Mulay, who attended the ceremony, reminded producers of educational audio/video programmes that information was not knowledge.
As literacy is just one of the paths to education, information, too, is one such path to knowledge, she said, adding that educational technology is perhaps the most misunderstood word in the field of education.
“Please remember that it is not a substitute for more sophisticated teaching aids like CDs or computers in lieu of old-time teaching aids like maps and charts. It involves taking into account the needs of children and what is to be learnt, design a system of learning material, provide sources that would stimulate pupils to be curious and react or play with them,” she said.
G. Ravindra, joint director, NCERT, said children’s creativity must be honed from a tender age. He cited examples of great mathematicians, who showed their creative thoughts from childhood.
In his presidential address, Krishna Kumar said films and audio programmes have great potential to bring joy to children and hoped that new ICT (information and communication technology)- based education, which converges many other technologies, will impart meaningful education.