Developing an interdisciplinary synthetic model for the teaching of population education at the secondary level

Abstract

Present study is a unique of its kind not only in India but also in South East Asian Region which is faced with very grave population problems. Among the world nations, Indians are number two with 1,21,74,24,708 people on 2011March15 (Ruskin; 2011). India is the home of 17.5% of world s population with only 2.42 per cent of the world s land area. Among the Indian states, Kerala accounts for 1.3 per cent of India s land area but supports 3.1 per cent of the population. At present population of Kerala is 3.34crore. Through population education programmes, our government is trying to solve the problem of overpopulation by developing rational and responsible behavior among the future citizens. The investigator assumes that the present methods of teaching population education lack futuristic vision and often failed to develop rational and responsible behavior towards the problems arising out of population explosion. From this, it is assumed that new models must be developed and implemented systematically with a view to create proper population awareness during schooling so as to enable the younger generation in future to take feasible decisions about their life. The investigator therefore prepared a model i.e. Synthetic Model based on blended learning strategy to teach population education and tested it with the existing method of teaching. The synthetic model was found more effective than the existing for teaching population education not only for the academic achievement but also for enhancing awareness of overpopulation among the secondary level students. In India it will be the first study in approaches of teaching population education with aims of bringing about changes in the attitudes and beliefs of the future population of India. This study is supposed to break new grounds and would establish the utility of our approaches of teaching population education in regard to creating an effect on the behavioral patterns of the students. This will help our nation to attain a balanced progress with maximum welfare