Fun in the Fiscal

I strongly believe that the main problem with the teaching of economics in India is the outdated text books.Most of the text books used in colleges across the country are so dull that students lose interest the very moment they see their books.If we can have simple text books very clourful and having a lot of case studies ,students interest in the subject will increase.Apart from new text books we should also encourage our teachers to use multimedia tools in the class rooms.Blogs and You Tube also have become very effective means to make the classroom lively.
The following is a report appeared in the Indian Express today on our efforts to train teachers on new technology.


Textbooks should have crosswords and colour illustrations, and classrooms should have YouTube and multimedia, believes this club of Economics teachers
Ask Economics professor Shashi Paniker what an ideal classroom should be like, and you’ll be surprised that the words ‘chalk’ and ‘blackboard’ don’t figure anywhere in the answer. Instead, you will hear about blogging, the Internet, YouTube and crossword puzzles as a means to teach what is considered by many to be one of the driest subjects in any syllabus — Economics.
It may not be a favourite with anybody apart from the geekiest collegians, but Economics certainly seems to be on a revolutionary path thanks to Paniker and the Economics Club, a voluntary group of Economics teachers who meet once a month at Mulund, and counsel and guide students to find the best way forward in terms of their studies and careers.
“Teachers need to take more interest in their subject and catch up with the young generation. They need to make the subject more interesting and interactive for students,” says Paniker. The club holds workshops around Mumbai to train teachers to use computers, aiding them to become more proficient with the Internet and to use it in their teaching. The workshops, sponsored by the Forum for Free Enterprise, are held for Economics teachers in the city, once every few months.
“We teach teachers to create blog posts and improve their writing skills. Then students can post comments and give feedback about the topic in question,” says Paniker. He also believes that for a subject like Economics, it is important to liven it up in order to get students interested, something that the archaic textbooks don’t do. So, in his lectures, Paniker introduces students to YouTube, plays videos by distinguished economist Ben Bernanke and songs that students of the Columbia Business School have created as a means to show students that Economics can actually be fun.
“The workshops help to familiarise people with the Internet, but we don’t know when they will actually come in use since it is a bit difficult to imagine students and teachers with computers in each classroom. But it is a good source and does benefit teachers,” says Dr Suniti Nagpurkar, Head of the Department of Economics at Swami Vivekananda College, who attended the last workshop held at MMK College earlier this month.
The club has meetings once a month, where the 20-30 people who attend have to speak about an economic issue. “We have discussions about one important topic and everyone gives their opinions,” says Paniker, adding that the last workshop was a huge success. We have computers for each teacher, so as to give them a chance to familiarise themselves with technology,” he says. The club plans to hold a workshop in Malad some time next month.
“Imagine textbooks with crosswords and illustrations and colour. That’s how this subject should be taught, not in books that are thirty years old,” says Paniker.