THE NATURE OF CO- CURRICULAR ACTIVITIES ORGANIZED ON ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION FOR THE ELEMENTARY LEVEL TEACHERS OF ASSAM

Curricular activities are an integral part of curriculum which provide educational activities to the students and thereby help in broadening their experiences. These activities enhance and enrich the regular curriculum during the normal school hours. Environmental Education is an educational programme which aims at making learners aware of interrelationship between human and nature. It also aims at inculcating in them rational attitudes, values, responsible behaviour and skills towards environmental issues. Co-curricular activities can play a very important role in achieving these.It is widely agreed that the purpose of Environmental Education is that students shall be trained not only to know the right things but also to behave in the right way. A close relationship between right knowledge and right action is sought for. Here the former is mostly taken care by the curricular activities and the later part is taken care mostly by the co-curricular activities. The curricular activities are mainly cognitive in nature and concentrate on to intellectual development of the students. However, the objective of education is not confined to intellectual development only but also on all round development of personality, i.e. besides intellectual growth, education shall also cater to emotional, physical, psychological and social development. The development in these areas may take place if curricular activities are supplemented with the co-curricular activities. It has been well recognized the importance of co-curricular activities by different commissions and committees in India. Considering the importance of these in educational programmes, it is necessary to know how far it has been successfully organized particularly at the Elementary Level. In this study an attempt was made present status of co-curricular activities in Assam.