Do Indian School Boards Empower Students in Soft Skills?

The Indian education system focused on preparing for the mainstream, with little emphasis on independent thinking. With establishment of a global village, there is need to adapt to newer values and expectations. A change in teaching focus is needed - from didactic textbook teaching to also developing soft skills. The goal is not cognitive alone but also the affective. This book reports how effective the traditional as well as newer school Boards in India are in fostering creativity, emotional intelligence, political awareness, gender role attitude, and individual modernity. There may be a correlation between developing these soft skills and students' socioeconomic status and academic achievement scores. The newer international Boards cater to the privileged socioeconomic stratum, with better resources and opportunities. Also, higher academic scores may reflect better thinking ability, although in traditional Indian Boards they may result from rote learning. This investigation therefore also factored out the effects of these two variables. This book will help parents looking for better education choices and educationists looking for areas in the curriculum that need attention.