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JAI JINENDRA
Dear Friends,
It is a pleasure for the JAINA Education Committee to be involved in the development of the Curriculum for JAINA Education Program.
The idea was perceived through the vision of Sri Sulekh Jain, Past President of JAINA. It was felt that educational material was available to some and that too in a scattered manner, therefore the committee has tried to undertake the task of setting up a standard curriculum for the future.
They invited two Jain Scholars 1). Malukchand Shah, 2). R. K. Jain who contributed their honorary services for this task, spent more than six months reviewing different Pathshala courses conducted in various places in India. With their help and the help of the teachers and youths from various Jain Centers a following basic program was set.
JAINA Education Program is divided in four different age groups : 1. Age 3 to 7 (Preschool and Grades 1 and 2), 2. Age 8 to 11 (Grades 3, 4 and 5), 3. Age 12 to 14 (Grades 6, 7 and 8), and 4. Age 15 and up (Grades 9, 10, 11, 12 and up).
This way children's interest is captured at any early age and a greater depth of knowledge is gained with age.
The first outline of the curriculum was presented at the first seminar of teachers of JAINA pathshalas at Jain Center of New York in December 1991 to discuss and explore their ideas of this curriculum. After incorporating new ideas into the outline we continued on to the stage of the books. We faced many difficulties collecting material for younger children but finally with the help of various people we managed to compile a set of eight books for the first and second groups. The copies of each of these eight books were sent to more than fifteen Jain Centers for evaluation. The response was so good that we sent a copy of these books to the Presidents of all the Jain Centers. A plan was made to mass produce these books by Summer of '94 but because of cost it was decided that the books should be printed in India and thus delivery was delayed till Summer of '95.
Jain Education International
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