GROUPING OF STUDENTS AND ITS PRINCIPLES IN EDUCATION:

 

 Definition of grouping its necessity and Importance

 

A national grouping of children of the same type in terms of physical ability, age, subject, collective consciousness or group  is called grouping. Grouping is necessary and important in the sense that it is impossible to have a separate teacher for a child or for every child and the resources of any country cannot allow it. The  children are grouped so that one teacher teaches more than one child at a time and the social training of the children is also done in the form of a group. Grouping saves time, costs and energy with group training and develops collective consciousness, cooperation and team spirit among children. Apart from this, teachers have great ease in fulfilling objectives of  prescribed curriculum.

 

PRINCIPLES OF GROUPING

 

A few important principles are kept in mind while doing grouping. These principles are important in view of the economic conditions of a country, educational needs and psychological remedies, which are implemented in different ways in the education system of different countries.  A few important principles are examined in detail.

 

Second, grouping according to the physical age of the students. We know that in our country, children are admitted to school when they are four or five years old. In some backward and rural areas, children enter at the age of six, while the prescribed age is five years or a little over five years. These same children progress year after year from one grade to another grade on satisfactory distribution performance. This method of grouping is very easy and it has no any  administrative difficulties, but it is contrary to psychological considerations, for example, a seven-year-old child may be more intelligent than a ten-year-old child.

 

 Naturally, children of the same age do not have the same mental ability, but even two twins differ in mental ability, a ten-year-old child is less intelligent than a seven-year-old child who is older  in age. Why should they be placed in a group? Well, medical age is also taken into account during grouping, but along with this, mental quality must also be taken into account.

 How much room for development and expansion can be created in it in the future. Everyone knows the fact that in our primary schools, especially in the first grade, there are more students who fail or run away from school without completing their academic year. There is grouping which is done only on the basis of physical age of children. Another serious problem that arises from this type of advocation  that is the educational backwardness of children. When children repeatedly fail in a class, it not only creates a disruption in the educational path of children, but such children lose self-respect and self-confidence and become a threat to the school because they are afraid of the school environment and with teaching work.

 

 We have adopted this principle of grouping on the basis of physical age despite all its weaknesses,  and this method is practiced in many  countries including Pakistan. We are forced by certain circumstances, our financial resources are less. We do not have standardized mental tests in our schools and neither our school teachers have received this type of special training nor is there a national level to prepare, standardize and test these types of tests under an organized program. Any system or arrangement for imparting customs in schools.

 

 By physical age the defects of the present grouping may be largely removed. If the following measures are implemented.

(1)    Special attention should be given to the professional training of teachers.

 

(2) Untrained teachers should not be placed in primary schools.

 

 (3) A comprehensive study of child psychology should be included in the training program..

 

 (4) Teachers must  give individual attention to children.

 

 

(5) Reasonable teaching materials should be provided in the schools.

 

(6) The curriculum should be made sufficiently interesting .

 

(7) The environment should be made attractive.

 

(8)  Monitoring system should be made effective and improved.

 

  Grouping according to mental ability

 

Grouping on the basis of age was considered highly objectionable. Therefore, educational thinkers have given more priority to grouping in terms of mental age or mental ability. Teachers are also in favour of grouping children of equal ability. In most schools of the world, especially in developed countries, this classification is practiced, which is done through standardized mental tests and children with similar intelligence or ability are placed in the same class. In this way, these children develop equally, with no significant difference in their acquisition of knowledge at the end of the year. Teaching work to such children can also be done collectively.

This type of grouping has the following advantages.

 

 (1) This type of grouping does not waste time and energy of teachers.

(2) content can be taught to a great extent in a single class.

 

(3) Weak students are not discouraged.

 

(4) Students do not suffer from academic backwardness and stagnation.

(5) The entire group of equal ability can be treated equally.

 

WEAKNESSES

 

This type of grouping has the following weaknesses.

 

(1) The basis for this type of grouping cannot be provided scientifically.

 (2) It creates a feeling of inferiority among weaker students.

 (3) This type of partisanship creates the possibility of partisan differences.

(4) This type of grouping is difficult from the administrative point of view.

 

 

(5) The training of teachers does not take place in terms of this kind of grouping.

 

 A few difficulties and problems

 

Mental tests at the time of admission, which are the basis of this type of grading, are useful where the various subjects are intended to assess intelligence rather than ability.

 

 (1) It is difficult to determine the mental age of children at the time of admission to school.

(2) One-year-olds' intelligence changes over the years.

(3) Children of the same mind or ability differ in physical age and social status.

 (4) In order to maintain mental quality or uniformity in the class, a student will have to change classes several times in his academic life.

(5) If a student is intelligent but weak in the subject of matter, he should be compared to a student who is comparatively In terms of mental age, the lower self has more ability in the subject and will be left behind.

 

In fact, children of the same ability are not the same in terms of their feelings and needs, their tendencies and interests in different subjects will be different. They also need individual attention. It is necessary to diversify the curriculum of education. Provision of other educational materials and facilities will be unnecessary. Special attention must be paid to the training of teachers. The teachers will organize curricular and co-curricular activities for the students in view of their interests and importance and will also take care that the students have social, mental and other class, family or cultural inequalities, if any. Don't be unhealthy. (c) Grouping according to subject. A method or principle of grouping of students is also to take the test of their school's main subjects and divide them into different groups on the basis of the marks obtained, i.e. those with good marks. In one class, the average scorers will be admitted to another class and those with lower marks will be admitted to another class. This method is based on the principle that students who have performed well in subjects in the past will do well in the future. Therefore, in this method, the examination is conducted in the basic subjects of the syllabus and they are graded accordingly. This method of grouping can be useful for large groups as well as for small.

 

 

It is not suitable for beginners because the main importance is given to subjects in this type of grading.

 

An important point is that in this method students of the same subject ability are grouped together in each class, so one difficulty is that who can guarantee that students in the course of the academic year will The orientation standard of the subjects will remain the same as at the beginning of the year from which its grouping has been determined. A change in this will be necessary because naturally every student's development and reading speed is not the same. Therefore, this type of grouping, if on the one hand, is acceptable in terms of the importance of the subjects and the ability of the children, on the other hand, some basic psychological aspects are not taken into account. However, to make this type of grouping effective and efficient, it is necessary that:

 (1) Teachers are not only familiar with the subject, but have full access to it.

 (2) There should be sufficient provision of teaching materials and other facilities in the school, especially in the classroom.

 (3) There is diversity, innovation and breadth in the subject or curriculum of education.

 (4) Teachers can understand the competing needs of highly intelligent, average and weak students across subjects and manage them according to their own standards.

 

In other important principles, in addition to the above three types of important and prevalent grouping principles, other important issues such as collective consciousness, teachers' opinion, appropriateness of place and group interests, etc. are also taken into consideration. The concept of collective consciousness is that students Grouping  on the basis of their social or collective consciousness, but the difficulty is what would be a standard and reliable way to measure this kind of noise. Since the teacher can assess the ability of the students well, their opinion should be taken into account while grading. .

 

Another form of classification is students own interests. In view of this, different students are grouped according to their mutual relations, interests and hobbies. A student can join a group which can enhance his/her performance. Age is not considered in this. For example, a six-year-old child with an eight-year-old child and a ten-year-old child with a twelve-year-old child can be brought together if their interests are of a similar nature, and there is a modicum of mutual cooperation.

There are also practical difficulties in this type of partisanship. That is, how to identify different types of interests of different children. Apart from this, no grouping, if the appropriateness of the place is to be taken into account, it is necessary to examine the condition and facilities of the school building in detail. The rooms should be spacious. Adequate space should be provided for movement. Therefore, none of the above-mentioned principles can individually create an ideal situation on which to make group. If all of them are evaluated from a collective point of view and if they are taken into account in group formation, better results will be obtained.