Getting involved in activities outside of school can help international students meet new people with whom they share interests. You will improve your social skills as a result. Extracurricular activities also help students expand their networks, which is beneficial for finding career opportunities after graduation. For example, if you join an environmental group at school, your peers might go on to work for environmental organizations. In the future, you could use one of those colleagues as a reference when you apply for a job in that field.

Extracurricular activities can add more personality to a résumé and improve the quality of the student’s overall job application. An employer might be more inclined to request an interview. For example, if a student was heavily involved in their college debate team, it might showcase their leadership potential. This means that you showed initiative to go “above and beyond.” It also means that you have some communications experience that might become relevant to the position.

To face the challenges of 21st Century, education should be competency based and Principals as Pedagogical Leaders must create conducive environment for development of competencies among the students. Competency based Learning focuses on the student’s demonstration of desired learning outcomes as central to the learning process. Learning outcomes are statements of what is expected that the student will be able to do as a result of learning the activity. In a way learning outcomes are statements of what a learner is expected to know, understand and/or be able to demonstrate after completion of a process of learning. Therefore, the focus is on measuring learning through attainment of prescribed learning outcomes, rather than on measuring time. Experiential and active learning are the best pedagogies for Competency Based Learning. Experiential Learning will promote critical thinking, creativity and effective study skills among students. Learning Outcomes approach developed by NCERT for classes I-X may be adopted by all the schools and teaching-learning process may be changed in the light of these outcomes. The schools are expected to have well-defined Learning Outcomes for every grade that are observable and measurable, and empower learners to focus on mastery of valuable skills and knowledge through these Learning Outcomes, deemed to be essential for success in life. It is expected that teachers will provide meaningful and joyful learning experiences to the students by adopting variety of innovative pedagogies or instructional activities and go beyond textbooks. Schools are expected to track the attainment of Learning Outcomes by each learner and ensure that no child is left behind. CBSE will also come out with suggestive mapping of learning outcomes with NCERT curriculum which can be adopted/ adapted by schools. CBSE will also map each learning outcomes with assessments to enable tracking of learning progress. Schools should also attempt this on their own.