London, December 8 (ANI): British primary pupils are to learn more practical skills involved in daily life while traditional subjects such as history, geography and religious studies are set to undergo a radical reform.

According to Sir Jim Rose, the study of information technology is to be given equal importance as literacy, foreign languages and numeracy classes in order to produce a curriculum suited for the 21st century.

Sir Jim said that the idea behind the educational reform, such as combining traditional subjects into a "human, social and environmental" learning programme, was to lighten the curriculum so that younger kids could learn fewer subjects in greater detail, reports Times Online.

The author of the interim report, to be published by the Schools Secretary, Ed Balls further added that there was a need to teach the conventional topics in a manner more relevant to young children.

He told the Times: "We are certainly not getting rid of subjects such as history and geography. We are trying to give primary schools flexibility to do less, but to do it better. The history they will be doing will be more in-depth."

Though some teachers welcomed the idea of having more flexibility in the system, others thought it 'could lead to a dilution of specialist knowledge'. (ANI)