Matter of Concern

The happenings in the Northeast are very painful and pose a danger to the diverse culture of this country. But the real cause of the problem still remains elusive. Various commentators and political parties have blamed the changing demographic profile of the region arising out of the illegal immigration from across the border, while some other commentators and political entities have maintained that the change in the demographic profile is due to natural processes and is consistent with trends in the rest of the country. All these people have based their arguments on the data of the last three or four censuses. Political parties and others have interpreted data in accordance with their own ideology and interest. However, in all this one has missed the actual data. The role of the media, print as well as the electronic, has been disappointing in that they have not highlighted the accurate and unadultrated data for their readers to enable them to draw their own conclusion and question the politicians and other biased persons on their stand on the burning issue of illegal immigration. In my view, there is a general lack of accurate unbiased information for the enlightened citizens to judge for themselves the various issues and take an informed stand on these issues. It should be duty of the media to disseminate accurate and unbiased information and duty of each one of us to learn to interpret data accurately and free of bias and not fall prey to herd mentality so that future conflagrations of this type are avoided.  

Decentralization of School Education

It seems to have become an article of faith that many of the problems besetting our school system can be solved by decentralising and handing over the charge of schools to local communities like village panchayats.  It may be so but there may be pitfalls of which we must be aware.

The aim of education, in my view, is to make us better human beings.  To this end, it must help us shed our prejudices and superstitions.  It must promote equity and a modern viewpoint.  Above all, it must make us think rationally.  If we acknowledge these as the aims of education, then we must think seriously whether our village communities can promote this kind of education.  These communities are highly feudal and backward-looking.  Reports of persecution of young people at the hands of these communities in the name of preserving the honour and traditions of the community are disturbing.  There are also reports of rural schools in many states practising gender inequality and untouchability and other caste and religious prejudices openly or surreptitiously.   Unfortunately, our politicians, who can see nothing beyond votes, also pander to these communities.  Failure to eradicate child marriage and the practice of sati are cases in point.  In the light of these, do we trust that the education of children will be safe in the hands of village communities?  How can we ensure that children in schools under the control of these communities will not be taught obscurantist and obsolete values?  Until we have assurance on these points, I for one would like education to remain in the hands of authorities (District, State, or Central) who can ensure education that is liberal, enlightening and egalitarian.  To fight absenteeism and other afflictions of the school system, the administration will have to find other means.

Lest I be misunderstood, let me make my stand clear on decentralization of education.  I am not against decentralization per se.  All I want is that the control of education should be in the hands of people who can ensure liberal education for our children so that they can get rid of their prejudices and superstitions.  If village level communities can do it, it is fine with me.  But the events of the recent times, honour killings, throwing away midday meals prepared by Dalits, separate seating arrangements in schools based on caste and gender,  and several others of this kind, do not give much hope.  So, there is a need to think of alternatives. 

It is true that many district level officers of the Education Departments may be corrupt and they may not listen to the complaints of parents against the wrong-doings of teachers in their children’s school.  But, I am sure that if Civil Society put pressure on them, they would have to yield.  But will the pressure of Civil Society work on village communities bent on teaching obscurantist values?  If you go by reports appearing in the media, there is plenty of doubt if the pressure of Civil Society will work on them.  A district level education officer, however corrupt, is bound by the rules of the government, which, at least on paper, are secular and forward-looking.  For example, a government officer cannot sanction separate seating arrangement for children on the basis of caste, religion or gender. 

Beasts of burden

If learning in our primary schools were proportional to the physical load of books that children carry every day to school, then our children would be the most accomplished in the whole world.  Every day we see 7- 8  year old children, some quite frail, carrying heavy bags to schools.  Do we ever worry about the effect that these loads could have on their physical health?  Do their parents, teachers and principals worry?  Do education departments worry?  Even if we all do worry, we do precious little to reduce their burden.  There have been committees at the national level, consisting of prominent educationists, deliberating upon this issue, but the cruelty continues.

Educationists every where believe that the formal teaching should not start below the age of six.  In other countries they also practise this belief.  However, in our country, even in ‘play’ schools, teaching starts as early as four years, or even earlier.   It is not uncommon to see four years olds memorising alphabets, numbers and even tables.   They are also made to write these things, again contrary to the advice of educationists.  Does that make our children extra smart?  The answer is ‘no’. 

It is the obsession with early and ‘more’ learning that makes the school bag so heavy.  What is the typical content of the bag of a 8-year old?  A mathematics book, one or two language books, a book on environmental studies, a book on social studies, at least two notebooks for each subject, notebooks for art and craft, music, cursive writing, etc., lunch box, a pencil box and a water bottle.  The poor things carry all the books and notebooks, irrespective of the timetable, because the ‘mam’ may demand any book or notebook any time any day.  Also, isn’t strange that even the high fee-charging schools cannot ensure clean drinking water to children?     

I fail to understand why children need so many books.  At this stage, one  text containing lessons on language, environment, social studies, geography, etc., should be sufficient.  Even lessons in mathematics can be woven into the same text.  Experiments conducted by NGOs like Eklavya in Madhya Pradesh have shown that this can be done without compromising the quality of teaching and learning in schools.   Similarly, there need to be only two notebooks with sections for the various subjects, one for class work and one for home work.  When these notebooks  have been used up, they can be replaced by the new ones.  In addition, there need to be one more notebook for art, craft and music, etc.  And all the schools should be instructed to make adequate provision of safe drinking water for the children.  With these reforms, imagine the reduction in the load that children have to carry every day!  They would no longer be the beasts of burden.  As a bonus, the learning environment of the school may change for the better.

So, what prevents us from carrying out these reforms?  The lethargy of education departments, commercial interests of school owners, lack of interest of educationists, apathy of parents?  Perhaps, all of these.  But sooner the steps are taken to lighten the physical burden on little children, the better it would be for their well-being.

Many well-meaning educationists like Anil Sadgopal, and many friends with left-of-centre view have proposed that all children must go to neighbourhood schools.  They are not happy with the RTE provision that 25 per cent children from economically weaker sections be admitted to all public schools.  Their proposal is unexceptionable.  What can be more equitable than children of rich as well as poor parents receiving the same quality of education?  This would be an ideal state.  I have no doubt that all of us desire such a state.  But how does one achieve such an ideal state, because at the moment we are far from it?  First, the government (in the states as well as in the centre) has to make education their top priority, which it certainly is not at the moment.  Then it must open many more schools so that a government school is within the reach of every child; no child needs to trudge several kilometres, in fair as well as rainy weather, to reach a school.  Also, the governments must inject a massive dose of funding to provide necessary infrastructure in the form of buildings, toilets, safe drinking water, libraries, laboratories, telephones, computers and  internet connections.  If you look at the data collected by NUEPA for their School Report Cards, and also read reports that appear in the media from time to time, you will find that most government schools still lack adequate arrangement for drinking water, toilets, libraries and laboratories.  To expect audio-visual support for a proper teaching-learning environment in the form of televisions, projectors, computers  and internet would be a cruel joke on these schools.  I believe that these facilities are essential for optimal learning to take place in the schools.

It is because of this state of paralysis in the government schools, that private schools have come up in large numbers almost every where, from small town to metropolises.  This phenomenon is not more than 25 – 30 years old.  How the government school system has reached this state is not difficult to understand.  There has been, and still is, blatant interference by the political class and bureaucracy in all aspects of the system, including location of schools, appointments and transfer of teachers, release of grants and other administrative matters concerning the schools.  And while the private schools are mushrooming, the government school system has gone from bad to worse.  So much so that even those parents who can ill-afford even a modest fee prefer to send their children to a private school round the street corner, rather than to a government school.  Their perception is that at least the teacher comes to the class, and if she does not, they can meet the Principal and complain, and get their grievance redressed.  This is not possible in the government system.  Who would listen to these ‘uneducated’ people?  One big attraction of the private schools, specially for the lower middle classes, is that they are ‘English medium’ schools.  You would recall that in many states there is a strong demand from people for teaching their children through English and the state governments have not been heeding to this demand.  I am just stating a fact.  I am not passing any  judgment on teaching through English versus teaching through the mother tongue, or whether this fascination for English is justified or not. 

 

This being the state of affairs in the government school system, would it be wise to force parents to send their children to these schools?  More importantly, would it be wise to deprive a whole generation of children of a meaningful education until the government school system improves.  The resulting resentment, may be even rebellion, among parents cannot be ignored by any government.  Remember that by all accounts middle classes forms a sizeable chunk of our population.

So, what is the solution?  My own view is that first of all we stop looking at the education system through an ideological prism; neoliberalism/socialism debate is not going to be of any help.  Let us be pragmatic.  Let us support efforts of people like Anil Sadgopal towards the ideal of a common school system.  Let us also keep exerting pressure on the government to improve their system.  However, until the government schools have achieved certain minimum standards, let the parallel system of private schools continue.  To help the parents who would like to send their children to fee-paying schools, the government can adopt the voucher system, or some other system of grants.  I believe that when parents perceive that the government schools are as good, or better, than the private schools, they would shift their children to government schools.  When this happens the private schools, at least the street corner ones, will start vanishing from the scene.   Providing a better alternative is always a superior strategy to forcing people to shun a certain system.  

When I say that government schools are in a bad shape, I do not mean that there are no good government schools.  Surely, there must be many good schools.  Our endeavor should be to identify such schools and use them as showpieces to force the government to bring other schools also up to their standard.  Similarly, there must be a large number of teachers in the government school system who are competent, creative, innovative and hard working.  However, a bad system kills their creativity and inventiveness.  If we can spot such teachers, we must help them to keep their qualities intact even while working under difficult conditions. 

Ideally, the private schools should be run by philanthropic institutions on no-profit-no-loss basis so that they charge only that fee which is necessary to provide the requisite infrastructure in the school for a modern, liberal and purposeful education.  The job of the government should be to regulate and see that children receive education which is modern and liberal and not sectarian and obscuratist.  The government must also ensure that the schools appoint trained teachers and give them freedom to be innovative and creative and that they have a decisive say in the formulation of syllabi, textbooks and other learning material and should be involved in drawing up of local curricula.  Experts should be there only to guide them. 

 

To oversee the functioning of schools and local education departments, the government can constitute district/regional  level Academic Support Groups consisting of schoolteachers, parents, teachers drawn from colleges/universities in the area and a few concerned citizens (not with political affiliations).  The aim must be to provide education which helps us shed our prejudices and superstitions, which promotes equity and a modern viewpoint, and, above all, which makes us think rationally.  In my view, the very survival of our country as a modern and secular state depends on the kind of education that we provide to our children.