Promoting Equity in Science Education

1A few suggestions for promoting equity in school science education:. 

                     1.       Reduce syllabi considerably at all school levels.

Reduced pressure of syllabi will give students more time to devote to  fundamental concepts and skills (measurements, drawing and interpreting graphs, etc.).

It is well known to educationists that no worthwhile learning can take place if students do not get time to pause, observe, reflect and imagine.  We also want students to be able to apply the knowledge that they acquire to unfamiliar situations.   For this the thinking skills of students must be sharpened.  To do that they must be given enough time.  This entails that the syllabi must be cut down.

Once the fundamental concepts and skills are properly learnt, the rate of learning can improve in higher classes, since college-going students can take higher pressure. At present students going out of schools have neither grasped fundamental concepts nor have they learned necessary skills.

Pruned syllabi will give more time to students from weaker sections to cope with schoolwork, thereby helping promote equity.

In any case, the conditions in India are so different from one part to another, that it is not possible to imagine that all the schools in India can come up to the same level of achievement.  Keeping equity in mind, it is necessary that the school syllabi at all level be pruned considerably.   

2.   Language of science books should be simple.  

If language of books is difficult, science becomes doubly difficult.  First, the student must comprehend the language and then the concepts expressed in that language.

Every writer of school textbooks should pause at each sentence and question herself, maybe more than once, if she can replace this sentence by a simpler one.  We cannot avoid technical terms, but we can certainly  strive to make the language connecting these terms as simple as possible. 

If the students do not understand the written word, how would they understand concepts of science expressed through these words?  And if they do not understand concepts of science, they would fall back upon rote learning, whereas our objective is to make students think and be able to apply what they learn.

You must have seen the reports that India is falling behind other nations in innovations.  Even much-admired IITs are not doing very well when it comes to innovations.  The reason is that the overall rate of literacy is low and the quality of our ‘literates’ is quite poor.  

Poor language skills of textbook writers and that of students promote rote learning . On top of that, there is little visual support in class rooms. The result is that students stop thinking.  They are unable to apply their knowledge to unfamiliar situations.  Under these circumstances, how can one think of innovations?

One hears complaints from some states (Uttrakhand, for example) that the language of books translated into Hindi is quite difficult.  My request to the lovers of Hindi and other languages is that they should temper their enthusiasm for the language they love and make the language of textbooks easy-to-understand and child - friendly.

The use of simple language makes subject matter accessible to all and thereby contributes to equity.

For full Power Point Presentation, visit:  www.schoolscienceguru.com