Request: Read PS first.
Traditionally the education systems
have been designed to impart the 3R’s to the students. Developing the reading,
writing and arithmetic skills were the basic objectives of school education.
With the emergence of “global village”, where the competition is no more
between one city and the other or between one state and the other – but between
nations spread across geographies – it is essential to redesign the pedagogy to
adapt to the changing demands. There is a new need for developing young minds
that will be – ready to compete with anyone in any corner of the world; tap on
the millions of opportunities thrown open by the connected world; free from any
kind of dogmas; and ready to lead the world.
Tamil Nadu has allotted about
Rs.17,000 Crores for education this year. But there are no new schemes. The funds
have mainly been allocated to the existing programs like – Sarva Shiksha
Abhiyan, Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan, providing drinking water supply
and toilet facilities, cash incentives to students in classes 10, 11 and 12, supplying
textbooks, laptops and educational accessories, etc. But there is not talk of
changing the teaching methodology or changing the syllabus to suit the global
requirements. The thinking has been reactive and conservative; rather than
being proactive and progressive. At best, the theme seems to be “status quo”.
Many a survey has repeatedly
highlighted the pathetic quality of education in our country; and the state. In
the Class I-VIII level, it is absolutely shocking to note that the education
quality in Tamil Nadu is worse than even Bihar, a state that is usually
perceived to be very low on developmental benchmarks. Further, it is deplorable
that Tamil Nadu’s performance in education is poorer than the country’s
average. (see graph). Just to draw further
attention to the lamentable state of affairs in the Tamil Nadu, it has been revealed
in the ASER 2012 (Annual Status of Education Report) that about four out of ten
Class VIII students cannot read even a
Class II textbook. Added alarming feature to this is the fact that even the
private schools fare no much better. As
if these failures were not enough, it is also heartbreaking to observe that
there has been practically no improvement in the quality of education – over
the past five years. Such statistics make us wonder if we really have a functional
education system at all in our state. What is happening to the ever-increasing
funds allocated to education? What are we doing with the young minds?
While on one hand the state boasts of
high industrial growth and marked performance in various human development
indicators – the quality of education in the state has been consistently
falling. This is a ticking time bomb. The effects of poor quality of education
will start to show up over the next decade – exactly when more and more
opportunities will be available for the competent youth across the globe. Being
an intensely linked world the opportunities will casually flow to the regions
that offer the right talent pool – just like water flowing from a hilltop to
sea. There is no stopping. We cannot be in a state of denial about our failures
in school education. This is the time to act. The state has to entirely revamp
the existing system of education while bringing out new models to let the
children and youth realise their true potential.
Redesigning the pedagogy:
We do not have the luxury of time to
plug the loopholes in the existing system before moving ahead with a proactive
and progressive system of education. Everything has to be done; and they have
to be done simultaneously. There needs to be a radical shift in the way we see
the objectives of education. It is no more 3R’s. The futuristic education is
about 3C’s – creation, collaboration and communication.
The fertile minds of the children
should be let loose to challenge all limits. Only when the barriers are
demolished – we see something new; we create. The world is in the need of
innovators. Our education system should be tuned up to roll out more and more
of innovators – not just memory machines. The focus should not be on making the
students run behind marks that are usually got by mechanical memory of facts
and opinions. Right from the childhood the ultimate importance should be on
fostering creativity.
There should be special importance on
team work and getting the best results delivered as a group. While individual
thinking is very important, the children should be made aware of the real world
where nothing happens in isolation. Any great success has been a result of
solid team work. This sense of group work and coordination should be a part of
the child’s personality. The world is getting more and more connected with
every passing day. This only increases the need to have a set of competent
youth who are ready to collaborate with anyone sitting in any corner of the
world.
In this world of Facebooks and
Twitters, cloud computing and virtual conferences – where the predominant
communication happens over the internet or the mobile network – steadfast efforts
should be made to develop the communication skills of the youth. Even today
English language is seen as a resource of the elite; it is seen as the
privilege of the convent students; English language proficiency is often
mistaken for wisdom and knowledge. There should be a fundamental shift in this
thinking. The children should be made to realise that language is just a tool
for communication – it is not an end in itself. Once this idea is engrained in
the minds, not only English, the kids should be exposed to even other dominant
languages of the world like Mandarin, French etc.
Any future education system should be oriented to conquer the world, and
the 3C’s should form its bedrock.
Actions for change:
To overhaul the systems the immediate
task at hand is to bring about a change in our mindsets. We should throw away
our obsession with quantity and start looking at the aspects of quality. Merely
making a child sit in a class room is no more enough. What is going to matter
is if she is able to get any long-lasting benefit out of the hours spent in front
of the black board. There should be a paradigm shift – from merely throwing
money into the system and expecting mediocre results to creating a vision for
excellence in education and relentlessly pursuing it; from just focusing on
pass percentages and other statistics to ensuring the quality of what enters
the tender minds.
Another drastic change that is
required is the way we see education. Education, especially at the school
level, is not merely about teaching the children to read and write. It is predominantly
about how do we – identify their talents and make them excel in those areas;
instill in the tender minds the zeal to perform; develop the quest for
knowledge in them; make them global citizens who are ready to take any
challenge head-on.
Following the shift in our thought
processes we should immediately set out to fix the ailments; simultaneously we
should be developing new models to make the students ready for the future. Some
pointers:
- Education
department should be directly under the supervision of the chief minister.
- Total
focus on quality of primary education. Strong
foundation goes a long way.
- Quality
of education in the government schools should be better than the private
schools. We should bring about to change to such an extent that, at the primary
level, a private school will be no match to a government-run school. (In the mean time, RTE should be strictly enforced. Presently, 60% of all students from Class I-V are in private schools.)
On Teachers:
- Numbers: The
ideal teacher-pupil ratio has to be maintained in all schools. (Only 50% of the
schools meet the norm now.) Lateral entry is to be permitted in the teaching
profession. Anyone clearing a basic test of teaching skills should be allowed
to teach. This will open up the avenue of thousands of professionals from other
fields who will be interested in teaching.
- No to politics:
Dismantle all the teachers’ unions. Teaching profession should be treated as an
essential service akin to the contribution of doctors and police.
- Fixed tenure: No
teacher should be allowed to continue in a school for more than 3 years. Clear-cut
policies have to be put in place. The transfers and postings should be
non-negotiable.
- Core job: Teachers
should be relieved of all the miscellaneous duties like elections, census,
flood relief etc. The only goal of teachers should be – to teach.
- Carrot and stick: Serious performance monitoring of teachers has to be carried out.
Consistent laggards should not have any place in the system; steady performers
have to be rewarded.Quality: Regular
trainings should be given to the teachers. International exposure should be
given to 1000 teachers every year.
On Curriculum:
- Total revamp: We
should go back to the drawing board and completely redevelop the syllabus to
meet the demands of future. School education syllabus should be free from
politics and populism. There should be a certainty of syllabus and various
entrance exams. We should acknowledge that the present state government
syllabus has failed to produce impressive results for our students in any
national level exam. We are not even
making our students competitive at the national level, when there is a real
need to equip them to grab the opportunities presented by the opened-up world.
- No single size:
Learning should be based on the interest and potential of the students. We should
constantly remember that no two individuals are alike. Technology can be
leveraged to design programs that will make each student to learn at his or her
own pace.
- Holistic: The
focus should be on all dimensions of talent and personality – and not just on
the conventional understanding of school education.World class: The
strengths and weaknesses of the students should be systematically analysed
right from the early days of schooling. Necessary assistances and special care
should be made available to ensure that no talent is left ignored or untapped
for want of funds. Further in these matters the notion of “quality” has to be
world-class. For example, if it is noticed that a student shows extraordinary
potential in music – the government should take special steps to send her to
the best music school in the world or get the brightest tutors to hone her
skills.
- P2P: Peer-to-peer
learning has to be promoted. Such a model will not only ease out the resource
constraints but as well cultivate team work and bonding among the students.
- Real-life: For
students till Class VIII at least one field trip should be organised per
quarter. Exposure across various sectors like government hospitals, industrial
units, ports etc should be given to the students. Rather than using only the
textbooks to develop knowledge, the children should be made to learn from
real-life experiences.
- Integrated: Many
of the students are not able to integrate what they learn separately under
various subject heads like Physics, Maths, Chemistry etc. We have to develop
superior models where the importance is on learning a concept in its entirety
rather than dissecting something into many segments and teaching them
individually. Theme-based education is important; subject-based education has
to be minimised.
- India first: Patriotism
and civic sense should form an important part of the curriculum.
Role of parents: We should gradually ensure that a
parent does not feel the need to send the child to a private tuition. (One out
of every five students is having a private tuition now). Only in case of
students with reduced learning ability special centres have to be run by the
government. It
is seen that many of the parents are not even aware that their kids are not
getting quality education. This scenario should change. There should be
frequent parents-teachers interactions; technology can be leveraged for this.
These have to be supplemented with
the other existing programs that increase the affordability, accessibility and
availability of education.
(I had written this piece in May 2013; it is seeing the light of the day only now. Over the past four years my writing has slightly improved, though not in the 'articles' and 'prepositions' area. But most of the facts of the article hold good even till date, sadly.)
All views are personal, then and now.
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