Education of the state

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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”.


                                                    (Courtesy: The Hindu)


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.
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(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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