The Hindu : Opinion / Leader Page Articles : Schooling in rural India

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jan 11, 2005

Opinion

Opinion - Leader Page Articles

Schooling in rural India

By Krishna Kumar

One must ask why India can meet global standards in civil aviation, software, and defence, and not in its provision for rural children.

IF YOU were a rural parent, you would see little point in most of the news reported in the media on matters of education, including some of the controversies and debates concerning ideology in textbooks. The urban world, in which middle class children routinely move on from one level to the next, and eventually seek admission to a college, dominates current reporting and writing about education. Little does it bother anyone that millions of village children cannot complete eight years of elementary education. And those few who do, have very limited chances of crossing the high hurdles of Class X and XII examinations.

No one can say with certainty what proportion of those who appear in these examinations from rural centres succeed and with what division. Pass percentages are not calculated separately for rural and urban schools, and research which might provide such differentiated awareness has not been done. An NGO report has estimated that out of every 100 village girls enrolling in Class I, just one survives in the system to reach Class XII.

Surely the NCERT (National Council of Educational Research and Training) is aware of this sordid reality, one assumes because it was set up to provide a scientific basis for changes in policy to enable the system to universalise. That was way back in 196l, the year after the first deadline given in the Constitution for universalising elementary education had passed. The NCERT that I was asked to run four months ago looked rather difficult to recognise in terms of its original memorandum, which I assiduously read as an outsider wanting to make sense of my new job. Research in all aspects of children's education was its primary mandate, especially research that might encourage innovation. Building new capacities in the States and modernisation of teacher training were among its other main objectives. It was expected to collaborate and cooperate with other institutions sharing these goals. A huge infrastructure was provided for, and academic autonomy was enshrined in its rules and regulations.

The NCERT where I was appointed in September was rather different. It was mired in controversy over its textbooks and other publications. Internal division, professional frustration and cynicism characterised the mood of its staff, most of whom had surrendered to a bureaucratised, top-driven mode of serving, without the expectation of being treated with personal and academic dignity. Senior staff was divided in two categories: beneficiaries and victims. The expectation was that members of the two categories would exchange places under the new regime. Institutional structures were in a state of disrepair from disuse or blatant abuse. The highest ranking governing body of the Council had not met for nearly two years. Office spaces looked lavish, but tatty curtains hung in the library. Its borrowing counter bore the look of a small-scale cloth merchant's shop. Seeing it on my first morning, I felt sorry for the NCERT's founding visionaries who wanted this library to serve scholars from all over Asia.

The council was under media glare, but not for these and other depressing facts. The evening I joined, the electronic media were after me, interested in just one question: "What were my politics?" For a minute, I entertained the illusion that the young newswomen and men chasing me had read my Political Agenda of Education, a study of colonial ideas, which was to appear soon in a revised edition. Alas, their interest was in contemporary politics and their sole motive was to sensationalise my appointment.

In mid-November when the plan to review the National Curriculum Framework was announced, I met the press and found it stuck to its September mood. Even The Hindu correspondent was reluctant to believe that the names of members forming the steering committee under Professor Yashpal had not been vetted by the Ministry of HRD. Later on, when members of 21 National Focus Groups were announced, the media did their best to ignore the professional stature and backgrounds of the people involved: R. Ramanujam for Mathematics, Arvind Kumar for Science, Gopal Guru for Social Sciences, Mrinal Miri for aims of education, Padma Velaskar for Dalit and tribal children's problems, and so on. Not only the names, but the new concerns to be addressed by some of the focus groups were also ignored.

Thus, committees such as those on art and music under Shubha Mudgal, heritage crafts under Laila Tayabji, educational technology under Vijaya Mulay, systemic reforms under Shanta Sinha, environment education under Madhav Gadgil, and peace education under Valson Thampu, all received a cursory glance, arousing little faith or enthusiasm in the public mind. The characteristic media gesture was that of refusal to recognise the concern for rural education reflected in the choice of stalwarts such as Acharya Ramamurti, Meena Swaminathan, Jyotibhai Desai, and Anil Sadgopal. The presence of teachers in every committee was also ignored. Other than the exception of The Asian Age, the entire press saw nothing noteworthy, and even Doordarshan did not respond to repeated requests for organising a discussion. A month later, when a public school boy used his cellphone to disseminate salacious pictures of a classmate, Doordarshan woke up to the news value of education and asked me to appear for an interview.

Sceptics and critics will undoubtedly continue to see politics in everything. The NCERT's own institutional recovery will determine its ability to serve India's children with policies and practices of unquestionable quality. And the struggle against poor quality is not confined to the teaching and textbooks of History. Hundreds of errors have been spotted in the textbooks of all subjects, including Science and Mathematics, by quick review teams. These mistakes are being corrected, but the challenge of producing child-friendly books is larger and different. It requires a new mindset, both within the NCERT and outside. The NCERT's insularity from the deep transformation India is going through is a major source of its pain. The educational visions of Gandhi and Tagore point towards the linking of schools with work and nature. This is where the key to reform lies.

The exciting edge of the challenge is in rural schools. More than a century ago, Phule wrote in his moving appeal to the Hunter Commission (1884) that conditions in rural schools were terrible. They still are and in certain respects the gains made during the first 40 years of independence have been frittered away. The move to professionalise school teaching, recommended by the Chattopadhyaya Commission (1984) has been all but given up. Teacher training has remained moribund, and commercialisation is the only change it is going through.

In the context of curriculum, ideological concerns have come to centre-stage, and few are bothered about the burden of dullness and irrelevance they impose on children. Children have no opportunity or space for hands-on experience. Something as basic as a geometry box seems a luxury for a girl or boy studying in a village school. Enthusiasm and imagination are conspicuously lacking in the services provided to village children. The health and pedagogic needs of rural families typically constitute an afterthought or a politically correct embellishment, even in key orbits of policy implementation, such as the inclusion of rural themes in textbooks, supplementary reading material for rural libraries, teacher-training syllabi and handbooks.

In all these matters, which constitute the frontier of educational services, the specific requirements of rural education are quite poorly appreciated. The joyful experiences we take for granted in an urban context — painting, solving a puzzle or looking through a prism — are a fantasy for a rural teacher to organise. Absolutely basic teaching aids such as maps, dust-free chalk, and globes, are not available in primary schools. Nor are the teachers mentally prepared for running activity-centred classrooms. All this can, of course, change if we decided to view the political potential of education as a tonic for democracy, not as a poison of social enfeeblement and dissonance.

Many argue that India cannot afford an enriched school environment in its vast network of rural schools. This financially pragmatic line recommends the patronising provision of stingily paid para teachers and tattily printed textbooks. The reports of such programmes are, of course, printed on heavy art paper to impress donor agencies. One must ask why India can meet global standards in civil aviation, software, and defence, and not in its provision for rural children.

Then, within the professional world of education, there are debates about what comes first: ideology or quality. Few appreciate the fact that the lack of professionalism is what permitted the recent vulnerabilities to grow. In the process of curriculum review currently under way, critics will be the best guides, provided they participate with an open mind.

Education cannot be reformed without a consensus on priorities, and the focus of the current curriculum review is on a systemic aberration with which it is hard to disagree: namely, the problem of burden on children. The Yashpal committee had concluded more than a decade ago that education becomes a joyless burden in our schools because the quality of our curricula, texts, teaching and examining procedures is so poor. There is now an opportunity, under Professor Yashpal's leadership, to reform these weak areas of our system.

(The author, until recently Professor of Education at University of Delhi, is currently Director, NCERT.)

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Opinion

News Update

Stories in this Section

ADVANTAGE UPA

WHERE IS PRABAKARAN?

Schooling in rural India

Ageism affects young and old