EDUCATION
Hi-tech deluge
ALEX GEORGE
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With the mad rush for technical streams in higher secondary schools of Andhra Pradesh drowning out the Humanities, what does the future hold for the state’s socio-cultural system?
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Photos: P.V. Sivakumar
Will success be mine?: Students and parents throng one of the centres of the IIT-JEE in Hyderabad.
Another academic year has started in the senior secondary schools and junior colleges in Andhra Pradesh without the humanities stream being offered to students at the plus two level. This is probably the appropriate time to rethink and plan to correc
t this grave anomaly at least from the next academic year.
The plus two level, which follows immediately after schooling, lays the foundation for higher education in humanities as in the case of other subjects. Humanities are defined here broadly to include what is traditionally defined as ‘Arts subjects’ consisting of the Languages and the Humanities and Social Sciences, which concern the individual and society. Languages would cover the literature and linguistics of Indian and international languages. Rest of the Humanities and Social sciences include a broad range of subjects such as Economics, Political Science, Sociology, Anthropology, History, Law, Psychology, Performance Arts including Music and Dance, Fine Arts covering Painting and Sculpture, Journalism of the print and electronic media and several other sub-disciplines that have developed from these subjects. Semantics on the specifics of this definition is immaterial here as the issues faced by them in AP are common to all of them.
Gold rush
There is a mad rush for the technical streams in Andhra Pradesh: either for the Maths, Physics, Chemistry (MPC) combination or for the Biology, Physics, Chemistry (BPC) group. This is followed by the Commerce stream, with a sprinkling of Economics for a theoretical base. Needless to add, MPC is aimed at the Engineering line, which can lead to a career in the IT sector mainly. BPC takes one into medicine and other biological sciences including the pharmaceutical sector, biotechnology, genetic engineering. Both these streams offer the prospects of various high paying jobs to students who pursue them. Commerce is seen as an entry point for chartered accountancy and management; but the latter is also increasingly becoming an essential add-on for the engineers, which will pump them up from technocrats to techno-managers.
For those pursuing technical streams in AP, the plus two itself has lost its significance; their main interest being the coaching for IITs and the other engineering and medical schools. As a result, corporate educational institutions have taken over coaching for the entrance exams and plus two education by offering integrated courses catering to both. Two birds at one shot! These centres charge exorbitant fees and impose gruelling discipline on children, apparently “to extract the best”. Currently this Andhra model is being effectively exported to other states too. Andhra’s coaching corporates have established their strong presence even in Delhi.
Classes in the AP coaching centres start at 4.00 a.m., forcing even students staying in hostels in and around these centres to get up as early as may be 3.00 a.m. to get ready. Day scholars and their parents have to get up even earlier, as they have to travel. The classes go on till evening with a heavy load of homework, which goes late into the night.
Students who enter these centres are not expected to ‘waste time’ reading even newspapers, listening music or watching TV. Nothing should distract from gaining entry to the portals of technical learning, which will ensure their passage to the U.S. or other western countries or at least land them in the Indian and foreign IT industrial enclaves operating within India.
What effect have these waves of globalisation and techno-managerialism had on Humanities and Social Sciences in the State? Solving this puzzle was very easy for educational policy makers, principals, parents and children alike. Together they decided that there was no great philosophical or policy issue involved. Andhra just closed down the humanities stream at plus two level in its schools/junior colleges!
None of the good schools in Hyderabad offer humanities and social sciences for plus two students any more. Neither is any good student in Hyderabad opting for nor is allowed to opt for humanities. School managements say that there are no takers for humanities courses in AP. “Those who cannot do the technical streams do commerce.” Humanities are not considered the natural choice of an intelligent student. Asked to explain the lack of interest in humanities in the State, some school managers and principals shrugged it off as a question, which sprouted outside the accepted frame of reference of Andhra society.
Deeper issues
This phenomenon of social rejection of Humanities raises several deeper issues. First of all, from the perspective of the student, is the almost unanimous choice of technical streams based on their aptitude? Isn’t it largely due to parental pressure and a tendency to flow with the current? In this connection it needs to be pointed out that according to Article 28 of the UN CRC states should encourage the development of different forms of secondary education while Article 29 mentions that states should take the necessary measures so that education is directed towards the development of the child’s personality, talents and mental and physical abilities. As per article 31 of CRC, states should also recognise the right of the child to rest and leisure, to engage in play and recreational activities and participate freely in cultural life. UNCRC defines all those who are aged up to 18 years as children. India is a signatory to CRC from December 1992.
The Directive Principles of state policy of the Indian Constitution also bring out clearly in Article 39 (f) that children be given opportunities and facilities to develop in a healthy manner and in conditions of freedom and dignity. In the light of the UNCRC of which India is a signatory, and the directive principles of the Indian Constitution, it is the responsibility of the Andhra Pradesh Government to provide opportunity for higher education in humanities to interested children and to curb the tendencies that deny them rest, leisure, recreational and cultural activities.
The other major issue, which emerges in this context, concerns the overall sustenance of Andhra Pradesh as a socio-cultural system. Can a society sustain itself holistically with just the professions attached to the technical and commercial disciplines? Won’t the State at least require teachers to teach Telugu, English, History, Civics and Social Studies in high school? The nationally accepted minimum qualification for teachers in high school is graduation in the same subject/language, with a B. Ed. If the present phenomenon is allowed to continue there won’t be any graduates in languages and social sciences in future due to the wholescale foeticide of these disciplines at the plus two level itself.
Would the future society of Andhra Pradesh not have any place for writers, economists, historians, sociologists, anthropologists, political scientists, public administrators, lawyers, psychologists, media persons, painters, sculptors, musicians, dancers and similar others ? Contrast the emerging situation with the stalwarts Andhra has produced in the field of Humanities: C. Narayana Reddy, the Jnanapith Award winning poet; B.P. Jeevan Reddy, the former Supreme Court Judge; C.H. Hanumantha Rao, the former member of Planning Commission ; C. Rammanohar Reddy, Editor of Economic and Political Weekly; K.G. Kannabiran, Human Rights lawyer and activist; P. Sainath, Magsasay Award-winning journalist, M. Balamuralikrishna, well known Carnatic music exponent, and Raja and Radha Reddy, the Kuchipudi dancer. The list goes on.
Won’t the state want to add to this illustrious list of contributors to the humanities? Humanities need to be remarketed in AP, highlighting the career options it offers.
The author works with Save the Children, Bal Raksha, New Delhi.
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