By Umashankar Joshi
Talking of reforms in education has become the armchair chess game of educationists. Education Committees and Knowledge Commissions will make recommendations moving the white pawns.
Academicians and educational administrators will checkmate all reforms by positioning the black horse. This game goes on year after year damaging creativity and development of human potential to serve the vested interests of uniformity, mediocrity and status quo protagonists.
Learners are viewed as subjects and not as clients. In the industry of education, the teacher is put on the pedestal of the customer and any reform will have to first satisfy this stakeholder. The key to unlock the reforms stored in the reports of various expert authorities lies here. My learning from the stint in educational field reveals that teachers and academicians are major bottlenecks for reforms. Government, budgets and infrastructure are minor factors which can be augmented. The boulder which refuses to move is the human stakeholder in education.
If the “guru” initiates and spearheads the reforms, the “raja” will bless and the “shishya” will be empowered. I base this observation from the successful experiments of institutions established by progressive trusts/societies and by privately funded and self-financed institutions of learning from primary level onwards to technology and research. There are also exceptional and differently focussed institutions either owned by government or receiving public grants, though very few in numbers. It is the pro-active academic community of these institutions that has made the difference without waiting for any fiat from the government.
I am aware that reforms need additional resources and higher budgetary outlays. But, I can also say with confidence that mere financial outlays unaccompanied by enhanced involvement at the ground level for achieving the goals would only result in piling up unutilised, underutilised and idle infrastructure. I also say without hesitation that even under existing outlays reforms are possible because even at present there is excess capacity in institutions of learning.
Despite recommendations in galore, education is hijacked and repacked into an exercise of term-end or year-end examinations. Emphasis shifts from learning and acquiring knowledge and skills to getting through an examination. Examinations are viewed as God or monster. Teachers, tutors, tuition-masters, parents and students are all sweating to overpower this monster, sacrificing skills and creativity and in the end butchering the joy of learning. The pre-occupation and probably the only occupation in educational institutions are examinations. We can at least start to make evaluation an integral part of learning at non-terminal stages of different levels of education. If this is done, it would provide tremendous scope for holistic learning and sharpen the streams and veins of thinking of the teachers and the taught.
Curriculum reforms and upgradation has come to mean packing new or current content along with retaining the old one. The methodology of learning stands adamant. This obstinacy only results in rote learning and memorisation. If education has to impart skills and inculcate values, then the objectives of curriculum, methodology of teaching and evaluation mechanism should be skill formation in the form of writing, speaking, numerical, drawing, painting, theatre, vocal, analytical, communicative, investigative, problem-solving, interpretation and values such as creativity, courage, self-respect, self-confidence, tolerance, sharing, decision-making, independence, secularism, democracy, scientific temper and self-learning. Any part of the curriculum or methodology of learning and evaluation, which is unrelated to skills and values, needs to be deleted and ejected out of the system.
I feel we are too rigid in our package of courses/subjects offered to students. We have our own perception of what a student should learn and hence we have a set of subjects/courses – fixed and compulsory.
Part-time education is a system to take care of industrial workers, SC/ST and backward classes who cannot attend school and who balance between learners in school and learners at workplace. A full-day school is not an option still to be examined, it should have happened yesterday. It is needed for intensive academic interaction, extension activity, overall development and enrichment through sharing. Presently, teachers and students are together on the school campuses for not more than 160 days in a year. Our schools, though full-time in theory, are part-time in practice. Our school buildings, classrooms, libraries, laboratory rooms, sports rooms and playgrounds resemble crematoriums or cemeteries after the half-day school hours. Soft skill development, career counselling and health/lifestyle training can happen through a full-day school.
Skill development courses with basic formal components to cater to the manpower needs of the informal and unorganised sector are an emerging need. However, this has to be coordinated by a wing other than the Department of Education and would need trainers of a different type.
Reforms also involve clipping, trimming, weeding and renovation. We comfortably avoid treading in this area in the name of serving underprivileged students and parents. The horns of the bull are actually the issues of surplus teachers and not the poor students. The surgery has to be performed on institutions wherein the student strength is abysmally low and where the infrastructure is below the minimum needed levels. This applies to schools as well as departments at higher education level. Redesigning of courses, evolving short-term programmes and placements-linked approach can improve the functional utility of ‘dying’ departments and if this cannot be done, then mercy killing is the answer. Even otherwise, internships and placements should form a compulsory part of not only technical but also higher level general education.
Every year we find spectacular and eye-catching improvement in the infrastructure and hardware of temples of worship in every nook and corner. But, leaving aside a few exceptions, the environment in temples of learning is deteriorating. This shows the priorities of the society to worship, vocation and education.
The costs of providing education are very high mainly because of the salaries of teachers which surpass the market rates. This has happened due to State funding and ownership of salaries. However, the effectiveness of these inputs is lower than the market expectations. Cent per cent salary funding was put forward as a boon to education. It is turning out to be its bane. INAV