By T. Fightingstar L Mawlong
The mediocrity of teaching that I see around and the continued low quality of education (from primary to college level) has long baffled me. I’m a teacher, and my inner being is pushing me to share my thoughts for “reinventing education” in our state. I think we would agree that a sustainable education revolution should begin with primary and secondary schools in every inch of the state. And to me, our priority should be to address the great rural-urban divide in standard of school education. If one visits the schools in rural areas one could see the lack of resources that are standard in urban schools like the new books, interactive learning tools, the musical instruments, sports equipment, conducive learning environment and efficient teachers. Many rural children are not fortunate enough to get the support they need which urban children enjoy. In fact, in many cases their upbringing is quite pitiful. The daunting statistics on primary education in rural areas is therefore a small wonder, and it implies a failure at all fronts. To reinvent our primary education, I therefore, propose a multi-pronged approach: (1) Mass awareness campaign (2) Political commitment (3) Administration, and (4) Internal reform. Since our schools have just re-opened, it is perhaps a good time to talk education.
Mass awareness campaign on quality education should be the first and foremost step. People in rural areas need to be sensitised of the importance of learning (not just schooling). Help them understand that merely putting their children in schools without making sure that children are learning is a case of “dumping and running.” It is very important that children learn the foundational skills and be well prepared for higher classes and challenges in future. Parents should understand the “challenges” as well as the “opportunities” in employment that comes with economic and technological advancement of a modern world. And above all the parents should understand the “right of their children” to receive quality education.
When people are aware and sufficiently inspired, they can be persuaded to involve more in children’s education. They would also understand the importance of their positive participation. For example inspired parents can go on forming a parent-pressure-group for periodically consulting the teachers and ensuring that their children are learning each day in school.
Also when people are charged up with full commitment to the cause of children’s education, it is only logical that they would want the government to be supportive of that education. Pushing the education agenda to political parties therefore become easier. Political parties could be made to clearly spell out their goals towards quality education. They could be pressured to clearly state their concrete steps in the one or two or three – years plan to improve learning outcomes. Let it be an important goal of political parties to increase learning efficiency by providing proper “support to primary teachers”, especially efficient ones, apart from input support. Legislation against “non-performing teachers” and the irregular teachers might be useful to have. To say the least, let there be political commitment to make high learning efficiency a “State priority”, and tough social goals for education should be set.
Examples of best practices across the country show that there’s a lot that the district administration can do to improve education in the district. For instance, Om Prakash Choudhary (IAS), transformed the most backward Maoist affected Dantewada into an education city that has launched many students to IITs, IIMs, etc. To improve primary education in the villages across a district, the DC office can initiate many “innovative” programmes. Just a thought, for example, a DC can initiate the teachers’ periodical convention in his district. These conventions would serve as a forum for teachers to share experiences, classroom techniques, create teaching and learning material or adapting materials and instruction aids to local circumstances, and provide mutual support. In these conventions teachers could be exposed to the best practices and current instructional methods developed elsewhere. Teachers should ‘be inspired’ to improve the learning outcomes in their schools with proper support from the Deputy Commissioner’s office.
But most important of all is a much needed internal changes in education system. This spans from curriculum, through instructional method, to the rules and regulations. Every school is a paradise for learning, but that’s true only when children are provided with resources and are properly taught. We should understand that in this age of Information Technology, without “skill sets” children will grow up to become a new class of useless individuals failed by the education system. I have a feeling that if the “business as usual” attitude continues then sooner or later we’ll have a generation that is losing faith and hope, and that would give up on the system that failed them. We will see the growth of population with nothing to offer to the society and no one in society to offer anything to them, except prison. Or perhaps that generation is already in our midst!
Indeed, there is no reason why we should stick with the redundant and confusingly cramped curriculum that has put our rural students at great disadvantage, but surely there are one thousand reasons why we need a new curriculum. Our school curriculum should be restructured along modern lines and challenges and perhaps less ambitious, but include the elements for instilling technology related skills. With a less ambitious and restructured curriculum there should be “ample space” for children to build their foundational skills through challenges and self discovery. For example, teaching computer coding to the computer-inclined-students and dumping into them bookish information is not as effective and interesting as providing them with resources for basic coding, instructing them properly, guiding them and letting them discover and learn coding through meaningful projects and challenges. Students should be provided with an environment to learn just the way they learn riding bicycles, or swimming. That is, to learn through challenges and self discovery. Or as someone said, “let the kids be kids”.
It is equally important to let students build their foundational skills at their “own pace”. At the same time it is important to see that no child is left behind at the end of the year. In this regard there is a need to push along “institutional support” for teachers to provide child-centred approach, giving “extra care” to slow learners.
I remember in school we are never encouraged to have any kind of “peer discussion” and “cooperative learning”. This is still true with most of our rural schools. As a result the importance of “peer tutoring” is not known to students in rural areas. Instead, the corporal punishment towards non-compliant and noisy students is quite a common incidence in rural schools. Why a corporal punishment when there are different innovative ways to discipline and guide students? Perhaps there should be sets of rules against actions like beating students with a duster, throwing chalk at students, etc that many teachers perpetrate against non-compliant students. We should know that a fearful mind can never learn effectively.
We should also change the way we evaluate students. The “schools’ evaluation technique” should aim at testing the foundational skills, thinking and creativity of a student more than testing the factual knowledge which only promotes rote memorisation.
Last but not the least, our primary school teachers should be trained properly, provided with in-service training and proper institutional support. Teachers should be instructed and inspired to keep themselves updated of the current instructional methods. They should be encouraged to use interactive videos to help students learn. In this regard the government can take the initiative to provide each school with professionally designed world class interactive videos, and videos for in-service training of teachers. The traditional teaching method of just dumping knowledge, treating children as empty containers into which teachers can dump information, should end.
If nothing is done today, then 20-30 years down the line would we dare to look into these youngsters’ eyes and say that we have done enough? It’s time for us to put our faith in children and to act. By strongly believing in them, we can trick the children into believing in themselves. And with that, the “education revolution” will be set into motion!