Patricia Mukhim
That education in Meghalaya has hit rock bottom is no state secret. The saving grace is that this issue was brought to the State Assembly for discussion. It’s one of those rare occasions when primary and high school education is being discussed thanks to Dikkanchi D Shira from the Treasury bench who raised this issue. But more than a simple question- answer session in the House which is forgotten once the session is over, what is required is more hard work from the Opposition to pursue this matter further so that corrective measures are in place. The elected representatives would be doing no favour to the several lakhs children of this state if they leave the issue to be tackled by an otiose bureaucracy which has also been a part of an unimaginative education system and is therefore hesitant about introducing innovative learning methods. But why blame the bureaucracy when the political masters don’t seem to care? And why do the political executives not care? That’s because their children – nearly all of them – don’t study in Government or even private schools in Meghalaya. Most politicians we know, are sending their children to study abroad or in the more developed states of the country. Those whose children are still studying in Meghalaya are in the posh English medium schools. So what we’re doing by electing MLAs is to give them and their children a better deal to seek their educational fortunes elsewhere. Within the State, politicians pull strings to get their candidates appointed in Government run schools irrespective of whether they have teaching skills and qualifications.
The infamous case of the white ink used to erase the names of qualified teachers and push in sub-standard political acolytes is the reason why education is in such a sorry state today. Sadly it takes so long for any citizen to get justice in this country. Although the CBI report has all but indicted the then Education Minister, it is ironic that no action has been taken. But then why do we wonder? Isn’t the Home Minister who is the subject of a raging controversy vis-a-vis sexual escapades in his son’s guest house, still so well protected by the Government of the day? And why? Your guess is as good as mine! That’s how politics works.
Now coming back to Education which is the burden of this article we would like the Government to reply if it has a clear and transparent Education Policy that we can critique and scrutinise. We recall that a white paper on education was proposed and the paper widely circulated in 2008-09. We are not sure if that paper was finally adopted and what are the key features of that Policy which was much discussed by different stakeholders in education at that time. Is that the same Policy that the Government has adopted and is following or does the MUA Government have a fresh policy that it did not even choose to make public?
What is appalling about the discussions on Education in the Assembly is that the Minister in her response stated that “low intelligence” is one of the reasons for high drop-out rates. Does the Minister know that she is insulting the children of this state by making such a preposterous claim? Probably the ‘educated’ Minister knows more than many of us as to what constitutes ‘intelligence.’ To blame ‘low intelligence’ for a complete failure of the Government to provide the wherewithal for a sound education actually speaks poorly of her own intelligence as well. If I were in the Opposition I would have asked the Minister to define intelligence for the MLAs in the House to better understand its meaning. Even the excuse of repeated failures is a badly trotted one. Why do students fail repeatedly? Is it their fault or the fault of the teachers and the education system?
That students in Meghalaya still lack access to education because they live in far flung villages indicates that while MLAs and Ministers have progressed in their lifestyles and have the best of creature comforts there are many children out there who have a great desire to study but have to traverse miles to get into a school. Do any of the MLAs representing such back of beyond constituencies, ever point to the need for schools in their constituencies? No they don’t because most of them are well settled in Shillong or Tura, Jowai or Nongstoin. Show us one MLA who still resides in his constituency on a permanent basis? That is the disjuncture we need to talk about. It’s pointless electing an MLA who only makes a flying visit to his constituency to patronise his voters once in a while!
That the Education Minister admitted to the lack of trained teachers is a good case in point. How many hands-on training institutes for teachers do we have in Meghalaya? How many refresher courses do teachers attend in a year? Who evaluates whether they use the teaching-learning techniques that result in better learning outcomes? Do teachers learn anything from children? If not they are missing out a great deal. And yes like the Minister, most teachers also consider children to be lacking in intelligence merely because they have failed to tap that intelligence. The other erroneous meaning of intelligence is the ability to learn by rote. Most teachers love students who simply vomit out the notes given to them. That’s what they term as “Intelligence.” But let me call on all those who wish to better understand the meaning of intelligence to read Howard Gardner’s books – Multiple Intelligences and The Unschooled Mind. They might then rethink the way they define intelligence.
A simple definition of Intelligence by Wikipedia says, “A very general mental capability that, among other things, involves the ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learn quickly and learn from experience. It is not merely book learning, a narrow academic skill, or test-taking smarts.
That poverty is one of the reasons for school drop-out is an issue which again testifies to the failure of successive governments to tackle poverty in a state whose people at one time started out from the same point – they were egalitarian in ownership of resources and sharing of such resources. In our case the state and the custodians of our culture have been responsible in defrauding us of community resources. Why, for instance should a water source or a catchment area be sold to a private person with wealth? The result is that the poor now have to buy water which was a community resource in a tribal society. The very fact that young people both male and female have to walk long distances to fetch water in the early morning hours before coming to school is draining their energies should not be lost on a perceptive teacher. Then child labour also deprives kids from enjoying their right to education, despite the Right to Education Act.
There are several other issues that plague education in our state such as the huge numbers of students who opt for the Arts and too few for Science and Commerce when statistics show that Arts graduates remain largely unemployable. There is also this social construct that tribal children are inherently weak in Mathematics and the Sciences when the problem lies in the way Mathematics and Science are taught. It’s the pedagogy that matters. Howard Gardner has mentioned that children learn their mathematics better if it is linked to the rhythmic beats of music. Considering that tribal children are by and large very musical would a new teaching method not break the jinx about Mathematics being a subject beyond our ken? All we need are teachers who are empathetic. Indeed empathetic and cooperative learning is what we should be promoting today rather than individual excellence.
More than the students it’s the MLAs who should be better educated on the ills of education in Meghalaya. Intelligence is innate and not an acquired trait. So much for low intelligence!