By TFL Mawlong
As we’ve seen, our matriculation pass rate has been averaging around 55% for the last ten years. While the statistics are disheartening enough, there is a more fundamental problem here. Evidence suggests that even high scorers and rank holders have been victims of ‘Swiss cheese learning.’ Though their learning appears to be perfect from the outside, their education is ‘full of holes.’ Our flawed education system has been masked by the exams that have been so dumb, to the point where a student can get a perfect score in science or mathematics while having no real understanding of the underlying concepts.
It is easy to rail against the poor pass percentage. But I’ll go a step further and say that even the most successful students benefited greatly from the customary grace marks. For many teachers, passing the marginal students, or inflating student scores to 60 percent or 80 percent etc., may seem like kindness or simply an administrative necessity. In effect, however, it is a disservice and a lie. We are effectively telling students that they have learned a lot and are ready for more difficult topics in higher classes when in reality, there is a huge learning gap, and we are preparing them to fail to even understand what is going on in higher classes.
The issue is no less acute at the college level. In this rat race for NAAC grade, at times, things resemble a circus. Colleges are becoming busier holding cool, superficial, and sometimes pretentious programs, workshops, and seminars to create the ‘illusion’ of work and progress while blatantly ignoring the serious problem of ‘learning poverty.’ If you don’t believe me, consider getting into any college for a full year or two before a NAAC peer team visit.
So, how do we plug the holes in Swiss cheese Learning? Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad, on whose birthday, November 11, we are celebrating National Education Day said, “We must not forget, it is the birth-right of every individual to receive at least the basic education without which he cannot fully discharge his duties as a citizen.” I’ll go so far as to say that “learning is a birth-right of every individual.” We may have granted many people the right to education, but what about every student’s right to learn? How many of us care whether the students are learning?
It almost appears like a circus to see many schools and college teachers holding a placard with the caption “SAVE CAMPUS, SAVE EDUCATION, SAVE NATION, DISCARD NEP” and going social on the last Teacher’s Day. Is this a joke? Do we not see the learning poverty in schools and colleges? The current educational system, which is based on the 18th-century Prussian model (you can Google it), has not been fundamentally rethought in more than a century. Today, the system has become so heavy with orthodoxy and rust that it suffocates genuine creative efforts for change and for improving learning outcomes. The current system was created in a world without global inter-connectedness, DNA awareness, computers, the internet, or artificial intelligence. Today the world has moved on, and we must reimagine education. If you ask me, NEP 2020 is a refreshingly progressive framework with one foot out of the old, even though it is still fundamentally based on an old model. Is NEP 2020 the panacea for education’s ills? No one can be so certain. But, does NEP represent the best opportunity to move us away from the current state of ‘learning poverty’ and toward learning for everyone and everywhere? It most emphatically does.
Rather than resisting the new progressive change, or waiting for some magical change to happen to us, or for ‘experts’ to tell us what to think, believe, or do, I would like to see us pro-actively welcoming the new framework with curiosity, courage, and creativity. Stakeholders must delve deeper into the chaos that has pervaded our educational system for decades, and the NEP 2020 should then be creatively implemented.
In the long run, however, genuine change in education will not come from the old world leaders, or armchair experts and public administrators, or a static government policy. No, real change will come from the ripples we-the many of us-start spreading in the water–from our willingness to embrace the necessity of change, perhaps beginning with the Assembly election in 2023.
Maulana Azad can serve as an inspiration to the youth with political aspirations. At 35 years Azad became the Congress party’s youngest leader. He helped to shape many policies, particularly those relating to education, in the constituent assembly. And throughout his 40-year public career, he was the most outspoken advocate for a high standard of education across the country.
Meghalaya requires such political stalwarts who can advocate for high educational standards and will not compromise on that front. Meghalaya urgently requires an elected body capable of dealing with educational issues. However, the mere presence of bureaucrats or academicians in a political party does not imply that they can effectively come up with a visionary educational policy. We must tread carefully. We have too few true academicians. We must identify them from among a sea of pseudo and anti-academicians who have no vision, no proper understanding of education, and teach rote learning their entire lives.
A political party that includes some educational visionaries (not necessarily academicians) has the potential to become knowledgeable about and pay attention to educational issues. Such a party when elected would also be strong enough to push for much-needed educational reforms, most likely against the teaching community’s resistance.
The political parties of Meghalaya have one year to analyze and research educational issues, train political leaders on educational issues, and develop the best five-year education plan. This time, as citizens, we will scrutinize each political party’s manifesto on education. Simply including a positive statement about education in their manifestos will not suffice. We need to see more than just a statement. We need to see a strong emphasis on the educational roadmap and value of innovation, details of the plan, and an honest attempt to quantify additional investment and funding in school education. We need or to see a hope that you can take us out of learning poverty.
And while we’re at it, do we really need an elected body that can’t even agree on a simple and proper district name? Sure, the new district is in the ‘Eastern part of West Khasi Hills,’ but by that logic, it is also in the ‘Western part of East Khasi Hills.’ Geographically, it is the central part of the Khasi Hills. And if Markyrwat is called South-West, Mairang district is more like North-East. Why should it bear the name of ‘West Khasi Hills’ just because it was carved out of the West Khasi Hills District when it is going to be a full-fledged district of Meghalaya like all other districts? While the rest of the district names have geographical significance, this one is more ‘socio-political.’ The perplexing mix-up in the name ‘Eastern West’ reminds one of a ‘transgender joke!’ You know, a complicated ‘it’ outside the ‘He’ and ‘She.’
After 50 years of statehood, problems have begun to mount, and lack of creativity for a solid educational framework complicates these problems. May Maulana Azad’s legacy in education inspire the next lot to lead our state wisely and progressively after 2023.
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