We do not need any more surveys or expert committees to tell us that India has an education crisis. What we need is an action plan to bring about million mutinies in our schools to completely revamp our education system.
Unfortunately, education is not on India’s national agenda. In January, we had the annual ritual of unveiling of Pratham’s flagship programme, Annual Status of Education Report (ASER), which brought the same old shocking news of our children in rural schools not learning - government or private. Of all children enrolled in standard V, about half cannot read at standard two level, about half do not have the basic skill of doing simple subtraction operations.
Since 10 years, the country has been learning about the same dismal scenario of failing schools from Pratham. This year for the first time, Pratham report places the blame at the failure of first and second standard schooling. Surprisingly, Pratham has failed to discuss the problems of pre schools which should have laid a strong foundation.
In initial years, Pratham concentrated on pre school. However, later it expanded its operations to impart remedial education and in recent years on vocational education and other programs. It has outsourced pre schooling mostly to other institutions like anganwadi. Most of these government institutions are even less equipped to carry this important function.
Research has shown the critical importance of pre schooling. Even the Kothari committee had recommended one to three years of pre schooling way back in 1964. At least, the government should have taken up the challenge of providing one year of kindergarten in the schools. This is not because of lack of resources or lack of awareness of the importance of pre schooling. It is a well documented fact that anganwadis are unable to impart any kind of meaningful pre schooling. Still, there is no movement to start kindergarten in government schools when most well managed private schools always have kindergarten classes.
Harm of examination
From the first day of the school to the last day, every activity in school is influenced by examinations. Entire education system is driven to score high marks and secure ranks in the exams by students, parents, teachers and administrators. As a result students are motivated to take additional tuition which prevents spending time on activities which can enrich their learning experience.
Convinced of the harm of public examination, Central Board of Secondary Education has made taking 10th grade exam voluntary - step in the right direction. Easily more than 15 per cent of school time is spent on examination related activities. This is unproductive. In Montessori and Krishnamurthy education system, examinations are given no importance. At one stroke government can eliminate public exam. But will it?
Today, teacher transfer in government school is a big industry. Why should teachers be transferred, a remnant of British Raj? When teachers are appointed on a permanent basis to a school, they will have every incentive to improve the education standards. This decision is also easy to implement if we dismantle the entire edifice of over centralization of education system. Such decentralisation by having independent school districts will have far reaching impact to promote million mutinies.
Finally, the most important factor is to attract talented graduates to education sector, giving them regular training, and holding them accountable. Today, no teacher is fired for incompetence. There is no accountability. Salary paid to teachers do not compare with other professions despite their critical importance to development. In Finland, teachers are paid high salaries and teaching is most sought after profession. The result is the excellence of students.
There are millions of well educated housewives in urban and semi urban areas who can take up the challenge to get involved. The government can start a scheme of recruiting such graduates to go to nearby government schools and start helping the teachers. Pratham through its balawadi programme has been doing this on a small scale. But we need to expand it on a giant scale to reach the tipping point to have an impact. In conclusion, we as a nation should be ready and concerned to put education on the national agenda on a war footing as the most important topic. Are we?