This year, we turned 66-year-old as a Republic. Pertinently, we have added a feather to our proud cap with the unprecedented august presence of a Yankee President, Barack Obama (deemed to be the most powerful in the world), having graced the ceremonial Rajpath Parade as our nation’s honourable Chief Guest, also unprecedentedly breaking his own nation’s Secret Service protocol (attending an open air function excess to the American mandatory protocol of maximum 40 minutes).
Apart from that, we have already carved a niche and have been installed in the global hall of fame as a scientific and technological giant incredibly taking recourse to indigenously-built devices astonishingly affording low costs. Notwithstanding that, a momentous study has ironically earned us a dubious distinction and may shockingly deter us for earning a rave review with respect to the sorry state of affairs concerned with our posterity-our very own budding human resources. A significant survey released recently with its dismal findings has major implications for the future of our matured republic.
Facilitated by NGO Pratham and conducted by local district-level organisations, it is the tenth such survey called the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER)-2014. The ASER is the largest, most comprehensive annual household survey of children in rural India. The ASER-2014 reached 16,497 villages and about 5,70,000 children were covered.
The good news breaks that most of our budding generations go to schools now as the enrolment in our State-run schools stands at 96 per cent. Other good news includes a ‘functioning mid-day meal’ (MDM) programme (in over 85 per cent of the schools) and improved infrastructure. Around 75 per cent of rural schools have drinking water while 65 per cent have toilets, significantly higher than the previous five years.
However, the bleak picture mocks at us from within the four walls of our school classrooms. A case in point is the (bad) quality of education allegedly being imparted as per the revealed results of ASER’s latest survey accessible to in its public domain. Half of the students in Class V are amazingly unable to read simple sentences being taught in Class II. It is also queer to notice that half of the kids in Class V are unable to work out the basic two-digit subtraction taught in Class II, while the students of Class VIII shirk from doing simple division that is taught in Class IV.
The million dollar question here arises: In what way are we intending to groom our precious human resources so that we can take the world in our strideIJ Is it our sole intention to be jubilant at the trajectory enrolment and MDM figures at the cost of the core job-the abysmally plummeting standard of primary and secondary educationIJ Needless to talk of higher education founded on such a fragile foundation. Does literacy means just being able to write one’s name, or is it enabling our kids to fluently read, cozily write and aptly solve basic arithmetic problemsIJ
Adding more years of education to such students will only prove to be a national waste. If basic skills are not learnt from the cradle, we will be virtually the living-dead citizens of a ghost republic. More regretfully, our so-called intellectual and political debates have allegedly been condensed to the paranoid personal and political level boxing rings.
It is high time we should be alerted against such a time bomb of human mediocrity to explode and rip us apart. let us put our shoulder to the wheel of reforming the rural education now at the earnest. Here are some workable proposals. First, using of technology. In view of dearth of good teachers, a few schools in the same area can be bunched up and use a combination of virtual classes (conducted by more senior teachers) and physical classes (with less skilled teachers). A significant efficiency can be gained. A national classroom won’t work given early education requires individual attention. But, local clustering using technology will work well.
Secondly, having the reporting systems. Opening a school and admitting students is not enough. like any service provider, it needs to run well on a daily basis. Tracking actual change in skill level of kids, rather than counting bodies in the building, will go a long way. For this, centralised technology can be used. Third, change of the class-and-grade-based system. The Class I to XII system may not work so well for early years. Unless a student has basic skills, he or she should not be sent to higher classes. While nobody wants to stress little kids with examinations and tests, we have to create hurdle markers based on actual learning in the early years.
Fourth, modifying the course content. Our course materials are outdated. The rote learning we subject our kids to not only prevents grasp of a concept, it allows students to keep moving up the system despite not gaining any real skills of comprehension or logic. Suggestions and solutions from scores of brilliant brains in our country need to be roped in at the earliest. What is most warranted is a yen and yearning among ‘we’— the citizens to address what is most important rather than what is sensational. let us keep it in mind that more than half of our students are ‘not even being half-educated’.
(The writer is a management expert based in Bhubaneswar)