Our education
system suggests that the only thing we are fit for is training —
for something that others have already thought out in detail and worked
out as a training package.
 |
Prof
Yash Pal |
The title of my
article is a bit unkind, even a bit presumptuous. It implies that by
and large our education system is not quite in tune with parameters
of the Real India and, further, the education that we give is somewhat
ritualistic and remote from reality. This seems a rather irresponsible
generalisation in respect of a very large and diverse system. But the
sheer cussedness of much of what we do cannot be highlighted except
through such a generalisation.
I am aware of the
fact that we do produce some excellent people. I suggest that some people
would come out excellent no matter what the system, and often without
being touched by any formal system. The fact that in a country of 950
million we manage to select a few thousand individuals through a tough
and painful filtration process who, after their training as engineers,
migrate abroad in large numbers and prove reasonably successful, only
shows that in some of our institutions we don’t quite succeed
in demolishing everyone completely.
 |
Shailendra Pandey |
| |
It
is quite possible that Macaulay in the 19th century fortified
an inherent tendency of formal education in our society where
the purpose of education was not to commune with life, but to
acquire skills that could fit us in machines made by others for
their own benefit |
We are very far
from being able to provide universal primary education to our people.
Even if we were to open many more schools of the type we have now, this
situation will not alter in any significant manner, unless we simultaneously
make drastic changes in the teaching and learning system, as well as
the relationship of the school with its neighbourhood. Some justification
for this statement will be given below.
More than 50 of
a 100 children who enroll in Class 1 drop out by class 5, and 75 by
Class 8. Only 5 to 10 graduate from the high school while barely one
or two clear the plus two stage. Out of a hundred students appearing
for the hsc examination every year less than 50 pass! This goes on year
after year.
Whenever we look
at this data, we blame our teachers, bemoan the poor state of school
facilities, lack of parental guidance, poor textbooks, etcetera etcetera.
It has become mandatory
for students to take expensive tuitions or join not-so-cheap coaching
classes in order to get high marks. It helps a great deal if your parents
are well-placed and well-educated. If they can speak English, it is
an added advantage.
I suggest that
all these are just symptoms of a deeper malaise. Three years ago a committee
set up by the Human Resources Development Ministry submitted a report
entitled “Learning without Burden”. I happened to chair
this committee. The concern of the Minister was with the much talked
about burden of the school bag.
This report has
been widely discussed in a number of meetings and seminars. The Central
Advisory Board on Education held special meetings to consider the report.
Schools and teachers’ associations have organised discussions
and seminars. Questions have been asked in the Parliament about its
implementation and a special monitoring cell has been set up in the
ncert for the purpose. Yet no visible difference is seen in the operation
of the school system. Most children continue to carry heavy bags, the
syllabi have not been revised, teachers have not been given more powers
to decide what to teach when, the emphasis on rote learning has not
diminished, understanding does not have a premium, examinations, tests
and competitions still dominate a child’s existence.
Some people may
argue that learning is foreign to our temperament, that we belong to
an inferior species and that the only thing we are fit for is training
– for something that others have already thought out in detail
and worked out as a training package. It may be suggested that most
of our children are dull and, in any case, their living conditions discourage
an interest in things that are academic or reside in the world of concepts.
One might further argue that, being aware of this, the teachers also
emphasise rote learning and so do the examining bodies!
As soon as you
begin to equate rote learning with learning or understanding, it is
only a small step from there to come to the conclusion that education
need not be connected with specificities of the child’s environment
or even with any questions or answers the child formulates or derives
from her life outside the school. Indeed, in our studies we found that
most children believed that there are two kinds of knowledge —
one that has currency in real life and another that can be acquired
at school. This tends to complete the circle. A large fraction of children
find learning without comprehension burdensome and drop out unless they
are kept there through parental pressure or are lucky enough to have
exceptional teachers and a learning environment at home.
I sometimes wonder
whether our tendency to separate life from education is a cultural trait
coming to us from a distant past. In the Brahminical tradition of education
for the elite, we tended to divide life into periods: there was one
period when we only acquired education, and the rest were lived on the
strength of what we had learnt in that young phase. In contrast, our
society at large did recognise the importance of learning from the world
and experience, and that is why it kept most of its children away from
school!
Schooling was meant
to provide status without any need for physical toil, and without too
much contamination from the business of living. It is quite possible
that this inherent tendency of formal education in our society was fortified
by Macaulay’s design of our education system in the 19th century.
The purpose of education was not to commune with life, but to acquire
skills that could fit us in machines made by others for their own benefit.
Bereft of living challenges, our education has kept chasing tokens of
excellence that are evaluated with measures that are either mindless
— like distinctions based on a difference of less than half a
percent in aggregate marks — or borrowed from abroad.
It is a credit to
the resilience of our youth that some of them escape lasting damage
to their personalities. But many others with sharp perceptive powers
or unusual creative abilities regularly fail or drop out.
Most of the things
that define India are created and sustained by people who acquire their
sensibilities, skills and crafts outside our formal education system.
Most of the skills in our society are acquired by observation and experimentation.
I do not want to suggest that what people learn in this manner is all
we need. We do need new materials, new technology, computers and information
infrastructure. However, what I do want to assert is that it was foolish
on our part to separate the formal education system from those who are
close to the soil and work with their hands. We did this by not giving
any place in the curriculum to externally acquired skills, knowledge
and capabilities.
On occasions when
I talk of this to bureaucrats fascinated by imported-technology, they
tend to dub me as a romantic or accuse me of trying to obstruct modernisation
in the country. I maintain that we should in earnest begin mixing the
insulated and barren ‘know why’ that we try to dispense
in our educational institutions with the empathy and ‘know how’
acquired through actual work and the traditions embedded in our society.
Only then will we begin to produce inventors, engineers and scientists
of the highest caliber. That is how true modernisation will arrive.
Yash
Pal is National Research Professor, Government of India
