Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Part III : A No Win Situation


As per Lord Wiki:

no-win situation, also called a “lose-lose situation”, is one where a person has choices, but no choice leads to a net gain. For example, if an executioner offers the condemned the choice of dying by being hanged, shot, or poisoned, the condemned is in a no-win situation... In a less morbid example, if one has a choice for lunch between a ham sandwich and a roast beef sandwich, but is a vegetarian, that might be considered a no-win situation.

So, how is it relevant to any discussion on Indian education? Frankly, I don't know. Just a thought came as I began to write this piece. As they say, 'soch kahin bhi aa sakti hai.'

So here it goes... Part III of this series and the second reason why students and parents get disillusioned and disengaged with education.

Who wants education anyway? We have all heard romantic stories about really under-privileged and deprived people cutting all corners (which is ridiculous as many don’t have any corners to cut, to start with!) to pay for the nearby private school fee in the hope of educating their kids. My kaamwali bai spends half her salary on the school and tuition fee for her two children!

Do these people actually care for education? 

Nonsense. All they want for themselves and their kids are three things-
  1. Paisa (money)
  2. Izzat (respect in peer group/society)
  3. Taraqqi ke asaar (hope of future growth)
And before you frown at the over-simplification, hang on a moment. These very things may be true even for you and many of us more elitist ones too.

Coming back to my point, people by-and-large really don’t give a damn about education other than the fact that education seems to be their only hope for above three. So, when a family cuts on its meager rations so that the child can go to school, the father is actually praying that his son/daughter will one day make more money than he ever did, will have greater respect in society and will grow up into someone they can all be proud of some day. These are the three, and maybe only three, wins which matter in the game of education.

Alas! The God of education in India seems to be deaf to most of these prayers. And how…

The right to education (RTE) has two fundamental, and apparently well-intentioned provisions-
  1. That no kid can be ‘failed’ up to class 8th irrespective of the fact whether he has attained the learning proficiency levels for that class or not.
  2. That every child has to be taken in his ‘age appropriate class’ whether or not his learning level matches with the requirement of that class. 
Now, the arguments in favor of above (the child does not fail but the system fails him, failing leaves indelible psychological scars on the child, and the like) are obviously noble. The question is how (or who) is this sensitivity and concern helping? The combined effect of above two manifests in many ways, which can hardly be called desirable by any yardstick-
  • While we have an acute shortage of good teachers, the fact is that even the best teachers are bound to be challenged in our system. Any teacher, when given a class of 50 students spread across 5 different academic levels, can find himself out of depth.
  • The teacher, not able to teach and not allowed to fail, goes through the motion (there goes your teacher motivation). He barely covers the course, gives a few questions and their answers for the students to cram and reproduce in the ‘exams’.
  • A kid in class 7th (say) who is actually at class 5 level and is so completely overwhelmed by the syllabus finds escape in cramming those questions and the sham continues. There is no challenge, no engagement, no success and no failure!
  • But only till class 8th! Come class 9th, and our kids fail by scores and eventually drop out of the schooling system (middle school drop-out rate in India is more than 80%)
In this scenario, what is the chance that our children will learn any meaningful academic/ vocational/ professional skills? Can they hope for any kind of economic returns out of this kind of ‘schooling’? Can they hope to attain growth and social status through this education? Are they being prepared adequately to make a responsible contribution for themselves, their families and to the country?

Finally, do we actually believe that mid-day meals, school toilets, direct subsidy, and what have you (though all arguably positive, sensitive steps) will compensate for above?

The truth is that people don’t care for this sham. Indians are tough people. They don’t necessarily want it ‘easy’. They will any day take a tough game with an even and fair chance of meaningful rewards. 

However, to the utter misfortune of this great nation and its people, the ringmasters of education in their convoluted wisdom have ensured that there is no way people are getting their three victories (paisa, izzat, taraqqi ke asaar) through education. They have made education a game that nobody can possibly win.

Or maybe someone is already winning, just not the one you expected??!!

Friday, February 6, 2015

Part II : For Whom The School Bell Tolls?

Ernest Miller Hemingway : 1899-1961
Nobel Prize winning American author and journalist Ernest Hemingway, known for works like A Farewell to Arms, For Whom The Bell Tolls and The Old Man and the Sea, was a master of telling tragic tales in his economical and understated style.

Indian school education is also a tragic tale, albeit being told quite extravagantly.

Why India needs to educate its some 25 crore school kids is a question which does not need any scholarly deliberation. The Internet is full of information, conclusions and rhetoric on the subject. In any case, it all boils down to (and variations of) -
  • Industry needs it… how else are we going inculcate higher order skills among our workers and be more productive, profitable, and competitive in the market place?
  • Country needs it… is there a better kindling to fuel the economic engine, really?

  • World needs it… courtesy (as I heard Shekhar Kapoor say at a forum) our failed family planning program over last 30 years, we now have a demographic dividend… Meaning we have crores of able bodied, young people even as most advanced countries have an aging populace (poor suckers are being penalized for such sins as great health services, higher life expectancy, social security, etc.)… Meaning that we will be the global suppliers of blue-collar workers in times to come… Meaning, if our kids are not educated, it will cause serious inconvenience globally.

Uneducated Indians are a big nuisance. And since nuisance value is often the most urgent and compelling value, crores of our uneducated kids have suddenly become very valuable. No wonder everyone is talking about Indian education. After all, this is about human resource of the future!

Now, here is a term that I love for its in-your-face honesty and transparency – Human Resource. It does not try to camouflage anything. The operating word here is RESOURCE, which to my mind is something that can be drawn upon, used and consumed to create wealth and benefits… for someone else because the resource itself is obviously getting consumed!

And that, gentlemen, is the first reason why all our efforts on education are failing. Looking at our kids as 'resource' we simply never asked what the children themselves and their families might want from education. What could be their motivations, limitations, concerns, rewards and benefits?

Needless to say that we are paying a big cost of not paying enough attention to this seemingly small aspect. All our education programs, investments and implementation efforts are going horribly wrong with we being absolutely clueless!

Consider this broad scenario-
  • As per ASER 2014, enrolment up to primary level has come to 96%. However, the kids are not learning anything worthwhile. Data also says that student attendance is falling. The question is that those who are coming to school, why are they coming and what are they doing there? There are some pointers-
    • Incentive such as mid-day meal and other enticements/motivations (state specific) play a big part.
    • Small kids going to school bring peace to home for morning domestic chores and hence mothers are motivated to send them to school!
    • The school itself is by and large a jolly good time for kids with teachers hardly present or interested in teaching.
    • But most importantly, at this level, the basic learning outcomes are visible to the parents even if they may not count for anything much in ASER or PISA surveys. For example, kids learn reading and writing in the native language, and basic counting and arithmetic skills start showing up in a practical sense – recognize and count money, check correct balance when a small item is sold/purchased, etc.
  • Things become interesting when these kids come to class 6th.
    • The studies start becoming more serious and involved. Since, as ASER report suggests, they have not learnt anything much till now, the going gets impossibly tough for most of them.
    • Even though RTE ensures that they can’t be ‘failed’ and made to repeat a class till 8th, the experience itself is exasperating for many children and demotivates and disengages them from education.
    • The futility of it all starts dawning on the kids as well as the parents. They start feeling that even if they drag up to 9th, they are sure to fail there and, in any case, passing 10th is a very bleak possibility.
    • In our system, employment and employability is practically out of question for someone who does not have a 10th pass certificate. This is the basic minimum eligibility for almost every job in private or government sector. Without this certificate, one can only hope for low or semi-skilled self-employment.
    • In such a scenario, the sooner one learn the tricks of any vocation that comes his way, the better it is. School appears a waste of time and drop out rate start mounting. In fact, data suggests as high as ~80% drop outs during the middle school years in India!
    • Onset of puberty also adds its twist to the whole equation. Girls start dropping out due to social and practical reasons (no toilets in schools, for example), and boys start dropping out as the family can definitely use another bread earner.
Unfortunate as it may sound, the fact is that, for most of our kids there is an opportunity cost of time spent in school. A poor child (and his parents) who can’t see how his education might translate into economic benefits and a better life in current and foreseeable future might be motivated to opt for menial work, which gives him money here and now.

Frankly, for all the global and national brouhaha, education is a luxury many can’t afford.

Sunday, January 18, 2015

Part I : Playing Ball With Education


The season of education surveys and ensuing debates is here again!

The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) of 2015 (actually ASER 2014) has been released. We may subsequently have NCERT’s National Achievement Survey (NAS) followed by endless studies on surveys and then endless debates on the studies on surveys!

Let me, therefore, not get into data and analyses, which are available all over the net for anybody’s sumptuous consumption. Let me also state upfront that I feel ASER, NAS, and many other surveys-studies (govt, private, desi, bidesi, Harvard and by others) are doing a brilliant job of showcasing the dismal state of affairs in education. 

However, as we have seen over last couple of years, numbers and percentages may change a wee bit but the overall absurdity and gravity of the situation remains the same. Hence, I can’t help thinking that we are just glorifying the ignominy of superficial manifestations of an otherwise fundamental malaise. Great reports, animated discussions and impressive graphical representations of the symptoms are good only thus far and no more.

I am immediately reminded of the 2011 Hollywood flick Moneyball (which by the way is a true story) 


In the movie, Brad Pitt playing Billy Beane tells his team of baseball scouts who are trying to replace players (and we may replace everyone from school peon to HRD minister!) “…guys you are just talking… talking la la la la la la like this is business as usual. Its not… Forget solution. You are not even looking at the problem.”

... Then Billy Beane found Peter Brand, the Yale Economist and baseball analyst, who told him, “Baseball thinking is medieval. They are asking all the wrong questions, and if I say it to anybody, I am ostracized… I am a leper…”


And viola! Together in 2002, they changed the game of professional baseball once and forever! (You might see the same principle visible in Rajasthan Royals victory in the first IPL season!)

The point is that when the thinking is medieval and outdated, no amount of expertise and analysis will yield answers. My guess is that Indian education thinking is medieval and regressive. We are asking all the wrong questions. And then obviously getting all the brilliant but essentially useless answers!

Take our key question for instance-

Q : How can we teach for better outcomes?
A : We can’t because we don’t have the money, teachers, school accountability, etc…. QED!

I think we might have asked this question for far too long. And we are stuck in the rut of the same answers again and again.

WE want to teach for BETTER OUTCOMES obviously for US (as in the custodian, designers and managers of this education system). Not for students, not for teachers, not for parents but US. Naturally, why should anyone care? And when the lead actors don’t care, wherefrom the results?

Further, when most people look at education, they look at the huge amount of investment it will take, the unavailability of teachers and infrastructure and the like. When I look at education, I see an imperfect understanding of how teaching-learning will happen in today's world and in the future.

Maybe we need to ask a different Q. For instance, how can some 25 Cr kids be motivated/empowered to learn? The question could be a game-changer. It might open whole new set of interesting possibilities!

So who are these 25 Cr kids anyway? A majority of them might be scattered over the geographical, social and economic diversity of India. Many of them come from poor, rural or semi-urban backgrounds and would be comfortable only in their native language.

What these kids might want from education? Here is my take on what may motivate them-
  1. Students and their families should see clear returns/results/outcomes for themselves… There is an opportunity cost of time spent in school. A poor child who can’t see how his education might translate into economic benefits and a better life might be motivated to work for money here and now.
  2. Studies should be challenging but with a fair chance of success… I have seen this again and again in my experience of working with school children. However, for the kind of instruction they get, no wonder they view it as a no-win situation.
  3. With the penetration of TV, kids are largely aware of and are exposed to modern technology even if they themselves have little access to it. For instance, they are learning more from TV than any books or teachers. And access to Internet and other digital platforms is only increasing. This is a generation, which will learn from technology. Telling mode and textbooks are passé. This is a digital, do-it-yourself generation. We will have to give the power and freedom of learning in their own hands.
  4. Good quality audio-visual instructions facilitated in small groups will work wonders, that too in local language and close to home. This whole pre-occupation of getting kids to school needs to be re-examined. In any case, we have 97% enrolments! So what?

I think we have played the game our way for too long. Now is the time to look at the whole business of education through the eye of a child. Who knows? It may even be a child’s play then!

Sunday, January 11, 2015

Save Us The Super Brilliance Of The Precious Few

Times of India, Delhi, 11th Jan 2015

I quite love the presentation and analysis of this article. In fact, if one thinks about it, the conclusions are quite stark and hardly surprising.

So, what does it mean? Does more equality mean less creative brilliance, innovation and enterprise? Absolutely not! However, what it suggests is that only when we have widespread creative brilliance, innovation and enterprise so that the terrain is not monopolised by so few, that we will have equality.

What it may also mean is that the presence of a few extremely brilliant super-achiever individual icons could be an indicator of a largely mediocre and sub-optimised social system. For a system to develop as a whole, it needs to continuously produce newer icons in more numbers and frequency so that monopolies can't set in.

But do societies have weapons to deal with this situation? How can we make creative brilliance, innovation and enterprise a norm rather than a random, rare happenstance as it seems to be at the moment?

To my mind, that weapon can only be education. An education that reaches every child and strongly inculcates in her the values of free thinking, innovation and enterprise from a very early stage. It definitely cannot be the prescriptive indoctrination which is often passed off as education, howsoever well meaning it might be.

Obviously, such an education as needed will not be in the interest of the present day powerful and brilliant masters of monopolies. In which case, will such education get the policy support, investment and the encouragement it will need to develop? 

Well, the writing on the wall makes a sad reading but there is a hope in the ubiquitous, democratic ways of modern technology and internet, provided they themselves are not monopolised!!


Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Please Listen To Shri Batraji...

Times Of India, New Delhi, 28th July, 2014

Shri Dinanath Batra of RSS, and of Shiksha Bachao Andolan fame wants NCERT to replace English and Urdu words from the text as it makes learning difficult and may explain why students are losing interest in reading.

And God willing, he will succeed in his crusade for he has the right credentials. After all, he was the one who got Wendy Doniger's arguably questionable book on Hindus banned in India.

While its not for me to question the merit, logic and rationale of such assertions about choice of words in NCERT books and their impact, which I leave to respected and credible pedagogues and ideologues such as Shri Batra, some questions do come to mind-
  1. How many people have actually learned words like mushkil, dost, gussa and shararat from NCERT books? Or from any book for that matter? Haven’t we all picked them sub-consciously in homes, on streets and through movies, etc.?
  2. How many kids read these books anyway?
However, I feel that in the general interest of peace and decorum (I refrain from saying ‘save the unnecessary blushes’), it just might be a good idea to make these changes in NCERT books. It will do either of the two things, both beneficial-
  • One, the quality of text might actually improve as proposed by Shri Batra and more and more kids will discover the new joys of reading, for the material would have become easier, relatable and generally more enchanting to young readers... Everyone wins!
  • Two, the books in particular, and NCERT in general becomes even more irrelevant to the kids ushering in the death of a dream by blowing the myth off a menace. That might be a small price to pay for learning an important lesson. Again everyone wins… Even bigger this time!!

So, with all humility, pragmatism and deference, I suggest that we should agree to Shri Batra’s recommendation and urge upon NCERT to do the same. I see only the upside to this argument.

The best is that unlike most and bestest of arguments, there is absolutely no downside to this one, given that now and in times to come kids are going to rely more on internet and Google Dev for information - which is free, democratic, dynamic and convenient - than on silly, cumbersome books - which are boring, prejudiced, static and doctored.

Please do listen to Batraji, I beseech!!

Thursday, March 6, 2014

Quality of Education : Misplaced Priorities & False Beliefs

Couldn't help but putting together two different but somewhat related eye-catchers from yesterday's and today's ToI. 

First : A GoI Ad, yesterday

ToI Delhi, 5th March 2014
I got a bit confused with this ad. I couldn't really figure out whether it was related to school education (under RTE, may be) or if it had something to do with the wonderful food security bill / program!!

Where is the education achievement in this? What about the learning outcomes? I have yet to come across any ad with the honourable mantriji's photo which talks about how the quality of education has been impacted through whatever is being done.

Mid-day meals is a great scheme to get the kids to schools. And yet, latest published data from Pratham's ASER 2013 report / NAS report and other sources demonstrates-
  1. Enrolment of students is increasing but attendance is falling (maybe its a good idea to come, have free lunch and leave!)
  2. Teacher attendance is up (thanks to better monitoring under RTE), yet student attendance is down (so much so for teachers ability to engage and teach!)
  3. Spend on private tuitions increasing even in rural and poor households (did I hear height of hopelessness?)
  4. Drop-out rates in middle/secondary education going through the roof (school is such a waste of time!)
The fact is that we have no focus, nor any clue how to impact learning outcomes given the sheer number of school age kids (20 Cr, give or take). Our whole strategy seems to be do something / seen to be doing something, and then hope for the best!

BTW, a more apt heading for the ad might have been 'Empowerment Through Food and Nutrition' !

Second : Article on CCE, today
ToI, Delhi, 6th March 2014
CCE has increased scores but not teaching???

Or learning, for that matter...

What does it mean?

It means higher rewards for lesser competence. It means lowering of standards. It means perpetrating false belief in students how easy it is or how brilliant they are (after all, you got 95%!!)

It also means (eventually) cut-off rates for university admissions going sky high. It means a 95% kid not getting the desired college or course. It means reality hitting suddenly and hard that life is not as easy as CCE made it seem. It means frustration, disillusionment...

When we were younger, marks had a different meaning all together.

I remember that I was always a good student but never the best. I never topped in my class. Not necessarily because I was less intelligent but I lacked discipline and hard work, perhaps. Nevertheless, I knew where I stood. So when I got 73% marks in my 10th boards, they were consistent with my overall level.

Maybe, I was slightly disappointed. Maybe, I was a 75-78% kind of guy. But I was sure that I was not a +80% guy. We knew those guys and they were different!

What I am saying is that back then marks indicated something. Not always, not most accurately but somewhere generally they differentiated people on an academic and proficiency scale. More marks simply meant that you were better academically. Besides, marks also directly translated into college admissions, even professional colleges in most cases.

Things have changed in last 25-30 years. Somewhere, for some inexplicable logic we became very liberal in dispensing marks (CCE being just a case in point).  The stated argument was to reduce stress on kids! As a result, more and more kids started getting higher and higher marks. A clear example is the increasing clutter we have been seeing in high 90% bracket in class 12th results over last few years.

There are some very ridiculous and serious implications of this-

1.     It is impossible to differentiate the academic level of students through marks today. When differentiation is less, competition is high. Kids getting 95% are not assured of getting admission to colleges or courses of their choice and we have had that absurd situation of 100% cut-offs recently!

Honestly, if I am a student who got 95% and still did not get what I wanted, I will be completely shattered and exasperated. What else do you want me to do, man? And give me a break. We all know that the nerd who got 97% or couple of marks extra is actually no better than me in any significant way.

2.     We have been giving a very clear message to our kids from very early by giving high marks. The message is that they are intelligent and know it alls. How else do you get +95% consistently?

The problem is that the message is, obviously, plain untrue and it plays havoc with kids psyche.  When the kid grows up and finally has to handle the real life situations he expects himself to figure them out and to solve them with ease. Alas, in reality that does not happen and sooner or later the kid realizes how inadequate he is. His make belief world, built on convenient but wrong messaging comes crashing down and what is often left is a deep sense of hopelessness and confusion.

I ask myself how has this reduced stress? If at all, it has increased stress and built in a sense of frustration and futility among kids. I am not surprised at all, though deeply disturbed, to see a steady increase in student suicides over the years.

I am actually quite puzzled how we as parents, teachers and society, for all our wisdom and education be so stupid as to inflict this on our kids? The school years becoming high on stress and low on learning... The golden age ground to dust!

Why can’t we see what is right in front of our nose?

Well, that's another topic for another day...

Sunday, December 1, 2013

Indian Education : Part B : Present and Forward


Current and Emergent Situation

India has seen rapid economic growth in the last two decades. However, as many would argue, India is starkly divided between the haves and have-nots. The middle and upper middle classes with their new economic freedoms and modern western worldview are more aligned to and subsumed in the pot-purée of globalization. At the same time, the bulk of the population remains excluded from the benefits of rapid economic growth.

Consequently, the country continues to experience extreme poverty, marginalization, hunger and deprivation much of which is to be found in rural areas, among tribal people, in dalit and Muslim neighborhoods. New forms of social exclusion, urban poverty, environmental degradation, conflict and violence have also emerged in the past decades.

Broadly, there are two emerging and simultaneous trends:
  • The socio-cultural idiom in India is shifting from caste and religion to issues of development and equity. People clamor for a minimum quality of life and a basic level of opportunities. This could be the reason why India has not witnessed communal flare-ups even after events as serious as the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks or the Ram Janmabhumi-Babri Masjid judgments. Most agitations have been about developmental and inclusive growth issues, such as land acquisition, the building of nuclear plants or other environmental threats, which are expected to displace people and endanger their way of life. Even the Naxal question, many would argue, is essentially a developmental question. 
  • Over the last decade and especially after the economic crisis of 2008, markets, jobs and enterprises are shifting to the east, opening huge opportunities for India to leverage its ‘demographic dividend’. India’s businessmen and industrialists are beginning to recognize that the economic equations are changing, exclusion is not tenable and that fortunes can be made by targeting the ‘bottom of the pyramid, a philosophy well propounded by C. K. Prahalad. The realization is sinking in that growth may well be symbiotic to aligning the rural poor with the economic process both as a contributor (skilled work-force) and as a consumer.

Inclusive growth, hence, is no longer a nice ringing ideal but an imperative for sustainable growth. It is also being widely acknowledged that inclusive growth needs inclusive education and that India’s education generally has not been inclusive. It follows firm structures and rigid qualifications, which exclude rather than include. India’s education system is exclusive because:
  1. It expects people to come to it rather than reaching out to them where ever they are geographically, socially, demographically - which is a discriminatory factor in a country like ours;
  2. Instead of endorsing a man’s capabilities and contributing to his success and growth, it acts as a label or an entry ticket to where he can and cannot reach in his life. It’s a modern day caste system not much different from the age old scourge in its suffocating rigidity;
  3. In its self serving snobbery it assumes that education = intelligence = creating ‘value’, an utterly questionable notion since idiots, incompetents, bigots and charlatans are found, perhaps, equally on both sides of the educational divide!

Given above, obviously there is a realization that we need to rethink the education paradigm.

Recent developments, such as the Right to Education Act & Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (the free and compulsory education to all kids between 6-14 years of age has finally been legislated in the Right To Education (RTE) Act, 2009 and is being implemented through its flagship program Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan); the National Skills Development Mission (which promotes skill development through large, quality, for-profit vocational institutions through a public-private partnership model); and various initiatives in higher education have sought to increase the impact and effectiveness of education as a whole.

At the same time, India has seen the entry of the private sector in education at all levels. Government policy has adopted various approaches to regulate, limit and at times encourage their involvement.

It is expected that the enhanced investment on education (public and private) will lead to wider penetration, increased enrolment and better quality.

All in all, the current situation on education in India can be described as quite challenging with multi-layered, scattered or even confused and disjointed conversations abounding in terms of:

§  Access, affordability and quality

§  Objectives, stakeholders and influencing factors

§  Content, pedagogy, methodology

§  Delivery and evaluation

§  Implementation and effectiveness


It is clear that there has been no dearth of deep, original and India relevant thought on education. But before we move into the future, we must raise some inconvenient questions in self-scrutiny. We have seen that there has been no dearth of ideas and intention on education front. Yet, the results over the last 66 years have been less than satisfactory. Why was that? What have we learnt now and what will we do differently henceforth to expect different results in the future?

Perhaps, some answers could be found, inter alia, in the areas of a lack of powerful and unifying vision or purpose, conservative and risk-averse decision-making, indifferent monitoring and a general lack of accountability during implementation. We might need to be simultaneously courageous and vigilant going forward…

 

Purpose of Education

It took me quite a while to realize a basic truth!

Education becomes education only when it has a purpose. Otherwise it is all learning. And learning is something every human being possess, whether educated or not (true even for animals!). In fact, we are in many ways nothing but the sum and substance of our learning. By and large, all behavior is learnt behavior and all action is a conditioned response.

Education, on the other hand, is a structured mechanism to facilitate learning for a purpose. It must provide an opportunity to examine learnt dysfunctional behaviors and inculcate ability to discard them, and at the same time, should encourage the possibility of developing new productive behaviors. It must enhance our ability and resourcefulness to see and consider alternative possibilities and responses rather than operating in a linear, automatic and reactionary mode.

Perhaps, then, the purpose of education should be to anticipate the future and prepare the generations for it, today. However, in a scenario where the future may not be a mere extrapolation of the past, there is a strong need for the education itself to be fundamentally transformed… And that starts by articulating a powerful and unifying vision or purpose.

That being so, what is or should be the purpose of education in India today? Are current approaches and thinking on education clear on that purpose and are the efforts and actions aligned to it? If not, education will serve some purpose but not the one we desire.

There is a lot of talk about equality, empowerment, inclusion, quality of education, etc. They are no doubt laudable ideals but in real terms, they are no more than statements of desire or ambition at best. They are not precise, are prone to multiple interpretations and so are incapable of aligning and directing a cohesive nationwide effort.

We have to ask ourselves about the vision for education in the next 20 years. It is obviously a complex ask but a few pointers might help:

1.   A vision for education at the national level must be inspiring, precise, measurable and understandable by everyone, and such a vision must be articulated and communicated.

2.   The vision must point out clearly what would happen once it is achieved. The outcome must be worthwhile for people to deploy their energies into the vision. For example, how exactly will the achievement of this vision impact one or more of the areas which concern people:
·       Mitigating corruption
·       Creating value, wealth and prosperity
·       Poverty alleviation through better distribution of wealth
·       Better security for our people from internal and external threats, natural disasters and diseases
·       Equal opportunities and social justice for masses

3.    It is one thing to say what the country wants to achieve by educating its people. But it is equally important to ask what the people are going to get out of educating themselves because otherwise, they will neither engage with the process nor deploy their energies in it. If more and more people find it increasingly difficult to eke out a respectable living or to even keep the body and soul together even as wealth gets concentrated in a few hands, disenchantment with and rejection of education will ensue.

4.     Hence, a clear and powerful vision would neither be a slogan nor a statistic. It would be a precise and simple statement of intent, which is measurable and can be accounted for, expressed in terms of benefits to the people. It will outline the possibility of creation, contribution and transformation.

It is interesting to note that Macaulay created a simple and powerful vision in 1835 AD (Indian Education : Part A) which, when implemented with intent and commitment by the British, continued to define us as people even after independence. It is time that the ghost of Macaulay is finally buried after more than 175 years. But for that, we need a more powerful and inspiring vision to replace it…

But how, who, whence… The vision?

I wonder whether ‘senior educationists’, archaic bureaucrats and politicians with grey hair and minds still locked in twentieth century can actually articulate that vision and transform education unless they first learn to listen to students.

On the other hand, what I know for sure and through direct experience is that students are almost never involved in any decision about education even though they are the ones directly affected. Whether it is about some 4-year undergrad program, or introduction of new syllabi, or anything of academic importance, for that matter.

It might sound funny but it seems we are interested in our future and not that of our children. We want to use our kids to fulfill our needs and purposes, and education becomes our biggest tool for indoctrination and control.

This might explain why our schools and institutions reward conformity, compliance and obedience much more than creativity, curiosity and counter-intuition. The kid who is not easily satisfied and asks too many questions is obviously such a pain!

And that is where we might be losing the plot… for ourselves as well as for our kids. Pursuit of myopic, selfish agenda and a complete lack of any vision!

The Future Must Be Learner Centric

I frequently come across a lot of people from my generation discussing and lamenting about how we try our best to teach but the ‘current’ generation (read young people of today… when 50% 0f our population is < 25 years of age!)) is unwilling or simply incapable of learning. We may, at times, go as far as to claim that these guys are a bunch of idiots with fragmented knowledge, inadequate skills and questionable attitudes!

Some of these observations, in a limited sense, may even be correct. Yet, the overall conclusion, I am sure is not true. Look at the ease with which little kids of 4-5 years are learning technology and getting comfortable with the digital world of social networks, gaming and apps. Therefore, obviously, ability to learn by itself is not a problem.

The problem is that we don’t like what they learn and they don’t learn what we like (them to learn)!

And this is because we are still approaching this teaching learning business from an old mindset. We assume that the kids today learn in the same ways (or some modifications) in which we used to learn, and get exasperated when they don’t. The fact is that kids today don’t learn the way we did.

We learnt from teachers who were the sole reservoir of knowledge. They learn from Google, You Tube and Wikipedia. We learnt from parents and elders, from stories and rituals. They learn from friends and peers, from films and through social networks. We learnt from books and printed stuff like newspapers, magazines and comics.  They learn from digital, audio-video and interactive media. We learnt from radio, they learn from TV and internet.

And most important of all – we learnt through instruction while they want to learn by doing it themselves. They want to learn by experimentation, engagement, trial and error. They want to learn through contexts where they control the learning environment and the pace of learning. What they seem to be saying is – ‘Don’t tell me right and wrong. Let me do it and figure out myself.’

But we are not listening.

So, when they want freedom and control over learning environment, we come up with more (often stricter and stupid) norms. When they are learning less and less from teachers, we sit in our policy chambers thinking about how to create more teachers. When they are learning from films and internet, we are thinking on books and arguing on silly cartoons and other nonsense.

We are simply not listening. Because we think we know what’s good for them. In all my experience – at policy level interactions on education, or school managements debating academics or parents discussing education – I have hardly seen the younger generation invited, involved and engaged in any meaningful dialogue. Although, what I have seen in some cases, instead, is to make them sit and tell them what’s wrong with them and how to fix it!

(Interestingly, this ‘we know what’s good for you’ is a very interesting phenomenon. This is why educationists don’t listen to students, companies don’t listen to the customers and governments don’t listen to citizens!)

We are not listening… And, in the process, we are making ourselves irrelevant to them… And so they stop listening to us, even become dismissive of what we have to say or offer (even if it is good at times)… And we conclude that they are insolent, irreverent, irresponsible, incorrigible fools! Wow!

I hope, I believe that our young generation is smart! Smart enough to understand the importance of a good education. But more importantly, I wish they are clear about their own purpose, which they want to fulfill through education. If not, their education will still serve some purpose but then it might not be theirs.

As was, perhaps, the case with our generation years back...