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The point is that when the thinking is medieval and outdated, no amount of expertise and analysis will yield answers.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!