Author: Sandhya Jain
Publication: Pioneer
Date: August 13, 2002
This fortnight is particularly rich
in issues of national concern, what with the Election Commission and the
President both going to Gujarat, and the continued turmoil in Jammu &
Kashmir. But I'm going to give it all a miss for a matter of more fundamental
concern in a nation that tends to dodge serious issues of development.
For some time, parents like myself
have been unhappy at the functioning of the educational system. An ordinary
public school charges well over twenty thousand rupees per annum, per child,
and it is legitimate to ask if it's worth it. I would like to offer some
comments for wider public debate, and pray that they be accepted in the
spirit in which they are presented.
My concerns are deeper than the
contrived textbook-curriculum controversy agitating leftists, and deserve
serious debate and introspection. Some issues call for feedback from society,
particularly parents, and cannot be left to academics who may be aping
a fashion from somewhere else, without thought to its utility or pitfalls.
Well-planned questionnaires distributed to parents through the school system
could yield valuable data in a cost effective and time bound manner.
The paradigms of this discussion
are determined by the fact that the Central Board of Secondary Education
(CBSE) is working to simplify the science and mathematics question papers
at secondary and senior secondary level, and is determined to enforce a
grading system as opposed to old-fashioned marks. Besides, the National
Human Rights Commission (god help us!) has threatened to look at the load
of the school bag. Finally, there is the issue of parental harassment in
the form of excessive holiday homework without commensurate classwork in
the course of the academic year.
Having observed the school scene
closely, I am aware that portions of the curriculum has been unduly 'heavy'.
During the Board examinations, a common complaint was that the mathematics
paper was too lengthy to be completed by most students as the questions
were indirect and needed to be understood before being solved. The CBSE's
decision to rectify this by simplifying the questions and reducing their
number is therefore welcome. Examinations are supposed to judge what the
student has learned over the academic year(s), and not humiliate him up
by telling him what he does not know.
However, the issue of grades needs
a rethink. Academics opted for grades when pressure drove students to commit
suicide when they did not get the expected marks. Certainly one should
not be so driven, and parents and children should be counselled that the
world does not end if you do not get the first thing you want.
Still, I maintain with a full sense
of responsibility that grades have only destroyed academic standards. They
instill complacency in place of honest competition and hard work. Since
competition is ultimately unavoidable in life, the deliberate dulling of
the intellect at school level has a deleterious impact. With marks there
is no fudging of academic achievement; a child with eighty marks cannot
think he is equal to the one with ninety-two marks, without putting in
more effort. I reiterate that the competition must be healthy, because
life is much larger than the classroom. Yet the evasion of contests at
class level, where it is manageable, will not equip one for the struggles
of life.
Educationists have understood this
reality, which is why they have added to student stress by introducing
entrance tests for virtually every admission in higher education. First
it was only engineering and medical streams, now it is being extended to
other areas. As the course for these tests is at variance with the school
curriculum, ambitious children carry a greater burden of studies than our
educationists formally recommend. Moreover, parents have to bear the added
burden of expensive coaching classes.
Surprisingly, educationists have
not come up with standardized aptitude tests like GRE for such courses,
when they are otherwise quick to copy the USA! Perhaps this would smash
the tuition industry in which academics are major players. I find many
academics arguing foolishly that in America the teachers do not mind if
you cannot spell properly, or write incorrect grammar, provided you can
communicate your meaning somehow. What nonsense!
Yet parents commonly complain that
teachers do not correct spelling mistakes in the classwork, and that children
resent it when parents point out errors. The teachers don't like it either,
and it is "taken out" on children if their parents dare complain. In my
schooldays, class work and homework were checked diligently. All mistakes
had to be corrected at the end of each lesson, which was again scrupulously
checked to ensure that the mistakes were not repeated.
But by far the greatest scandal
is the issue of holiday homework. In my days, the academic year began in
January, and the first term examinations were held in May before the summer
vacations. In such a system, the homework (however excessive) had a relationship
with work done in school. There was also an off-beat assignment on a single
topic, chosen by the student and presented according to his imagination.
The entire homework was collected the day school reopened, and checked
thoroughly. In mathematics, we took turns to solve the questions on the
board and made the necessary corrections in our books.
At present, the school year begins
in April and ends on the first of May on account of the heat wave of recent
years. As the schools have not done enough teaching to conduct even the
first unit examinations, these are usually held a month after the vacations.
Yet the insensate piling up of homework, in each and every subject, has
to be seen to be believed. There is no question that the teachers have
equipped the students to handle this workload. It is the felt experience
of innumerable parents that activities recommended by the CBSE for conducting
in school over the entire academic year, are simply delegated en masse
to parents as a vacation lampoon.
There is complete insensitivity
to the fact that all parents are not automatically on a two-month vacation
the minute school closes; nor are all parents equipped to handle homework
that even the teachers are not confident of coping with. But the most unconscionable
aspect of this exercise is the sheer indifference of the teachers to the
entire effort when school reopens. It can take more than a week for the
work to be collected, if it is collected. The grading is ad hoc; students
feel crushed that their efforts to conceive and execute the projects are
not appreciated. All too often, the checking has been so cursory that teachers
are not even aware that the homework was not completed because both parents
and students found it too voluminous to cope with!
On the obverse side is the reluctance
to give regular homework to students in the course of the academic year,
which leaves classroom education grossly incomplete. Teachers are aware
of this, but they do not want to burden themselves with correction work,
so they hide behind the slogan of not overloading students. As the NHRC
looks at the kilo-calories of the school bag, it should look sharply at
the kilo-bytes as well. Education is about building competencies, not incompetents.