NHRD Journal - National HRD Network

• In only about 10% of the school - over 60%
children achieve the expected learning
competencies.
Needless to say, India has not succeeded in
bringing about the change at national level. And
this is not only true for education but also in
other development areas such as health,
nutrition and poverty. In elementary education,
we are referring to a system that consists of 200
mln children in the age group of 6-14 years in
1.3 million schools.
What Induces a Large Scale Change?
There is very little understanding on this issue. If
you analyse the circumstance in which major
changes have happened across the world, you
will realize that it has been either a major attack
from outside or a major external challenge that
jeopardized the national pride or national
security. So the science teaching campaign in the
US was a result of the challenge that was created
by the USSR by successfully launching the space
program before the US did. Or the maths teaching
revolution in Japan was a result of major
challenge from China. In our own country, the
war of China and Pakistan in the 1960s had a
major uniting effect on the country and a lot of
territorial and religious barriers broke down when
the national security was under attack.
The interesting thing about education is that
the purpose of education itself is to create or
contribute to "social change". However, more
often than not, education is being used to
simply maintain status quo and to create a
replica of existing society.
Our Analysis of Issues in Education
After over 6 years of grass root work, we at Azim
Premji Foundation have had a some critical
insights in the domain of education.
Significant improvement in access: Since over
85% of the elementary education happens in
the Government schools, the state holds the key
on the supply or access side. During the past
10 years, some of the basic access issues have
been by and large resolved. For over 95% of the
habitations in the country there is a primary
school within 1 km and a higher primary school
within 3 kms. There are several other changes
that have happened. The teacher pupil ratio
has improved to 1:42 (though still not sufficient
and we still have over 75% schools engaged in
an unplanned multigrade teaching where one
teacher reaches several grades together). Midday
meal program has been introduced in
majority of the schools (though the quality
needs improvement), classrooms have
increased, budgets for teacher training are
available etc.
Quality of learning - the biggest issue: The
single most important aspect that we have not
been able to change in the schools is the quality
of education. The biggest problem being
education is equated to ability to "rote
memorize". The education system has forgotten
the education goals that are articulated by the
National Education Policy. The entire system
has become a drill to remember the text books
than understand, comprehend, apply, analyse,
innovate that are so critical to building a
knowledge society.
Need to break myths:
There have been several aspects that need
change and several myths need to be broken.
The key among them are:
• Mindset # 1: Children when they enter the
schools are deficient and need to fixed.
Reality: Even before the children arrive in
the schools, they have huge potential and
that needs to be realized.
• Mindset # 2: Learning takes place in the
head and not in the body as a whole.
Reality: Learning and abilities reside in
various parts of the body and mind.
• Mindset # 3: Everyone learns or should
learn in the same way.
November 2007 NHRD Journal 29