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Home Opinion Columns Why We Fail OurChildren

Why We Fail OurChildren

A child-centred approach is difficult in Indias rigid education system

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Written by Rohit Dhankar | Published:February 9, 2017 12:00 am

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2/9/2017 WhyWeFailOurChildren|TheIndianExpress

Education should be sensitive to the child and not cause strain.

In And children pay the price (IE, February 6), Krishna Kumar rightly argues that
making the class X exam compulsory will serve no useful purpose and will increase
stress in children. He also points out the problems in reintroducing annual
examinations in elementary classes and rescinding the RTE decision that introduces
Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE). But the articles analysis needs to
be taken further.

Kumar rightly points out that examinations can never be an effective motivation
for learning. But motivation through examinations is not the most important
argument of those wanting to rescind CCE and reinstate a compulsory board. Their
argument is that children will reach the next level of school grossly under-
prepared, if one removes annual exams in the present Indian system. Annual
examinations, according to them, make some dent in this unpreparedness, even if
they cannot remedy the situation completely. This is an argument that cannot be

dismissed summarily.

Kumars most forceful argument is that examinations cause stress in children.

Education should be sensitive to the child and not cause strain. If proper teacher
training could lead to the implementation of CCE, as Kumar argues, it could also
makeannual examinations stress-free. One could argue that the stress is caused by
family pressure and competition in society, and not by examinations per se.Kumar
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argues that if examinations are reintroduced in elementary education, the path to

child-centrism will be closed. But exactly what do we mean by child-centrism in
India? Does it mean that children should decide the curriculum? Or children should
be taught only the things that interest them? Or that they should be left free to
discover knowledge? Or is this simply teaching through activities? All these
positions have been taken up by different people at different times. Each position
has serious problems.

One form of child-centrism is articulated by the American philosopher, John Dewey,

who argued that the school curriculum has to be psychologised. One has to start
from the child, her experiences and her understanding, but then, this has to
constantly look at accepted human knowledge and understanding. One is the
starting point, the other the end. Without the end in view, the starting point is of no
value. In fact, there can be no justification for taking this or that starting point
without reference to an end point.

We, in India, do not realise what it takes to psychologise the curriculum in

Deweys sense. That would mean that the subject matter of what is today accepted
as human knowledge becomes part of the childs experience. It also relates to how
the teachers knowledge of the subject assists in recognising what is valuable in the
childs experience, what the childs needs of growth are and how her growth, in
turn, can be directed towards acquiring knowledge. This demands freedom,
flexibility and contextual decision-making by the teacher, keeping in mind every
individual child.

Our school system does not give that space. We have a year-wise curriculum and a
childs progress is graded and monitored annually. This militates against using the
childs experience one cannot time and plan sequences of learning that are
applicable to all children. One can, of course, plan a rough overall time and

sequence of knowledge acquisition but daily activities and their results have to be
left to the teacher and child. The graded school and curriculum logically demand
the pass-fail kind of examination. CCE and automatic promotion, then, are a logical
anathema to the present schooling system.

No training can prepare teachers to implement CCE in the current rigid

andauthoritarian system. Teachers cannot be expected to solve this systemic
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problem through sensitivity, skill and understanding. It is matter of fitting the

school structure and curriculum to the desired vision of education and CCE; not
fitting a form of theso-called CCE to the existing structure. We are looking at the
problem upside-down. If we are serious about doing away with stressful
examinations, even at the class X level, we have to dismantle the rigid structure of
school and curriculum.

The writer is director, School of Education and Academic Development, Azim Premji
University, Bengaluru and academic advisor, Digantar, Jaipur

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IagreeonT&C

V.Ramaswami
Stressisarealityoflife,unlessyouareinthepartsofgovernmentservicemarkedby
5135 hiring based on criteria other than merit and seniority based promotions. Thus,
childrenneedtohaveandshouldbetaughttohandleareasonableamountofstress.
American education has been bipolar, most getting substandard education and a
smallfractionthatarefarabovepar.ThatalsoexplainswhyAmericahastoimportso
manyskilledworkers.Ihoweveragreewiththethesisthatbandaidscan'tworkand
weneedageneraloverhaul.See my book "Innovation by India for India, the Need
and the Challenge" Chapters 4 and 5 if you are interested in some specific
suggestionsandproposalscoveringawidesetofchallengesintheeducationarena.

about2hoursago (0) (0) Reply(1)

Rajat
R Niceobservation.Thisarticleasksrelevantquestions.Thearticlethatappeared
6605 theotherday,towhichthisauthorreplied,waswrittenbyalibtardwhoseemedto
behighonweed.

about2hoursago (0) (0) Reply(0)

Raja
R Educationisthebasicfoundationofacivilizedsociety,andqualityofeducationitself
3560 squarelydependsupontheteachersatvariouslevelsofthehierarchy.Unfortunately,
http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/cbseboardclassxexamcompulsorywhywefailourchildrenccerte4514720/ 5/11
2/9/2017 WhyWeFailOurChildren|TheIndianExpress

teachingprofessioninIndiaisviewedashopelessandthankless,themainreasonfor
whichisthis:UnlikeaBDOorapoliceinspector,ateacherhasnonuisancevaluein
thatheisnotinapositiontograntfavorstoothers,norisheinapositiontopunish
anybody. A legacy of the LicenseQuotaPermit Raj of the Congress era is that he
whodoesntwieldthepowerhasnorespectinthesociety.Intheprocess,teaching
becamethelastrefugeoftheunemployed.Tomakemattersworse,thecastebased
reservationforestallstheselectionofeventhosefewwhohaveagenuineaptitudefor
teaching,butwhobelongtothesocalleduppercastes.

The least that the government must do is rid the teaching profession of the quota
bias. In fact, this suggestion originally came several decades ago from a judge in
Allahabad High Court. Instead of understanding the merit of the idea, however,
RamvilasPaswanthreatenedtoimpeachthejudge.AsProf.P.V.Indiresanusedto
say,Garbagein,garbageout.

about3hoursago (0) (0) Reply(0)

MahenderGoriganti
Ignore these pseudo armchair pundits advice. Any approach anywhere other than
8145 thetrueVedicapproachof"AtmanBrahman/AhamBrahmasmi'withthepractice
of Raja Yoga, Dharma Yoga and Jana Yoga to the child, is moronic and is nothing
morethanmakingalotofrobotsjustlikewhathappensinmadrassahs(extremeex).

about3hoursago (0) (0) Reply(0)

Ak
EntireIndianeducationsystemdrivesaroundIIT,medicalandengineeringentrance
315 exams.Changethoseexamstoincludesports,socialcontributions,innovationability
toexpressoriginalideasandyouwillseetheentireeducationsystemchanging.

Sinceentranceexamsareunidimensionacademicsfocused,theeducationalsystem
alsoisunidimensional.

about3hoursago (0) (0) Reply(0)

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