Perestroika education

The much awaited change in the CBSE exam pattern is here! The decision may have been influenced by the feedback the Board and MHRD in India must have received from various quarters and stakeholders over the last few years.

The list of stakeholders includes students, teachers, parents, managements, higher education institutions, educationists and policy makers. India has pursued education as a state policy and the debate to bring in the best education policy still ranges.

As a nation we have been experimenting a lot to bring in the best policy. Policy makers have studied every system and tried to add Indian flavor to it to succeed. Every system that found inroads to the mainstream policy lacked the ability to sustain in the long run.

The policies framed by our policy makers have been 100 meters dash rather than marathons. The sprint winner is proclaimed the fastest runner on earth but education policy needs a marathon winner.   A paradigm shift is what is needed in the present context. Policies need to be long-term after discussions and debate involving all the stake holders. National educational policies have focused on the ends but not the means to the ends.

As a nation, Indians has Right to primary education and it is being ensured by all the institutions.  To reach the pinnacle in education systems India need big bang reforms. According to the World Bank report on Education in India, ‘Curriculum and teaching practices need upgrading to impart more relevant skills, such as reasoning skills, problem solving, learning-to-learn, and critical and independent thinking’

School Curriculum is the basic element of a student’s mental and wholesome development. Existing curriculums have enough scope for revision. From kindergarten to the higher secondary every curriculum needs revision in an appropriate manner without the interference of political factors. A National Curriculum Board with regional offshoots should start working on curriculum restructuring. It can be on the lines of the restructured Niti Ayog or the old Planning Commission. There is lot of research happening in curriculum design that needs to be studied and implemented for the appropriate pedagogy to be followed in the Indian context. In the era of globalisation it has to match with the global teaching patterns but infusing the values for what India stands for. The success of Indian professionals who made it big on the world stage and the industry inputs from India as well as world over has to be studied to know the employability factors as well. A clear policy need to be adopted for the skilled and unskilled sector. Basic compulsory subjects and the grades till which it is required need a fashion technology cut. Fashion technology is the term to infuse fresh energy in existing patterns. As per the CBSE curriculum design there is enough scope for experimentation till Grade 8. It is till these grades the child develops basic education and emphasis should be laid on creating strong foundations here. The APJs, Aryabhattas, Vikram Sarabhais, Raghuram Rajans, Ambanis and Tatas are created here till these grades. The Curriculum Niti Ayog’s focus should be to strengthen reasoning and learning here. Creative minds should fly and bask in abundance from here. Primary and secondary school education has to be more researched than the University education. 

Teachers form the core of educational reforms. No educational reforms however substantial can succeed without teachers’ participation. The profession of teaching is losing its charm. Very few opt for a teaching career in the present context. India has more teachers of chance than teachers of choice!!! Teacher training needs not just a small change but a perestroika. There are trained teachers who do well but an equal number of trained teachers are under performing or poor performing. On the other hand there is a section of untrained teachers who may not have gone through formal schools of training but are equally or more competent than the trained lot. The commercially thriving parallel educational institutions in India are classic examples. The centers of teacher training and the courses of training need a surgeon with precision. Communication and research ability of a teacher should have more focus than just paper qualification. It is a teacher who makes or breaks a young mind. Alexandra K. Trenfor says, ‘the best teachers are those who shows where to look, but don’t tell what to see.’  This art needs a specialist and it deserves to be included among the high ranking professions. A school teacher service should be treated at par with the Administrative services in the country. This requires political will and a deep cleansing of the system. Categorisations, entry restrictions, research abilities, qualitative assessments norms should go through structural reforms. 

Financing the educational sector has to be a scientific process. Defence outlay and infrastructure outlays have been increasing. More than defence and infrastructure, education need proper nurturing because this will create the Intellectual wealth of skilled and unskilled class. The Union budget 2017 has increased outlay to the educational sector by 9.9% but the entire capital budgeting outlay for the educational sector needs a rethink. Investment into the educational sector is mostly infrastructure and utility based. Allocations into pure educational research and support are not channelised. The public-private sector divide in the teaching sector has given rise to inequality. Financial exploitation of teachers has been a public secret in India. If teachers are treated on par with the Administrative services category wise, the educational sector will attract quality and excellent skills. The future of the nation is at stake. A financial surgical strike that will have the positive impact of demonetization is the need of the hour in educational financing in India. 

The management of schools are the visionaries of education implementation. Schools are the centers of moulding and modelling future generations. The management of schools in India needs counterproductive and inclusive methods. Systems of Norway, Finland, Sweden, Australia that floats high on the Education Index need to be studied and incorporated with existing modules and new system needs to be experimented. This will require administrative acumen, empathy, ability to take quick, sometimes unpopular decisions, resource identification and enduring to quality deliverance. The Kaizen systems that form part of management can be adapted to educational module systems. Educational management needs far reaching vision documents. The visionaries who direct this have to see education as a celestial activity and a national intellectual asset. This needs the entry of a strong will, pure consciousness, acute statesmanship and master ability to get things done. Every system should be based on a long term strategy and the Government should partnership with the managements and vice-versa in this intellectual wealth creation. This is a responsibility to model the future and vibrant India. 

The government, the policy makers, the management and the teaching class is accountable to the millions of young mind that will pass the journey to the future.  The beautiful poem The Bridge Builder by Will Allen Droomgale says

This chasm that has been as naught to me

To that fair-haired youth may a pitfall be;

He, too, must cross in the twilight dim;

Good friend, I am building this bridge for him!”