Milestone in the schooling segment – the Tenth std.

‘SSC’ the other name of Tenth std. in A.P., India

Schooling is an important phase in an individual’s life. You can play, enjoy, and have fun along with studies in this period. However, things are not the same always; you have to really slog it out towards the end of the segment, viz in tenth std.  “Tenth std (SSC) is the turning point in your life, you have to cut down on your recreations and devote 100% time to studies.”, say parents in a strict tone. At school, SSC students don’t have games/pt period. They won’t take part in cultural activities; “if they participate in all the cultural programmes like dance, drama/skit, singing etc, their precious time will be wasted, so, it’s better to curb all entertainment for SSC students”, assert the teachers.  Some crazy parents challenge the tutor – sir, if you make my child score at least 85%, I will reward you with 10k bucks. “It’s a prestigious issue, my daughter and my colleague’s daughter are in tenth standard; if my child gets a low score, how can I show my face to her?” says a working mother. “Do or die, you must score above 90% in the final exams otherwise it’s really difficult to get admission in a good senior secondary school”, says a middle class father.

Private schools progression -

Some or many private schools have moved a step forward – in the ninth standard itself they start teaching tenth std. syllabus. Actually, in the ninth standard, the academic year is somewhat like this – the first 4 months they will teach the 9^th std syllabus (term end exams are omitted or skipped), then remaining year they are taught tenth std syllabus. They almost finish teaching the syllabus of tenth in the 9^th standard itself. So, the question is, what do they do in the tenth standard? Here, is an interesting answer – in the entire academic year (10th standard) they’ll be revising the entire syllabus at least four times. Conduct so many tests, term-end exams, mock board exams etc. It’s all fair in the race for grades in this competitive generation- ascertain the [corporate] school managements.

But, 9th standard syllabi has plenty of aspects which are useful to students in higher standards. Omission of these topics lead them to suffer later for the lack of knowledge. It’s nothing but a gamble on the students’ future in favor of just one exam (SSC)

The Board Exam

Tenth std students have to appear for board exams in the month of March every year. Though the government has been planning to change the exam system for more than a decade, we hardly see any changes in it. There is tight security in the exam halls with ample invigilators; however, malpractice cases are on the high every year. It’s a known bitter fact, that due to pressure from parents and teachers, certain number of tenth std students are ending their lives after failing to reach their parents’ assigned targets. It is not unusual to hear reports of  suicides the very next day after the declaration of results.

I wonder, is SSC that tough, to sacrifice all the happiest moments of our beautiful childhood...? Well, this is the scene in almost all the schools in A.P.  No limits to expectations. Parents, teachers and students, everyone wants scores, grades; this rat race is making the child an entity rather than a citizen. The need of the hour is to change the exam system, syllabus and approach to teaching as well. 

on broadband connectivity...

If only "news" could come true and promises are kept to be made.

Government has already given directives to provide Internet connectivity in schools under Nagpur division... read the story here

Middle schools in Ponducherry will also get to use Internet if the plan of the Directorate of School Education comes true. It'll do good to around 70,000 students.  Story

The biggest news is Union Minister for Communication and Information Technology Mr. Thiru A. Raju, announcing to make Internet a reality in ALL schools in India by 2012!  just 3 years away from now.  Story

Terry Pratchett on education

Over the weekend, I found myself re-reading parts of Hogfather, a novel by one of my favorite writers, Terry Pratchett. It is an excellent book, if you enjoy comic yet meaningful fantasy fiction. This post isn’t about Terry Pratchett, but about a striking, intelligent comment on education in the book.
Now working as a governess and teaching and looking after children, Susan, an important character in the book, recalls her childhood and upbringing and realizes:

It had been a good education, too. But it had only been later that she’d realized that it had been an education in, well, education. It meant that if ever anyone needed to calculate the volume of a cone, then they could confidently call on Susan Sto-Helit. Anyone at a loss to recall the campaigns of General Tacticus or the square root of 27.4 would not find her wanting. If you needed someone who could talk about household items and things to buy in the shops in five languages, then Susan was at the head of the queue. Education had been easy.

Learning things had been harder.

Susan’s education is of the affluent kind. But, as Terry Pratchett observes, even with plenty of resources, education can suffer from basic, nearly intangible mistakes.

In India, schools would be lucky to have problems at this level though. In the government schools that EFF is targeting, there is at present too much dependence on textbooks of average quality, too much focus on studying for the annual examinations, and there is practically no focus on the actual learning.

You could say that most school-level education in India is focused on just helping students survive the system of education itself, and not on learning things.

With its potential for effectively combining learning with exposure (to the world, to people, to means of communication, to just about everything), we hope that the Education For Free program will help a number of schools eventually rise to a level where they tackle higher level problems regarding the concept of education, its purpose, and the like.

Amartya Sen in the Central Hall Of Parliament House

Lately, I’ve been reading Amartya Sen quite a bit. I’m rather fond of his take on “Social Exclusion and Inclusive policies”. I understand him better now when he talks about India’s “quiet acceptance of the consistent deprivation” in his inaugural of Hiren Mukherjee Memorial Parliamentary Lecture on “Demands of Social Justice” in the Central Hall of Parliament House.

He directly addressed members of our Parliament. So hopefully that made some difference.

Read the story here

Problems with the Indian public school system

Before we started developing the technology that we have right now, we did a lot of research—going to villages and talking to teachers, parents and students. We were aware of the various problems that have crippled the Government schools in India but getting a first hand experience of the whole scenario put things in a much better perspective for us.

Here is a far from exhaustive list of the main problems we saw in the Indian public school system:

1. Too many students and not enough teachers (Recruitment is slow, and there are many vacancies that go unfilled for years. Result? Unfair workload for existing teachers and corresponding decline in the quality of teaching.
2. Teachers need to work for all government programs, from election duty to pulse polio campaigns. At the expense of the children who come to school to learn.
3. Teachers are made to attend way too many training programs.. These mandatory programs need to fit into an already busy calendar, and teachers invariably do it at the expense of their students. Moreover, this training is often based on theories that do not take the real situation into account. With the real situation that teachers have to deal with-- the large number of students, the limited time available, the examination oriented focus of education, and the lack of facilities—this training proved to be irrelevant for the teachers.
4. Very high percentage of teachers are absent from schools. The reasons are varied, and include infrastructure, corruption and motivational issues.
5. There is supposed to be a teacher for every 40 students. Most administrators follow this to the letter: if a school only has 120 students then they only get 3 teachers even if the school actually has 5 classes or grades.
6. Serious infrastructure issues like power, lack of classrooms, lack of study material (Even textbooks--the minimal study material available to children--are usually delayed by 2-3 months every year.)
7. Lack of basic amenities like drinking water and toilets. It turns out that the lack of toilets is a major reason for female students’ absence from school.
8. Students do not put in any effort at home. Everything from lack of family encouragement to working after school, to lack of infrastructure at home (privacy, space, light, books) conspires to prevent children from studying at home. While many of these factors are not within the direct control of the teachers or of the educational system, little effort has been made to find an effective substitute for the system of assigning homework.
9. A very small percentage of the students coming out of our primary schools has basic reading and writing skills.

The list could go on, and I will be sure to elaborate on these various problems, as well as their impact and the urgent need for solutions in the near future. I’ve identified problems specific to the rural education system. Satya Meva Jayate’s detailed article offers a more general critique of the Indian education system in general.

Me thinks...

While the A.P Government has decided that English is the way to go for all schools, we have people like Dr. J Abdul Kalam the former President of India, who seem to think just the other way round. On his recent trip to Aligarh Muslim University, he said that mother tongue languages should be used in schools for learning. In his words:

"Education should be imparted in mother tongue up to 10th standard as it promotes creativity and sharpens intellect immensely”.

He says English should instead be used for Higher and Technical education. While I’m tempted to agree when I see it coming from something like him—who started life like any other typical village boy, studied in a village School, in mother tongue and so on---but went on to become a great scientist and the President of India. But when I think of the larger picture, I’m not so sure. It is definitely a given that no matter where you study, in what medium, as long as you have the zest to excel, you can succeed. We have heard many stories about similar people achieving great heights in life out of scratch.

But leaving all that aside, if we consider the scenario today where there are over 3.1 million graduates stepping fresh out of college every year, there isn’t much choice but to be the very best. And I believe apart from being an expert in your subject matter, knowing English (the language used for communication around the world) and being able to carry yourself with confidence will take you a long way.

I wouldn’t say the A.P government made a great move, (they could have managed it far better) but at the same time I do think that it is crucial for students to learn to speak English in school. We’ve tried to achieve this for decades, unsuccessfully. Maybe English as the medium of instruction will help. It’s worth a try, anyway.

Planning to plan

According to this news report, the Human Resource Minister Arjun Singh plans to make a law to provide 'Free and Compulsory' education to children aged between 6-14 years. In India, where illiteracy is rampant, poor aplenty, the policy, if actually planned and implemented, will be like manna from heaven! Let's keep our fingers crossed.

Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh said today that one of the most critical aspects of social development is education.

He said, "Even the most impressive and robust economic progress is rendered meaningless if social development lags behind"

Singh said he plans to make a law to provide free and compulsory education to the age group of 6 to 14 years.