Shortage of textbooks in schools in India…

Well, that’s hardly news anymore. It is a regular phenomenon which happens every year as school reopens.

But this year, this academic session, the ‘news’ pinches me a little harder than usual. Because the policy makers of our country are into fancy stuff. They proclaim that they are going to give each child a laptop for free. A laptop which is going to cost only $10. Hang on, it’s actually $100. It seems our dear minister missed a ‘0’. But didn’t our minister think that it was “pedagogically suspect”? What happened to that ‘good’ sense? While I’m all for improving the quality of education through the use of technology I’m not much of a supporter of One Laptop Per Child schemes be it India’s or Nicholas Negroponte’s. Especially when children go without even basics like textbooks. We all want an educated India but I’m very sure this is not going to be achieved by throwing laptops in the laps of children!

Here’s a list of “textbooks shortage stories”:

27^th May 2008-- This year too, CBSE students wait for textbooks

K Chandrika (name changed), a student of class 10 in a Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) syllabus school will consider herself lucky if she can procure all her textbooks by September-October.

18^th June 2008-- Stores run out of textbooks

A survey of bookshops selling school books in many parts of the city revealed that textbooks for many classes are not available. Sources said this year, syllabi of class 3rd and 7th standards have changed and hence books of these classes are yet to be made available in the bookstores.

22^nd June 2008-- Urdu schools go without textbooks, teachers

Like all school-going children, 13-year-old Atyaab Hussain of Quami School carries a bag to school. However, instead of books, this sixth grader carries a bottle of water in it.

Urdu schools in Delhi are battling a resource crunch. At the heart of the crisis is a pressing shortage of teachers and textbooks.

24^th June, 2008--Shortage of textbooks irks parents in Rawalpindi

Parents of children studying in different schools here Monday expressed concern over the shortage of textbooks of various classes published by Punjab Textbook Board. A parent in Rawalpindi said that he went to buy books of Class 8th for his daughter and Science book of Class 6th for his son but was disappointed on their non-availability.

28^th July 2008--Shortage of textbooks haunts kids

The problems dogging the field of education seem far from over. After the recent class XIth admission fiasco, now, primary and secondary students are confronted with the problem of shortage of text books. The text books approved by Maharashtra government, as prescribed by the state board for most of the classes are not easily available.

02 August 2008-- Forty three textbooks unavailable in market, students face hardships

Contrary to the claims of Chairman Sindh Text Book Board, some forty three books for both English and Urdu medium are short in the market, as the academic session started Friday after two-month summer vacation in the province.

4^th August 2008-- Kannada medium students suffer without textbooks

Plus-One and Plus-Two students of Government Higher Secondary School in Panakahalli in Thalavady Union face a peculiar problem: they study without text books.

What do these school text books in India teach?

In my class yesterday, I asked my students if they knew where I was from. They didn’t. So I told them I was from Nagaland. Did they know where it was? This time I heard a “yes.” Without any suspicion or doubt about their knowledge of where my homeland was, I enthusiastically asked “where.” Two girls stood up and shyly somewhat unsure, said that Nagaland is in Africa!

I was amused and shocked at the same time. It was one of those feelings that you can’t quite give a name. With my very tiny little eyes and typical Asian features, I couldn’t possibly be mistaken to be an African or Nagaland to be in Africa.

With a wide smile stuck on my face I told them that I was one of them-- that Nagaland is one of the states in India. Desperate to teach the girls at least some of the basics about their country, I even drew a map of India on the blackboard. It wasn’t anywhere close to being called an Indian map, but thanks to the distinct shape on the right hand side of the map, I was able to show them the part that is called the North-east India. I then gave them the list of states that come under it– most of the names were completely new to them. For the rest of the class, instead of English I ended up teaching them Geography.

So yes, it ended well enough. The girls learned a little lesson, and I learned a big one. I’m left wondering about the kind of education we are giving these children. What is the worth of this free education anyway? We don’t care if the students know anything about the country they live in, the land that’s their home. Instead, year after year, we keep fighting about portions of “communal flavors” in our text books, and other irrelevant stuff.

Someday, hopefully, we’ll start to worry about what our children should learn, instead of being obsessed about what they should not learn.

NCERT textbooks speak through pictures!

Much of early learning is motivated by a sense of wonder. Wonder about sounds, smells, people and their attires and languages, and everything else. A lesson in geography that speaks of the desert, and has a description of a camel cannot be as effective as, say, a video clip of a camel crossing the desert, with the roar of strong winds in the background.

Imaginative movies, and fictional narratives about visiting the past, or parts of the world are therefore popular among children, and come in handy as teaching aids. They serve as the perfect excuse for taking the audience of children on an audio visual tour of the past or of a place, where things can be shown and heard, and not just told.

The reason is simple: the more we see and hear, the more we learn. (Read more)

Looks like the NCERT has taken at least a baby step in providing what educational theories have been proposing for many years now.

The students are in for a nice surprise this academic session. Text books with illustrations since pictures speak a thousand words! Pictures of our freedom fighters, soldiers, weapons, the socio-religious reforms by Raja Ram Mohan Roy and other eminent personalities. Would it work? I'll have to check with my kid cousin.

In a unique way to present the glorious history of India's freedom struggle, the NCERT has resorted to pictorial presentation of the subject aiming to generate interest and inquisitiveness among the students to explore the past.

Read the complete story here