Christmas vacation is here and with it, the last quarter of the academic year. There is pride and excitement in children’s talk about next year. But, the last quarter is something like a sprint to complete portions, intense coaching, revisions and mock tests. Starting from somewhere around half year, the co-scholastic periods will unceremoniously disappear, confiscated...by a science teacher, a maths teacher etc. It is the same story from my school days unfolding before me. And by the looks of it, this will unmistakeably continue all through my children's school years. By then they are subtly convinced of the superseding importance of some subjects and the unimportance of some others. The “holistic approach”, “all round development” etc, boasted in the beginning is tossed to oblivion.
In midst of this, there is a widespread consensus, especially among the middle class who can afford the luxury of private schools to depart from the traditional rote learning, and search for something progressive. The need for reforming the education system is discussed extensively in school forums and elsewhere .As if to cater to the demands in vogue, private schools have mushroomed with catchy bill boards of smiling, happy children that greet us on road sides. They quote the latest research, say, on multiple intelligences in big colourful prints. The pre-K and the kindergarten sector have indeed boomed, though others are not far behind. The parents considering themselves amongst the forward thinkers flock to open houses, carnivals and other crowd attracting events held by the new generation schools. The coordinator dons a marketing cape, and talks about making the children independent, the development of their inherent intelligences, their sensory and cognitive skills. Impressive. And, I worked in one of those. They seemed to be practicing what was preached, nevertheless, things started to take a turn after the 1st term. Some parents started fretting that their children couldn’t write while t their neighbours’ children could. “They were far ahead”, I was told..I explained how it works, .but I could see that they were not getting convinced. This began to have a domino effect...and the school, considering parents’ opinion revamped their curriculum. In fact the school was trying not to lose children and future admissions..I am not sure who the real hindrance was; the school for not standing firm, or the parents, who feel insecure about their children, when someone else starts writing 6 months earlier. The initial talks of being progressive are reduced to some catchy phrases in posters. A routine request I used to get about the 4-6year olds is, could you tell where exactly my son/daughter stand in the class. When told that comparing with other children is a negative approach, the next question, oh, then, would my child come within the first 5?
The irony is that when progressive is the buzzword in talks, the quiet thought that run in the mind is, how can the "result" be ignored? Otherwise why are the top scores of various schools enquired with tenacious veracity? .The admissions in much sought after schools are over months in advance of the academic year, and reserving seat a year ahead is also suggested. Parents brave long winding queues to buy the application forms, on top of that pull strings, according to their liaison with those in power to secure a school admission. The desire to be progressive at the same time, being unable to free from the hold of 'result'/mark oriented system, calls for introspection on, how genuine are we to the cause of learning. Caught in the conflicting pull of what we are and what we want to be, children end up in the losing end.
Its often repeated by educationists, that our system is a ghost of the colonial era, that if it made administrative officials and clerks then, it is now reduced to a portal to secure a certificate. The quality and relevance of the content is another issue altogether. Reforming the content requires copious research to come up with time relevant curriculum. Presently, to an average mind it occurs as if too much information is poured in without a respite for what is inside to come forth. Nevertheless, CBSE...in conjunction with NCERT..,ICSE etc .have been trying to make changes in the way children are being evaluated. Evaluation in itself is a complicated subject, and in the recent years they have come up with a range of parameters spread through the year, as opposed to examination being the final verdict on the child. Parents of some secondary school children explained how and why these good intentions fail at the level of execution. For one, there is a rat race to churn out the coveted results which form the basis of future admissions. Many prominent schools, condense the 9th syllabus, tweak things here and there, brush aside subjects deemed not-so-important, so that 10th portions can be started in the 9th itself. Picking from the parental aspirations, many schools have integrated coaching classes for iit/engg in the school hours. What are we training the children for, cracking competitive exams? And some 'techno' schools advertise their ' iit foundation curriculum’, and cannot afford any co-scholastic hours .To think that the children attending such schools made a conscious and free decision is a stretch of imagination. I remember reading an article on sending children of 6th std for coaching classes during vacation, and the words of the parent paraphrased reads--- it’s for expanding my daughter’s knowledge, but I would really like her to do medicine. At the end of it, students they toe along with aspirations not theirs.
We are asking for a system where brain is treated as some kind of a memory device, crammed with data. As long as the schools cater to the misplaced expectations and aspirations, they continue fomenting those while children bear the brunt. Education has become synonymous with mounting pressure with every passing of year. In a sense, as a society we are desensitized to the reports on students taking lives after results are published, behavioral problems on account of pressure and tension to perform consistently well. Holding on to attitudes rewarding correctness over original thinking, accuracy over creativity will only prolong the existing scenario. Perhaps we should see ourselves as the part of a problem and rethink our expectations from education for reforms to occur or to create a conducive environment for executing the little that is being done.
