understanding quality education in India-3

 

Understanding quality education in India

A person has freedom of choice; the proposed strategies will work only if the teachers are willing to adopt it; otherwise, it will not produce a significant result. After implementing the strategies, there must be a body or group responsible for seeing whether the implementation has been done appropriately or not and should be responsible for correcting the flaw as and when required. There should be Government’s body to monitor the activities. They also need to see whether these strategies generate an expected result because it would not work in the condition where the implementation context will change.  While implementing these strategies, one should consider that the potential outcome should be above and beyond the short-term goal. Designing these strategies would help get immediate results, but it is also essential to think about secondary and long-term effects. Otherwise, it will only give temporary outcomes and might not work beyond a specific period. Another thing that can restrict the implementation is the cost, as it should be cost-effective. Otherwise, it would be infeasible to implement.  If these strategies give the desired outcome, it will diminish the gap between the Government and private schools in terms of quality of education. The only factor is the supportive environment in which these strategies will implement; a person’s behavior will change as the environment is changing. The implementation is not the solution but to strive for getting the solution as and when required is the most crucial aspect.  If the implementation is not monitored at regular internal, then the result will be negative.  The belief that quality goes with privilege is clearly irreconcilable with vision of participatory democracy that India upholds and practices in the political sphere. Its practice in the sphere of education demands that the education available to all children in different regions and sections of society has a comparable quality. J.P. Naik describes equality, quality and quantity as the elusive triangle’ of Indian education. Dealing with this metaphorical triangle requires are deeper theoretical understanding of quality in education than has been what available in schools today. United Nations educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s recently published global monitoring report which discusses systematic standards as the appropriate context of the quality debate (see Global Monitoring Report 2006. From this point of view, the child’s performance needs to be treated as an indicator of systematic quality. The quality dimension also needs to be examined from the point of view of the experiences designed for the child in terms of knowledge and skills. Assumption about the nature of knowledge and the child’s own nature shapes the school ethos and the approaches used by those who prepare the syllabi and text books and by teachers as well. The representation of knowledge in text books and other materials need to be viewed from the larger perspective of the challenges facing humanity and the nation today. No subject in the school curriculum can stay aloof from these larger concerns, and therefore, the selection of knowledge proposed to be included in each subject area requires careful examination in terms of socio-economic and cultural conditions and goals.

The belief that quality goes with privilege is clearly irreconcilable with vision of participatory democracy that India upholds and practices in the political sphere. Its practice in the sphere of education demands that the education available to all children in different regions and sections of society has a comparable quality. J.P. Naik describes equality, quality and quantity as the elusive triangle’ of Indian education. Dealing with this metaphorical triangle requires are deeper theoretical understanding of quality in education than has been what available in schools today. United Nations educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s recently published global monitoring report which discusses systematic standards as the appropriate context of the quality debate (see Global Monitoring Report 2006. From this point of view, the child’s performance needs to be treated as an indicator of systematic quality. The quality dimension also needs to be examined from the point of view of the experiences designed for the child in terms of knowledge and skills. Assumption about the nature of knowledge and the child’s own nature shapes the school ethos and the approaches used by those who prepare the syllabi and textbooks and by teachers as well. The representation of knowledge in text books and other materials need to be viewed from the larger perspective of the challenges facing humanity and the nation today. No subject in the school curriculum can stay aloof from these larger concerns, and therefore, the selection of knowledge proposed to be included in each subject area requires careful examination in terms of socio-economic and cultural conditions and goals.  Merely providing adequate infrastructure, teaching-learning material, adequate teaching and non-teaching staff, providing conducive atmosphere in the school for learning are not sufficient requirements towards the quality education. Along with this, components of the curriculum, viz. syllabus, pedagogy, examination, affiliation and accreditation standards  are also important factors which need to be addressed while dealing with quality issues in education. These issues have been discussed separately in the light of different education boards. Some of the basic items covered under the study to understand the quality concern in education. How the different education Boards prepare their curriculum and design syllabus, conduct examination systems and evaluate the student’s performance, etc. has been explained systematically (see Annexure 5). Some of the good practices of the different schools have been listed to understand the quality concern in education system. In the light of quality indicators in the context of education, school-wise % achievement is measured in the 5 point Likert’s Scale.  

School Education System under Different Boards In general, Board is a council convened for business; a number of persons appointed or elected to sit on a committee. A board of education or a school board or school committee is the title of the board of directors of a school, local school district or higher administrative level. The elected council helps determine educational policy in a small regional area, such as a city, state, or province. It usually shares power with a larger institution, such as the government's department of education. The name of the board is also often used to refer to the school system under the board's control. In educational system the formal institutional roles assigned to school boards, and the designated position board members play as representatives of the community, would lead one to believe that the school board has a decisive role in public education policy and school system administration. In the minds of many people, school boards have considerable influence over educational decisions and provide a key social and political connection to the schooling process. In India, though there is the provision of central authority, but primary education is a state system and power officially resides with the states, concerns about efficiency and local involvement are addressed through the delegation of authority from the legislative branch to the local school board. Although the powers and duties of the education system vary by state jurisdiction, governance structure governed by an elected or appointed board. States also govern through state boards of education, administer through state departments of education.

Education plays an essential role in the overall personality development of individual. What is more important is provision of quality education rather than opening schools without taking care about quality issues. With the passage of time it was realized that education is necessary for all without any discrimination on the basis of caste and creed. Gradually various national, international and state boards and organizations of school education came into existence to serve some or the other purposes. The available literature shows that though various aspects of education have been studied in the context of the quality issues, but what is lagging behind is the study on the role played by various boards offering education with special emphasis on the various components of curriculum, viz. syllabus, pedagogy, examination and evaluation, accreditation and affiliation standards. In this light an attempt is made to conduct a comparative study of four Boards CBSE,CISCE, Delhi Government Schools  under certain broad aspects such as curriculum, syllabus, pedagogy, examination and evaluation, accreditation and affiliation and to find out some of the good practices in the schools.2.1 Objectives of the Study. To analyze how the curriculum, syllabus, and pedagogy in these schools differ from one another• To find out what is the actual compliance status of selected schools. To study how the affiliating bodies carry out inspection• To study evaluation and examination pattern, conducted by affiliating bodies and their actual operational status in these schools. To make a list of good practices in each of these categories of schools and make a comparative assessment. To measure the quality percentage achievement of studied schools through various quality indicators. The field of education, covering ethics, religion, morality, philosophy, literature, skills and general knowledge, is a very broad and very vital one. The importance of learning in enabling the individual to put his potentials to optimal use is self-evident. Without education, the training of the human minds is incomplete. 

Education makes man a right thinker and a correct decision-maker. It achieves this by bringing him knowledge from the external world, teaching him to reason, and acquainting him with past history, so that he may be a better judge of the present. Without education, man, as it were, is shut up in a windowless room. With education, he finds himself in a room with all its windows open to the outside world. Education is the process of instruction aimed at the all round development of boys and girls. Education dispels ignorance. It is the only wealth that cannot be robbed. Learning includes the moral values and the improvement of character and the methods to increase the strength of mind. Present trend of education in Indian schools is a good example of such learning in which learners are the recipients of sacred and precious values imparted regularly by the teachers. A good moral based education is also a must. As students want education by which character is formed, strength of mind and knowledge increases and makes them independent. Learners receive this kind of teaching in Indian schools and have every confidence to say that along with prosperity they will also have character due to the quality of education they received. On the global background we are the 3rd largest higher education system, North America being the first and China second. Even though we are the second largest higher education system in Asia, we are the lowest in gross enrolment ratio of the students per lakh population and even in Human Development Index, which is an important and sensitive index of schemes reaching to common man. India is the third largest higher education system in the world but only 7% of its youth are enrolled in higher education.
Our major concern in this study is about the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), Indian Council of Secondary Education (ICSE), International Baccalaureate Organizations (IBOs) and Delhi Government Schools. Along with the government schools, the private educational institutions have come up in India in response to growing educational requirements of the pupil, expressed in terms of the desire for good quality education. The private education institutions have their own management and Board, for instance ICSE. Besides these private educational institutions, theglobal agencies like United Nations (UN) Bodies (World Bank, (United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund) UNICEF, etc.), Asian Development Bank (ADB), etc. have been striving for universalization of elementary education without compromising with the quality. The bilateral grants have also been obtained from a number of donors such as European Commission (EC), Department for International Development Authority (DIDA), etc. In addition to international support, private agencies and government efforts, many religious institutions, voluntary organizations have established many primary and elementary schools so that the objectives of universal enrolment, universal retention and quality type primary education is realized.

Steps required to reform the quality of education in India do not always mean policy change or a new educational policy. To build quality education, you can follow the initiatives that can change the outlook of Indian education· Making the problem visible and working on solving the problem will go a long way in solving issues. Regular assessments help measure learning progress and make current levels of students’ learning visible. India needs to participate in international assessments regularly like Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study and Program for International Student Assessment and third-party assessors like Educational Initiatives and Annual Status on Education Report that encourage periodic feedback.   Building a systematic and institutional capacity is greatly important. The problem in the educational system is a severe shortage of capacity. A lot of educational goals can be achieved by focusing on two initiatives- the Teacher Eligibility Test and the Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation. Strengthening research on learning is the foremost step and the long-term solution to solve the crisis.

It is necessary in India for strong reform in education field for betterment of literacy of coming generation.

If a planning is necessary for regular change in education system, then it is necessary to nominate an expert committee for the same.  The key finding in a recent study that even top schools in major cities in India suffer from the entrenched tendency to impart rote learning may have some shock value to those who believe that private educational institutions place greater emphasis on quality and holistic education. However, for those closely observing the school education scenario, it is a re-affirmation of a bitter truth: schools in our country are, by and large, quite far from seeing education as a process of learning with understanding, acquiring knowledge through self-discovery and conceptualisation; rather, education remains a mere transmission of information in a rigid classroom atmosphere, where the emphasis is on memorization and the objective is to rush through a pre-determined syllabus and prepare children for examinations. While on the scholastic side the W-Educational Initiatives ‘Quality Education Study,' which covered 89 schools, shows a fall in learning standards among students in classes 4, 6, and 8 over the last five years, it also flags a disturbing deficit of social sensitivity on the part of a sizable section of students. Responses to some questions relating to the education of girls and attitudes towards immigrants, the disabled, and HIV-positive patients, indicated biases that could, over time, grow into prejudices. Exploring the mind of the young at a formative stage in this way, which some might consider methodologically challengeable, is a particularly valuable part of this study. 

Education and literacy are the key indicators of a society that play a central role in enhancing overall socio-economic development of a country as a whole. Emphasizing the education as the essence of human resource development, the Government of India is likely to finalise the New Education Policy (NEP) through consultative process. To meet the changing dynamics of the present day requirement with regard to quality education, innovation and research, NEP aims to make India a knowledge hub by equipping its students with skill development and up gradation including ICT and vocational training. India has achieved significant progress towards the goal of Education for All. Constitutionally several key programmes and policies have been initiated to provide free and compulsory education to all children in the age group of six to fourteen years as a Fundamental Right. Initiatives such as Sarva Siksha Abhiyan (SSA) and Right to Education (RTE) have given much required impetus to education system in India. Though it has significantly improved the enrolment rates across the country in primary education, but the challenge of quality in terms of learning outcomes remains to be addressed. (GOI, Economic Survey2016-17). One of the goals of the SSA has been to achieve universalisation of elementary education that addresses both out of school children during the primary school going age and the children who were forced to drop out before completion of primary grade classes due to social and economic compulsions. Accordingly, Twelfth Five Year Plan (2012-17) laid focus  on expansion, improving quality and equal educational opportunities for all segments of society. As compared to the greying population worldwide, India has an added advantage with its young population, within average age of 29 years, the demographic dividend can be harnessed with an improvement in health, education and skill development. In view of the above facts, the broad focus of the paper is on the current approaches adopted by India to contextualise SDG Goal 4 on education in the Indian context by integrating them into the formulation of New Education Policy and its positive impact on achieving quality education, as SDG 4 emphasizes. The next section examines the trends in education attainments at primary, secondary and tertiary levels in India. The third section while exploring some major challenges in achieving quality education and accessibility issues in education sector, also presents a brief analysis of experiences of Bangladesh in educational strategies, as their education system is widely regarded as among the best in South Asia. The fourth section throws light on the recent initiatives undertaken by Government and on some best practices adopted in selected states to address the concerns in education sector, followed by way forward in the concluding section.

Most of the goals of MDGs which were conceptualised in 2000 as a set of eight global goals on diverse dimensions of development like poverty alleviation, health, education, gender equality, environment sustainability etc. aimed at building a global partnership for development are inherent in the newly adopted Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015.Significant progress has been made in universalizing primary education, but much remains to be done. At the UN Sustainable Development Summit held in September 2015, more than 150 world leaders adopted the new 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals which are an inter-governmentally agreed set of seventeen goals and 169 targets relating to sustainable development issues. Of all the SDGs, education is the most vital component for sustainable development. All the seventeen goals of SDGs seem to be more exhaustive and ambitious with focus on it’s relevant to all the people of the world to ensure that ‘no one is left behind’. These SDGs aim to end poverty, zero hunger, and improve education and health standards, gender equality, clean water, sanitation and energy, and to combat climate change within stipulated time period. On issues pertaining to education (Goal 4), inclusive and equitable quality education for all is clearly viewed as the key to social progress in all the countries. Collaborative efforts in sharing the rich experience and expertise in diversified areas such as universal mass education, higher and professional education and open and distance education with special emphasis on quality and gender equality was agreed upon.

The RTE Act provides for the:

• Right of children to free and compulsory education till completion of elementary education in a neighbourhood school.

• It clarifies that ‘compulsory education’ means obligation of the appropriate government to provide free elementary education and ensure compulsory admission, attendance and completion of elementary education to every child in the six to fourteen age group. ‘Free’ means that no child shall be liable to pay any kind of fee or charges or expenses which may prevent him or her from pursuing and completing elementary education.

• It makes provisions for a non-admitted child to be admitted to an age appropriate class.11Successive development policies and Five-Year national development plans have accorded high priority to education development. With a view to enhance enrolment, retention and attendance and simultaneously improving the nutritional levels among children, the Centrally assisted National Programme of Nutritional Support to Primary Education was launched on 15th August 1995, popularly known as Mid Day Meal Scheme, under which hot cooked nutritious meal provided to every child studying in classes I to VIII every day except holidays. India has world’s largest Mid-day Meal scheme, at present serving nutritious food to 10-crore students in 11.5 lakh schools. Involvement of mothers in MDM has also led to significant improvement in cooking and hygiene

• It specifies the duties and responsibilities of appropriate Governments, local authority and parents in providing free and compulsory education, and sharing of financial and other responsibilities between the Central and State Governments.• It lays down the norms and standards relating inter alia to Pupil Teacher Ratios (PTRs), buildings and infrastructure, school-working days ,teacher-working hours.

• It provides for rational deployment of teachers by ensuring that the specified pupil teacher ratio is maintained for each school, rather than just as an average for the State or District or Block, thus ensuring that there is no urban-rural imbalance in teacher postings. It also provides for prohibition of deployment of teachers for non-educational work, other than decennial census, elections to local authority, state legislatures and parliament, and disaster relief.

• It provides for appointment of appropriately trained teachers, i.e. Teachers with the requisite entry and academic qualifications.

• It prohibits (a) physical punishment and mental harassment; (b)screening procedures for admission of children; (c) capitation fee;(d) private tuition by teachers and (e) running of schools without recognition,

• It provides for development of curriculum in consonance with the values enshrined in the Constitution, and which would ensure the all-round development of the child, building on the child’s knowledge, potentiality and talent and making the child free of fear, trauma and anxiety through a system of child friendly and child centred learning.