Primary concerns

Prime Minister Narendra Modi scored a first by addressing lakhs of students and their teachers on the occasion of Teachers’ Day, ironically a move that his professorial predecessor never attempted. He also made an important philosophical distinction between mere “collection of information or mastery of skills for occupations or jobs” and the “need to widen the horizon of thinking of students”. It has become the norm for industry leaders and bodies such as the National Knowledge Commission to take a narrow, instrumentalist view of education — as a vehicle to realise our ‘demographic dividend’ by creating a large skilled workforce. Given this, Modi’s remarks were a surprise — a reminder that an aware, free-thinking and critical mind is indeed a pre-requisite for innovation and quality research, transforming a workforce that is, by and large, capable of only performing routine tasks, the modern equivalent of Macaulay’s army of clerks. A shift from ‘information’ to ‘knowledge’ can create a workforce that is at once socially responsible, innovative and competitive.

But the Centre has not laid out a roadmap on how this can be achieved. Indeed, to reap a knowledge dividend, one first has to deal with the appalling dropout rate at the primary school level. As Pratham’s annual surveys point out, the cognitive skills of students in elementary school declined over the last five years — the number of class five government school students who lack the language skills of a class two student is on the increase. The Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan has drawn nearly the entire cohort of tiny tots to school, but barely half of them go beyond class 8. It is not enough to ensure non-discriminatory access to school, improve infrastructure in the form of clean toilets and blackboards, and create an engaging curriculum. Crucial as these are, there is a fourth dimension that is never discussed even on solemn occasions such as Teachers’ Day: the quality of teachers.

The best infrastructure and curriculum is wasted in the absence of teachers who are equipped to deal with them. It is high time that education reform focussed on teachers’ training, particularly at the primary level. What we have now is a surfeit of online courses and ‘B Ed institutes’, about 15,000 of them ‘training’ more than 11 lakh teachers, to cope with the surge of new students. These coaching shops have little use for pedagogic principles such as promoting critical thought by altering the quality of student-teacher interaction. Another glaring problem with teacher training courses is that virtually none is meant for elementary school. No one seems to understand that teaching the really young requires distinct, perhaps even superior, pedagogic skills. We are paying a heavy social and economic price for this ignorance. The Government should engage schools, teacher educators and society on the need to revolutionise primary teaching. Curriculum changes suggested by self-styled educationists can wait for now. At stake is something more basic — restoring skill and pride in teaching small children so that their spirit of inquiry remains intact.

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