AAO SCHOOL CHALEIN HUM….

AAO SCHOOL CHALEIN HUM….

The HRD minister, Mr. Kapil Sibal on Monday, Aug 24 2009 emphasized on:-

1) The importance of teaching Hindi in schools;

2) A uniform core curriculum for Mathematics and Science for all school boards;

3) Need for independent accreditation body for school education;

4) Enactment of Children's Right to Free and Compulsory Education Bill;

5) Encouraging private investments in education, reviewing the functioning of existing deemed universities and the need for a regulatory authority in higher education.

Along with revealing the plan to scrap class tenth board exams. Addressing the Council of Boards of Secondary Education, Mr. Kapil Sibal said:

"Our education system should change from MOTS (More of the Same) to HOTS (High Order Thinking Skills). We should create knowledge which will be used by other people. Now we are a recipient of knowledge and in the future we should produce the knowledge."

Finally somebody talks about ‘reforming’ our education system, how sustainable, how appropriate and how feasible are these proposed reforms is a question that we will have to answer in order that we hit the bull’s eye!

Quite often my friends and I engage in random chats comparing our ‘school days’ with today’s school life and every time that comparison leaves all of us with a feeling of sincere gratitude and we cannot but thank our luck/stars that we were better off than kids today!

I am quite sure that most of you reading this will agree with me on this at least! And I guess this feeling of gratitude extends to the generation of our parents and grandparents and with each preceding generation it only gets more sincere & deeper.

But why?!?!? Has it got something to do with the so-called ‘tough’ & ‘monstrous’ school syllabus of today or is to with the onset of ‘globalization’ & ‘commercialization’ of our classrooms today. Whereas I agree with the latter part of the statement, I do not think that school syllabus of today is ‘tough’ rather at it is quite meaningless, irrelevant, misleading (wherever politicized), not updated, infact I am given to understand that there have been cases where the syllabus books were full of grammatical errors and erroneous facts. I will refer to a few examples to corroborate the aforesaid:-

1. Referring to the latest new article in the Times of India of April 2, 2009, Bangalore Edition which carried a story titled, “Physics textbooks ridden with errors”. This article gives tells us shocking instances of errors relating to concepts, definitions or even diagrams in class 8 and class 9 textbooks.

ü For example, the class 8 textbook explains the twinkling of stars thus -- for the observer on earth, the light appears to come from a point, say B, although it originated from another point, say A. Because of the variation in density, the extent of bending (light) changes continuously. So the observer on Earth sees the star at B at one instant, C at another and so on. This causes the star to twinkle.
Wrong theory, say teachers.
"This is completely wrong. Just because of the point shift, the effect of sparkle cannot be felt. In fact, all points are bright," said a retired physics teacher, who wants to remain anonymous. "The angular size of the star is an angle made by the star at the pupil of the eye and is nearly zero. Therefore, a thin pencil of light from the star passes the earth's atmosphere and reaches the eye. Due to atmospheric turbulence, the ray of light passes through the eye on and off, giving the twinkling effect."

ü Unclear diagrams.

Even the diagrams are unclear. "In one diagram, emerging light, after passing through the prism, is parallel. But emerging light from the prism is always dispersed. The issue here is that the book is unclear in showing the dispersed portion," the teacher explained. Strangely, in the class 10 textbook, the diagram correctly shows that light is dispersed after passing through a single prism.

If you would recollect, there was a big political drama on ‘re-writing’ history for the school textbooks when Mr. Murali Manohar Joshi was the Union HRD Minister. I do not want to dissect all that because whatever it was, the basic issue got sidelined and what we saw was a dirty game of politicizing education at the hands of opportunist politicians! This is what happens, this hype that gets created or rather is deliberately created to divert/diffuse attention from the core agenda/issue and ultimately we are lost, either in frustration or enjoyment in witnessing the myriad political gimmicks that are played to score political mileage!

Can you imagine ‘factual’ errors, ‘distorted’ information, ‘erroneous’ data that the school textbooks are subjected to and all of this coupled with absolute lack of will to identify and address the problems/issues. Each political party wants to manipulate the school curriculum-surely to appease its vote banks! I see a sudden onset of ‘commercialization’ of education, politicization of course!

I am saddened by the fact that in all of this we have disregarded the importance of ‘teaching the basics’ in school, to begin with that includes a sense of discipline to be inculcated. But how do I expect this, to teach and inculcate discipline-we need disciplined, upright and honest people-and this class of people is an alarming minority today! Most of those who come to school to teach are rather ‘SALESMAN/SALESWOMAN as the case may be!

Teaching Computers, we must, that is the need of the hour, but who is tell the kids the mathematical tables to compute/calculate basic math sums. Oh… I forgot, for that we have ‘coaching’ classes….

Scrapping exams in once again trying to divert from the core issue-this is no solution to anything that is plaguing our education system today. I read and also heard a lot of people talk that this is indeed a step in positive direction which will help reduce the stress levels amongst children! STRESS IN SCHOOL?!? It establishes that we are failed miserably to even identify the core issues/problems. How do you accept this premise of exams and schools now being labeled as STRESS CENTRES? All this is because of our approach towards studies, towards exams that has lead to extreme degree of unhealthy competition, and that too, not amongst the kids but amongst their parents!

As I write this today, I am yet to gather my thoughts on a lot of issues that I feel must be addressed before we engage in the mindless exercise of turning the school education system completely UPSIDE DOWN!

I hope to hear from most of you, who occasionally spare some time to read my posts, on your reaction to this-scrapping of exams-is is the step in right direction?

And I am quite sure that unless we realize where the problem actually lies (definitely not with having board exams), we will continue this act of injustice towards the kids-taking away from them their golden period –the SCHOOL DAYS…..

(Photograph: flickr.com)