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Improving the learning process
By djain128, Section Training Some steps to make learning more important than marks and examinations. Photo: R.M. Rajarathinam UNREAL QUEST? There is a serious divide between learning goals and the way student are tested. That there are serious gaps in student learning, both in government schools and in top private schools, is a matter of grave concern. In the first part of this article published earlier, we concluded that all of us teachers, schools, educationists, parents, corporates, education boards and tuition teachers are collectively responsible for this, and little will be achieved by pointing fingers at each other. Can something be done to improve the system? Can the solution take all these various groups along, instead of pitting one against the other? The overall solutions to address the current malaise are fairly well-known and often proposed: Change the paradigm of teaching and learning -- for example, increase group and activity work, train teachers in participative techniques, reduce dictation of notes, etc. Improve textbooks so that they may cover less content but more meaningfully, possibly in greater depth. Eliminate textbooks till Class III, having only teacher guides at that stage. Change the nature of the board examination questions, so that understanding -- not the power to memorise -- is tested. These suggestions are not new. However, attempting to make such large changes is a risky endeavour with significant chances of failure. First of all, implementing these changes across such a large system is a complex and massive effort. Secondly, there is the challenge of taking a large number of people along. Different people and groups have their own perspectives and priorities, and this may prove a difficult task. The negative repercussions or fall-outs of such changes can be high at a practical level, especially in the transitional stages. Protests by parents and students to drastic changes in board examinations can be imagined. Thirdly, how does one monitor and agree that progress is being made? This involves "measuring the immeasurables" like student learning, teacher effectiveness, and school efficacy -- a discipline in which we are still struggling and have had very limited success. Without an agreed upon "barometer" for these key factors, it would be impossible to drive consensus or even have meaningful debate. In the language of "systems thinking" when an attempt is made to change a large system by tweaking a few of its parts, the system reacts with steps that in effect compensate for the changes, so that the net change in the system is minimal. Thus guides get produced even for new textbooks aimed at improving practical learning. Parents in Maharashtra protested and forced a plan to test children in Class IV to be withdrawn, possibly without understanding that this was a measure of accountability primarily for primary school teachers, not a desire to add another examination to already over-burdened students. What is the alternative then? Can we make smaller changes in a way we "incentivise" stakeholders and educate them, thus inducing slow but irreversible changes in behaviour that can bring about the desired results? Here then are some innocuous-looking ideas based on three simple philosophies: Click on "Full Story" for more...
Compulsion will not work, but building on people's desire to contribute, to do good and better themselves may. For example, banning tuitions is unlikely to work. But steps should be taken that lead to the elimination of tuition. Similarly, do not force teachers to, say, enhance their skills, but provide opportunities that can be voluntary tapped, and the motivated ones will automatically take the opportunity and the others will follow later.
Government should do less and enable more. It should have expert teams and even those teams should not do the stuff. That should be left to private players. The expert team should form guidelines, rate and ratify stuff, reward excellence, etc. Doing all the right things is obviously the ideal, but even if some of the `easier' things can be done or corrected, a gradual momentum towards improvement can be built up. On the face of it, these are small ideas that try to tweak a small part of the system. They are relatively easy to implement -- there is very little compulsion in any of them -- and they can be started in small ways. And yet in their own way, these measures can together help completely change the current system -- no less! Boards (starting with the CBSE) should award percentile scores in addition to marks. Over three years, the format and the official board results should start emphasising the percentiles, not the marks. An application section should be added to board examinations. It should have 10 per cent weightage in the first year, but this weightage should increase by 10 per cent each year till it reaches 60 per cent. Public education campaigns Two public education campaigns -- maybe not very different from the current `Incredible India' campaign on promoting tourism and respecting heritage -- should be launched. One of them should emphasise the role of the teacher and encourage the best people to join the profession. The other, targeted at parents, should emphasise that real learning is more important than marks and examinations. The state textbook boards should be converted into Textbook Approval Committees. Staffed by professionals, one central committee should provide syllabus guidelines for textbook makers, and the state committed should approve and provide a rating to every textbook submitted. Printed textbooks must carry this rating and schools can choose from the different textbooks available. On the lines of the steps initiated by NCERT, all states should put up the current textbooks online for free access. The new universal standard called `Unicode' should be used for regional languages. Various steps should be initiated so that a clear message is sent out that excellence is valued. It is interesting how this is either not the case or not communicated effectively today. Some of these steps are: A nationwide voluntary scholarship test around Class VI. Gradually, such competitions can be organised around different non-academic skills as well. Competitions for teachers -- around best teaching aids, lesson plans, etc. The web should be used extensively to both promote transparency and aid sharing. Tests for teachers Various steps need to be taken to actively promote professional development for teachers. The most important of these would be voluntary tests for teachers -- tests that allow a teacher to know where he or she stands. Government should encourage private initiatives to develop these and ensure quality. Though the certification would not (and should not) have any statutory value, the quality they represent will soon earn value. For any new initiative, a ready pool of the more motivated, more capable teachers will be readily available. Addressing teacher grievances: Teachers have a number of valid problems and one way to address them is to allow them to be brought out into the open. Technology allows us to do this today -- a section of a national website for teachers should allow them to enter their grievances in their own language. An independent group will remove trivial complaints and also maintain a summary (statewise, later districtwise probably) of how many grievances have been published and how many have been resolved. Last, but as important as anything else, encouraging systematic research on a number of topics which are of critical importance if the educational system as a whole has to improve. Some of these are the mother tongue versus English question; identifying a measurable set of `Markers of Excellence' of a good school, and even compiling `50 Good Ideas that Work' or something like that. The above are just a few ideas, presented briefly. The point is to initiate a larger debate and take this forward. To join the debate, write to sridhar@ei-india.com.
SRIDHAR RAJAGOPALAN
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