Education as History of Half Hearted Efforts

Education as history of half-hearted efforts

The other day, I was involved in a discussion with two friends regarding the ‘challenge of resources’ that children’s education in this country faces. In this conversation, ‘resources’ did not mean only money. While we can keep arguing about how much money is needed to provide all children with a decent education[1], we often overlook what other resources are needed for education to take place. Apart from money, we need to talk more and more about ideas, concepts, materials, thoughts, approaches, experiences, stories of success and so on. These are all ‘resources’ that actually make education happen. The adage ‘Money makes the world go around’, simply doesn’t apply to education. Only money is not enough, and more of it does not solve our problems. In fact, going by the amounts of money that are under spent in large education programs of the government, one can surely say that the problem lies elsewhere. How that money is spent ultimately makes a difference. This is where we are short on ideas.

Anyway, in discussions on education that I keep having every other day, there is this tendency to digress. Very soon, one gets into offering one’s theory about why this education system does not work -- almost any discussion seems to end with this theorising. Now, theories are not at all bad. They offer explanations of phenomena, and a useful theory can provide insights, goad us into action, and ultimately make a difference. Of course, one needs to examine any theory, any hunch, and any claim for that matter. We lose an opportunity if we move on otherwise.

At the end of this long winded conversation the other day, when one of my friends exclaimed, ‘So much has been done, but so little has been achieved…!’ I could relate to his statement. For those of us who have been at it for sometime now, the system seems to be moving at glacial pace. At times, it may even be moving backward. We are all impatient to achieve the ever receding goals of education in our own lifetimes. That is why it may seem as if little has been achieved.

I chose to examine the above statement and found myself questioning it. Have we really ‘done so much’? Let us take some of the more recent examples. The District Institutes for Education and Training (DIET) were established after the National Policy on Education (NPE) in 1986. Twenty years later, they are still considered by many as a ‘punishment posting.’ These institutions are by and large not working, and they are surely not delivering – vacancies abound, faculty are ill trained, motivation is low, and DIET faculty often wonder why they are there, and what they are meant to be doing! As a testimony to the ills plaguing the DIETs, large scale government programs like District Primary Education Program (DPEP) and the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) have often bypassed them.

Next, take the example of the Block and Cluster Resource Centres (B/CRC). They were established in the mid nineties, ostensibly to bring teacher support ‘onsite’, in a continuous manner. Nearly a decade later, barring the exceptional cases, these teacher resource centres are anything but that – they are more known as information collection centres. Their faculty members mechanically run training modules, and keep collecting information to satisfy the insatiable needs of reporting and ‘showing results.’ One does not even know if these structures will exist after the SSA is over and done with. The point I make is this – we have created institutions and structures, but have not nurtured them. That is why they are stagnating. That is why I say our efforts have been half hearted.

Next, take training. Modules are prepared with the best of intentions. What happens after training? Supportive monitoring, the other side of the coin, simply does not exist. We do not bother to find out if training has made any difference. Such is the state of affairs that I have encountered teachers even in a state like Karnataka who say ‘Leave us alone. This training is of no use…’ That is why I say our efforts have been half hearted. I wonder what will happen to the NCF 2005 a few years later.

The educational system is simply not geared to ensure continuity of effort. Frequent transfers, and change in leadership often arrests promising ideas and innovations. The moment somebody in an important position starts making something happen (there are not many who do in any case…), he is transferred – success is a problem! Promising efforts die a premature death. Who is accountable to whom?

Perhaps, we have not ‘done so much’, as my friend exclaimed. Perhaps, on the other hand, we have not learnt to doggedly pursue our ideas over time. We have started something here and there, and have often moved on to something else without looking back. That is why I say our efforts have been half hearted. It’s a frustrating history.

Giri
May 1, 2007
Kargil, J & K




[1] Since the education that most children currently experience is not good, to say the least, we often have to qualify what kind of education we want. So, statements like ‘He is getting a bad education’, are superfluous, because education cannot be bad. In this case, bad education does not qualify to be any kind of education! Education is inherently good, and ‘goodness’ is built into its definition.

Anything for the Universe!

Anything for the Universe

The year was 1983, and I was in grade 8. It was winter, and the skies were clear. We were living in our new home in Koramangala, Bangalore. During one of my various cycling trips in the area, I discovered that the Indian Institute of Astrophysics was just a few kilometers away. Excited, I went in one evening. Not knowing where to go, I kept wandering the lawns of the institute. A man, who was sitting on the lawn called me, and we started talking. I learnt that he was doing his research on the Sun. As our conversation went on, and I told him that astronomy was my favorite, he invited me to his room, and started sharing some of his ideas. My amazement knew no bounds. Here I was, talking to an astronomer, and astronomy was my pet subject, though no one in school was prepared to discuss it! Most of the time, my teachers just stuck to the books.

Finally, he asked me if I had seen through the telescope. When I said ‘No’, he offered to take me to the terrace, where the institute had a 6 inch reflector telescope, and said that he would show me the night sky. This was the ultimate treat! Unfortunately that evening, he did not have the keys to the terrace door, which was locked. I was disappointed. ‘Come after a week’, Balasubramaniam (Bala) said. ‘There is a lunar occultation of Saturn, and you could see that…but you will need to be here at 4 in the morning. I don’t know how you will manage that. And keep in touch, drop in anytime you want.’

In my excitement, I furiously cycled home, planning and plotting how to leave home at such an early hour the next week. I told my parents about it. They were clearly unhappy about my going alone at that hour. Just when I thought it was all over for the lunar occultation, I had a brilliant idea – just before my parents slept, when they were not noticing, I would advance the time of the clock in the living room by two hours. So, when the clock would show 0530, it would actually be 0330 in the morning – I would just have enough time to reach the institute! I somehow managed to convince my parents that leaving at 0530 was not a bad idea, after all! Of course, I had to keep a vigil on the clock, which meant that I couldn’t sleep all night…

The other condition was that they were not happy with my taking out my cycle – this meant that I had to jog all the way, some 2 or 3 kilometers away. So be it, I thought – I was ready to give anything to see the universe! The plan worked wonderfully well, except that I almost collapsed by the time I reached the institute at 0410. Before I left home, I adjusted the clock’s time back to normal, so that they wouldn’t notice!

The first peep was nothing short of a divine experience. Till then, I had only seen some photographs of the solar system in books in the school library. This was seeing it live! I caught the moon coming in front of Saturn’s rings, and then the entire planet itself was shut out by the moon. For the first time, I was able to see the craters on the moon, and the shadows they cast on its surface – amazing! Boy! Didn’t those Saturn rings look beautiful?! And then, Bala showed me Jupiter, and its four satellites (there are many more, but I could see only 4 – probably Ganymede, Io, Europa, etc). Of special interest was the red spot, the mystery red spot about which astronomers have all sorts of theories. In 2006, they probably know much more about it, though I’m not sure if anyone has the last word as yet. The red spot is several times the size of the earth…how big it must be, I wondered! I could also make out the various color bands of Jupiter.

If I were to write this today in Winch’s terms, my love for astronomy with all its mysteries of the universe, made me take all these steps to catch that celestial phenomenon, occurring millions of kilometers away in time and space! My date with the cosmos had been kept. Like the occultation, which was an event in the cosmos (from the point of view of reference of earthlings like us), my being able to see it was another major event in my life, which remains vivid to this day. My parents wouldn’t believe I had gone to this extent to look up at the heavens. They did feel puzzled about how time had passed that morning for them…I kept the secret to myself.

My enthusiasm and love for astronomy and for discovering the mysteries of this universe in which we live, never waned. Years later, as a teacher, I managed to transmit this excitement to the children I taught in the Valley School in Bangalore. We repaired the damaged telescope that was lying in the lab, and enjoyed many hours of star gazing in the football field where sometimes elephants and panthers also roamed…I also started an astronomy club during my tenure as teacher.

Giri
September 2006

The Dance of Life...

Years ago, when I was in school, I was often asked by elders in the family about what I wanted to become after growing up. I remember that my answer always unhesitatingly was ‘astronomer’, much to their surprise. Then, on one occasion, when there was a family function at a temple in some congested street of Bangalore, my cousin’s husband, who had a ‘good career’ going as an engineer, told me in no uncertain terms that astronomy wouldn’t do as a career. At best, he said, I could get into some unknown college or university and remain a lecturer all my life! The ‘lecturership’ didn’t sound perturbing at all, as did his admonishing tone. Little did I realize then the harsh realities of the world, and of growing up in it -- the constant pressure to perform, be ‘molded’ as the adults around us wished, and take up careers ‘approved’ in society. Little did my cousin’s husband realize the joys of peering through the telescope and asking – how big is the universe? Where did it come from? Was it always there? Is there life elsewhere…? He perhaps thought that all of this would be best done after retirement!

Twenty years hence, I’ve missed my astronomy bus, and, working in the social development sector, I still ask these questions. My cousin’s husband has retired, and is now looking to marry off his daughters to ‘US-based’ grooms. My guess is that he still hasn’t peered through a telescope.

Some questions though, remain. To begin with, thanks to my exposure in the field of education, I constantly ask – what should the purpose of education be? Gandhi had said, ‘By education I mean an all round drawing out of the best in child and man – body, mind and spirit.’ That does sound vague and distant doesn’t it, if one goes by what one sees today in the name of education?

Let me not get stuck with definitions at this stage, and instead move on to a more complex issue – the relationships between the development of our potential as human beings, our upbringing, the education system, the work we do in our lives, and our ability to be happy. What are the mechanisms available for each of us to realize our innate potential through work that pays, and makes us happy?

The organization that I now work for has a laudable vision of ‘…a world in which children realize their full potential…in societies that respect people’s rights and dignities…’ I do believe, however, that we haven’t reflected what this vision means as regards action. What does ‘development of full potential’ mean? When do we know if someone has developed his/her full potential? What are the links with schools and education, for instance?

In my own case, these links are not straightforward. I graduated as a mechanical engineer, worked in the corporate sector, then became a schoolteacher with the Valley School, Bangalore (as part of the J. Krishnamurti Foundation, India), then entered the social development arena with ‘Samuha’, an NGO in Northern Karnataka, became a ‘consultant’ with the Govt. of India for a large primary education program, and presently ‘advise’ a funding agency regarding its investments in education. That’s longwinded, isn’t it? I may get back to teaching next. I’m not sure if my potential is being fully used, but I do feel strongly that this is one of the things I would like to be doing. The mechanisms in society were not enabling, and one had to work one’s way around. Then there were those who tirelessly pointed out that I had ‘got it all wrong, that I was an escapist…’, but this didn’t deter me from carrying on.

We may find some answers in the field of economics. The economy, it is said, is the ‘happening’ thing that defines peoples’ lives – how we live, what we wear, what we think and so on...Perhaps it may enlighten us if we understand it better. Large amounts of money, including those in mega scams, exchange hands; large volumes of goods move from one part of the world to the other…all these activities are supposed to bring more comforts, make more people happy, generate jobs, and ‘uplift’ people. Or so we believe.

The ‘state of the economy’ is often talked about, and I wonder what that means. This is a funny way of capturing the quality of people’s lives through some numbers. As an aside, what puzzles me, however, is that we have business leaders and politicians patting each other’s backs for ‘low inflation’ and India as a ‘knowledge superpower’, while millions sleep hungry every night…

Economy or not, I see many persons unemployed around me. The connections are indeed intriguing, if they are examined further. Our education system creates round pegs that have to fit in square holes – there are graduates and postgraduates who ride motorcycles and deliver Mc Donald’s pizzas at your door step; mad caps like me; business executives who earn six figure salaries every month and still cannot be happy. And don’t forget the hundreds that Osama Bin Laden, George Bush and the RSS/VHP have managed to inspire…

It takes, as they say, all kinds of persons to make this world, to produce all kinds of goods and services. You give something (your understanding, skills…), and take something back…I’m not sure if that maximizes our potential, keeps us and others around us happy, and pays reasonably. A quick look around at a world in which there are gross inequalities, violence, large-scale environmental degradation…leaves you with a feeling that something is terribly wrong, somewhere. I’m sure all of this is connected with the questions I have raised earlier about the ‘relationships between the development of our potential as human beings, our upbringing, the education system, the work we do in our lives, and our ability to be happy...’
As an afterthought, I also wonder if the business of happiness is connected to these things, or, as they say, ‘is in the mind.’ You decide.