TOP · Educational Initiatives (EI) and Wipro. EI is a research organisation that de-velops and conducts Assessment of scholastic Skills through Educational Testing (ASSET), a diagnostic

38 INDIA TODAY ◆ NOVEMBER 27, 2006

It may be sacrilegious to ask such a question given that aver-aging 90 per cent marks in board examinations is now passé.To ask that of India’s top private schools is to prepare groundfor certain excommunication. For, aren’t these schools thethought leaders, the role models whose ideas and practices

set the pace for others? Isn’t poor quality the preserve of govern-ment-run schools? Isn’t our standard of education, especially inEnglish medium schools in major metros, among the best in theworld and possibly the reason why India is fast emerging as aknowledge superpower?

Those who thought so, and most of us did, must get ready foran absolute shocker. The results of a major survey of students in142 of India’s top private schools spread across five metros madeexclusively available to INDIA TODAY reveals a frightening gap inlearning in key subjects. Worse, when their performance wascompared to students in 43 other countries, Indian schools faredwell below international levels. The survey, one of the largest

TOP SCHOOLSIN INDIA SHOWAN ALARMING GAP IN STUDENTLEARNING

INDIAN STUDENTSFARE POORLY INCOMPARISON TOINTERNATIONALCOUNTERPARTS

LEARNING ISROTE-BASEDAND DOES NOTFOCUS ON REALKNOWLEDGE

T H E S U R V E Y

cover storyEDUCATION

A N E X C L U S I V E S U R V E Y

WHAT’SWRONGWITH OURTEACHING?

AT SCHOOL: Your childmight be studying hardbut not really learning

■ By Raj Chengappa and Shruti Maheshwari

COR

BIS

The study was conducted jointly byEducational Initiatives (EI) and Wipro.EI is a research organisation that de-velops and conducts Assessment ofscholastic Skills through EducationalTesting (ASSET), a diagnostic test forstudents of classes III-X. Wipro,through its community initiative—Wipro Applying Thought in Schools—works for educational reforms inIndia. The study was conductedacross 142 schools in five cities andtested learning and understanding ofkey concepts in English, Maths andScience of over 32,000 students inclasses IV, VI and VIII.


It may be sacrilegious to ask such a question given that aver-aging 90 per cent marks in board examinations is now passé.To ask that of India’s top private schools is to prepare groundfor certain excommunication. For, aren’t these schools thethought leaders, the role models whose ideas and practices

set the pace for others? Isn’t poor quality the preserve of govern-ment-run schools? Isn’t our standard of education, especially inEnglish medium schools in major metros, among the best in theworld and possibly the reason why India is fast emerging as aknowledge superpower?

Those who thought so, and most of us did, must get ready foran absolute shocker. The results of a major survey of students in142 of India’s top private schools spread across five metros madeexclusively available to INDIA TODAY reveals a frightening gap inlearning in key subjects. Worse, when their performance wascompared to students in 43 other countries, Indian schools faredwell below international levels. The survey, one of the largest

TOP SCHOOLSIN INDIA SHOWAN ALARMING GAP IN STUDENTLEARNING

INDIAN STUDENTSFARE POORLY INCOMPARISON TOINTERNATIONALCOUNTERPARTS

LEARNING ISROTE-BASEDAND DOES NOTFOCUS ON REALKNOWLEDGE

T H E S U R V E Y

cover storyEDUCATION

A N E X C L U S I V E S U R V E Y

WHAT’SWRONGWITH OURTEACHING?

AT SCHOOL: Your childmight be studying hardbut not really learning

■ By Raj Chengappa and Shruti Maheshwari

COR

BIS

The study was conducted jointly byEducational Initiatives (EI) and Wipro.EI is a research organisation that de-velops and conducts Assessment ofscholastic Skills through EducationalTesting (ASSET), a diagnostic test forstudents of classes III-X. Wipro,through its community initiative—Wipro Applying Thought in Schools—works for educational reforms inIndia. The study was conductedacross 142 schools in five cities andtested learning and understanding ofkey concepts in English, Maths andScience of over 32,000 students inclasses IV, VI and VIII.

of its kind involving 32,000 studentsin Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore,Chennai and Kolkata, was conductedjointly by Wipro Applying Thought inSchools (founded by Bangalore-basedsoftware giant Wipro) andEducational Initiatives (EI), a reputededucational research organisationheadquartered in Ahmedabad. EI’sManaging Director SridharRajagopalan admits that when thestudy was conceived it was essentiallyto find out how well students werelearning. They didn’t expect to come

EDUCATIONcover story

How they answered

Observation

Class IV students know thatreadings have to be takenfrom the right side of the scalebut not when the left end isnot at zero. That this is notjust an oversight is evidentbecause the error is repeatedin similar questions.

Q

AAB

CD

4 cm

5 cm

WHAT IS THE LENGTH OF THEPENCIL IN THE PICTURE?

A 7%

B 11%

C 77%

D 3%

B

C16%

64%

Class VI fared relatively well in aquestion needingvisualisation eventhough this is notformally taught inschools.

QIDENTIFY THE CORRECT ARRANGEMENTThree solids when arranged one on top of the otherlook like this from the top (see figure).

Observation

B C D

C

BD

A

23% 7%

23%

46%

How they answered

Class VIII students seemedto think that cutting somethingoff will mean theperimeter will reduce.

Q

A

WHAT IS THE PERIMETER? Nandita cut off a square of side 1 cm from a rectan-gular sheet as follows. What would be the change inperimeter as compared to the original paper?

Observation

ABCD

It would remain the sameIt would increase by 2 cmIt would decrease by 2 cmIt would decrease by 3 cm

1 cm2

MATHS

STUDENTS FARE WELL IN ROTE QUESTIONS BUT TRIPUP ON THOSE NEEDING INTERPRETATION & ANALYSIS.

CORRECT ANSWER IS OPTION ‘B’



6 cm

7 cmA

Right answer

Wrong answers

Right answer Wrong answers

Right answerWrong answers

STUDY METHODS: The stress is onmemorising and not understanding

HEM

ANT

CHAW

LA

Which of thesecould be thearrangement?

Percentages in this graphic and others may not total 100 because of invalid or no responses

A11%7%

D

A

All questions c ASSET

How they answeredGraphics by ALANKAR

up with such disquieting resultsabout the quality of education beingimparted in India’s top schools.

For the survey, the EI-Wipro teamdevised a series of tests to studywhether the students in classes IV, VIand VIII understood key concepts inEnglish, Mathematics and Science.Apart from multiple-choice questionsthat were devised to test their learningachievements, their writing compe-tence was also put to test. A secondarystudy was conducted to gather insightsinto just how much students retain anddevelop their knowledge as they moveto higher classes. To compare theirlearning abilities with those of childrenin other countries, questions were alsotaken from an international assess-ment study for which performancedata of students from over 40 coun-tries was available.

The analysis was geared to answerquestions such as how well are stu-dents learning in these schools, howmuch time do students take to inter-nalise a concept, how developed aretheir writing and expression compe-tencies, is the performance of any citybetter or worse than others, do stu-dents of a particular board do betterthan those of other boards, how dothey compare with international levels



How they answered

Observation

Class IV students fare better ifthe question is more direct,(one out of four parts is shadedinstead of four of the 16)showing an inability to handleunfamiliar questions.

A 37%

B 22%

C 9%

D 29%


Rest 2%

QWHAT FRACTION DOES THESHADED PART REPRESENT?

How they answered

Observation

Despite learning division inclass III, class VIII studentstrip up on this question whichtests if the technique of division is properly understood.

A 43%

B 4%

C 39%

D 12%

QWHAT IS 6789678967896789 DIVIDED BY 6789?

AABCD

1111

10101

1000100010001

1000100010001000

C

D

AB25%

22%

12%

39%

How they answered

Class VIII students show poor weightsand measures competency which is soimportant in real life—something theywould learn better if there was moreemphasis on practical applications.

Q AWHAT IS THE LIKELY WEIGHT OF A REGULAR TEASPOON?

Observation

ABCD

25 milligram75 milligram20 gram100 gram

CORRECT ANSWER IS OPTION ‘C’

ACORRECT ANSWER IS OPTION ‘A’ CORRECT ANSWER IS OPTION ‘C’



LEARNING SEEMS TO BE TAKING PLACE IN WATERTIGHT COMPARTMENTS WITH LITTLE RELATION TO REAL LIFE.

EARLY BURDEN: Students areforced to cover unrealistic syllabi

HEMANT CHAWLA

AB

CD

1/4

1/16

4/13

4/12


and are there any differences in theperformance of boys and girls.

The results do present a dismal pic-ture of student learning in the country’spremier schools. The highlights:

Students appear to be learning me-chanically rather than truly under-standing the concepts.

They performed exceeding wellonly where the answers could bemugged up from textbooks showing adisproportionate and unhealthy biastowards rote learning.

Their performance on questionstesting comprehension or applicationswas far below acceptable levels.

The students slotted learning intoartificial compartments and their abil-ity to apply what they learnt to real lifesituations–essential for competencebuilding–was extremely poor.

The survey showed that while

learning did improve as the studentsprogressed from class IV to VIII, manyof them caught up with class III and IVconcepts only when they reached classVI. It’s a warning that our learningprocess is unsatisfactory.

Worryingly, when internationalcomparisons were done, class IV stu-dents in Indian schools performed farbelow average in Mathematics andScience when compared to their coun-terparts in 43 other countries.

Surprisingly, when comparisonswere made across Indian cities, Delhi,Mumbai and Kolkata outperformedBangalore and Chennai. The reasonmay relate to differences in the respec-tive state curriculums.

Interestingly, those schools affili-ated to the ICSE Board outperformed theCBSE Board which in turn outperformedthe state boards. It indicated that ICSE

was more adaptive to current needs. Class size or school facilities such as

computers and libraries made no sub-stantial difference to a school’s perfor-mance indicating that what mattersmost is the way children are beingtaught to learn.

In a somewhat controversial find-ing, boys outperformed girls in Maths.The hypothesis for this finding is notgenetics as a former Harvard presidentonce conjectured and got into serioustrouble for doing so. But apparently be-cause of societal pressure that compelsparents to force their male children toexcel in Mathematics.

The survey strikes at the core ofwhat’s increasingly going wrong withthe approach to education—the focuson high value scores in board examsrather than concentrating on impart-ing real learning. While the results ofthe study are yet to be made public,experts reacted differently when toldabout some of the key findings. ArunKapur, director of Delhi’s Vasant ValleySchool, believes that the survey finallygives statistical validity to the realitythat had been staring schools in theface for a while. Says Kapur, “It’s beenclear that instead of focusing on inputswe need to be looking more closely atoutcomes. That we need to reduce theimportance we give to the role of text-books and shift the emphasis to appli-cation in real life. The survey gives us avehicle to do that.”

Educationists do acknowledge that

carring for carryinggowing for goingsum for some

minites for minutescarring for carrying

carring for carryingrecieve for receiveaunti/anti for auntymeat for meetgreatful for grateful

say the aunty, said you, asked that, he said his motheris been carrying, has wentIgnoring capitalisation of proper nounsErrors in sentence formation and punctuation

said you, not in the home

Improper use of capitals and apostrophe and erroneous sentence formation

Ignoring capitalisation of proper nouns andunnecessary speech marks in written text

has went, is been carrying, was come, calls to ourhouse

asked to me, rang of the phone, the Dipti Aunty

if you going to be delayed

GRAMMAR AND PUNCTUATIONSPELLING

How they answered

Observation

Grammar tends to be empha-sized a lot in our system—onereason why 80 per cent stu-dents of class IV got this right.

QCHOOSE THE SENTENCE WITHNO MISTAKES.

A 6%

B 6%

C 6%

D 80%

How they answered

Observation

None of the phrases in thequestion appear as they doin the passage—enough toconfuse class VI students.

QWHY, ACCORDING TO THE PASSAGE, IS PHARAOHTUTANKHAMEN FAMOUS?“Tutankhamen’stomb was forgottenuntil Howard Carterdiscovered it...(in)1922...(The) trea-sures (in his tomb)made Tutankhamenperhaps the bestknown of the pharaohs...”

WHAT’S AMISS IN ENGLISH

A 8%

B 45%

C 8%

D 37%

ENGLISH

Common errors that occur in student writing across classes IV, VI and VIII


CORRECT ANSWER IS OPTION ‘D’


A

A

ABCD

He died under tragic conditions

His tomb had many valuables

The walls of his tomb were thick

The tomb was discovered in 1922

Right answer

Wrong answers

WRITINGON THEWALL: Isanybodypaying attention?

LANGUAGE IS BEING LEARNT LESS AS SOMETHING INTE-GRAL AND USEFUL AND MORE AS A SU BJECT FOR A TEST.

HEMANT CHAWLA

▲▲

▲▲

▲

▲▲

▲▲

▲

ABCD

The taj mahal is is agra

The Taj Mahal is in agra

The Taj mahal is in agra

The Taj Mahal is in Agra


and are there any differences in theperformance of boys and girls.

The results do present a dismal pic-ture of student learning in the country’spremier schools. The highlights:

Students appear to be learning me-chanically rather than truly under-standing the concepts.

They performed exceeding wellonly where the answers could bemugged up from textbooks showing adisproportionate and unhealthy biastowards rote learning.

Their performance on questionstesting comprehension or applicationswas far below acceptable levels.

The students slotted learning intoartificial compartments and their abil-ity to apply what they learnt to real lifesituations–essential for competencebuilding–was extremely poor.

The survey showed that while

learning did improve as the studentsprogressed from class IV to VIII, manyof them caught up with class III and IVconcepts only when they reached classVI. It’s a warning that our learningprocess is unsatisfactory.

Worryingly, when internationalcomparisons were done, class IV stu-dents in Indian schools performed farbelow average in Mathematics andScience when compared to their coun-terparts in 43 other countries.

Surprisingly, when comparisonswere made across Indian cities, Delhi,Mumbai and Kolkata outperformedBangalore and Chennai. The reasonmay relate to differences in the respec-tive state curriculums.

Interestingly, those schools affili-ated to the ICSE Board outperformed theCBSE Board which in turn outperformedthe state boards. It indicated that ICSE

was more adaptive to current needs. Class size or school facilities such as

computers and libraries made no sub-stantial difference to a school’s perfor-mance indicating that what mattersmost is the way children are beingtaught to learn.

In a somewhat controversial find-ing, boys outperformed girls in Maths.The hypothesis for this finding is notgenetics as a former Harvard presidentonce conjectured and got into serioustrouble for doing so. But apparently be-cause of societal pressure that compelsparents to force their male children toexcel in Mathematics.

The survey strikes at the core ofwhat’s increasingly going wrong withthe approach to education—the focuson high value scores in board examsrather than concentrating on impart-ing real learning. While the results ofthe study are yet to be made public,experts reacted differently when toldabout some of the key findings. ArunKapur, director of Delhi’s Vasant ValleySchool, believes that the survey finallygives statistical validity to the realitythat had been staring schools in theface for a while. Says Kapur, “It’s beenclear that instead of focusing on inputswe need to be looking more closely atoutcomes. That we need to reduce theimportance we give to the role of text-books and shift the emphasis to appli-cation in real life. The survey gives us avehicle to do that.”

Educationists do acknowledge that

carring for carryinggowing for goingsum for some

minites for minutescarring for carrying

carring for carryingrecieve for receiveaunti/anti for auntymeat for meetgreatful for grateful

say the aunty, said you, asked that, he said his motheris been carrying, has wentIgnoring capitalisation of proper nounsErrors in sentence formation and punctuation

said you, not in the home

Improper use of capitals and apostrophe and erroneous sentence formation

Ignoring capitalisation of proper nouns andunnecessary speech marks in written text

has went, is been carrying, was come, calls to ourhouse

asked to me, rang of the phone, the Dipti Aunty

if you going to be delayed

GRAMMAR AND PUNCTUATIONSPELLING

How they answered

Observation

Grammar tends to be empha-sized a lot in our system—onereason why 80 per cent stu-dents of class IV got this right.

QCHOOSE THE SENTENCE WITHNO MISTAKES.

A 6%

B 6%

C 6%

D 80%

How they answered

Observation

None of the phrases in thequestion appear as they doin the passage—enough toconfuse class VI students.

QWHY, ACCORDING TO THE PASSAGE, IS PHARAOHTUTANKHAMEN FAMOUS?“Tutankhamen’stomb was forgottenuntil Howard Carterdiscovered it...(in)1922...(The) trea-sures (in his tomb)made Tutankhamenperhaps the bestknown of the pharaohs...”

WHAT’S AMISS IN ENGLISH

A 8%

B 45%

C 8%

D 37%

ENGLISH

Common errors that occur in student writing across classes IV, VI and VIII


CORRECT ANSWER IS OPTION ‘D’


A

A

ABCD

He died under tragic conditions

His tomb had many valuables

The walls of his tomb were thick

The tomb was discovered in 1922

Right answer

Wrong answers

WRITINGON THEWALL: Isanybodypaying attention?

LANGUAGE IS BEING LEARNT LESS AS SOMETHING INTE-GRAL AND USEFUL AND MORE AS A SU BJECT FOR A TEST.

HEMANT CHAWLA

▲▲

▲▲

▲

▲▲

▲▲

▲

ABCD

The taj mahal is is agra

The Taj Mahal is in agra

The Taj mahal is in agra

The Taj Mahal is in Agra

emphasis on rote and procedurallearning is good to some extent as itbuilds in students the necessary rigourand hardwork to achieve results.Shyama Chona, principal of DelhiPublic School in R.K. Puram, says:“Memory plays a very important role inlearning and we Indians by culture arevery good at learning by heart. And thisis not learning without understanding,otherwise how would they rememberall the concepts for years. So learningby rote is not bad at all. The problemwith our education system is that it istoo bulky and the students are made tolearn too much, too fast. It’s clear weneed immediate and rapid reforms.”



Other experts though believe thatthe disproportionate emphasis on rotelearning is clearly proving to be coun-terproductive. Dr K. Subramanian aprofessor at the Homi Bhabha Centrefor Science Education in Mumbai, whowas part of the expert panel whichanalysed the survey results, says: “It’sclear from the survey that our topschools have very unsatisfactorylearning. That children are not usingtheir minds and there is somethingthat is putting their thinking andanalytical abilities off. The exclusivefocus on high marks actually produces

this kind of learning and responses andaffects the students all the way downto what the teacher chooses to stresson in class. Ultimately the goal ofeducation is not to cover the syllabusbut to uncover knowledge and that isyet to happen.”

So then what is the way out of themorass? Experts offer a wide spectrumof solutions from drastically alteringthe curriculum to changing the exami-nation system. The consensus is thatthere needs to be a shift from facts toskill. Students need to develop skills tolearn how to learn rather than simplyhaving to memorise larger and largersyllabi. They believe that in the coming

How they answered

Observation

Class VIII students fail tomake a two-step reasoning:that water is H2O and itevaporates to form steam.

Q

AABCD

CO

H2O

O2

Pure steam does not have a chemical formula

WHAT IS THE CHEMICAL FORMULA OF PURE STEAM?

A 4%

B 37%

C 6%

D 51%

To understand how well children are learning in the top schools of ourcountry, a national level research study was jointly conducted byEducational Initiatives (EI)and Wipro Applying Thought in Schools. Over

32,000 students from 142 leading schools of five metros–Mumbai, Kolkata,Chennai, Delhi and Bangalore participated in the tests conducted betweenFebruary and April 2006.

To identify 200 leading schools, a sample survey was conducted of 200-230 persons in each metro from various categories like students, teachersand professionals. The selected schools were then asked to randomly iden-tify two sections each of classes IV, VI and VIII to participate in the test.Schools were requested not to break classes or to select students for thestudy to prevent skews such as getting just toppers to take the test.

Special test papers were designed with multiple-choice questions ofknown difficulty levels from pastASSET papers. A ‘secondary study’was designed to understand stu-dent learning across classes.

A special design called ‘rotatedtest papers’ was used for the pur-pose of the study. There were twosets of papers for each class withsome common questions. Thismeans each student, in a way,wrote only half the test. This wasdone to allow a larger range ofcompetencies to be tested withoutmaking the test too long.

Some of the questions in thetest were from an internationaltest known as ‘Trends inInternational Maths and ScienceStudy’ (TIMSS). For these questions,the performance of students from43 countries from around theworld was known. This was used

to benchmark learning in our top schools with international levels. The tests were coordinated by EI’s city coordinators for the project.

During the tests, adjacent students received different papers. The secondsection of every class got the secondary study paper (which was commonfor all the classes). A written task was included in every test paper.

A panel of experts comprising principals, educationists, subject spe-cialists and assessment experts from various parts of the country guidedthe entire project. Wipro’s Anand Swaminathan says, “Their inputs weresought on the overall design of the study as well as the design of the test pa-pers, though not on the actual choice of questions.”

Regarding the caveats for the study, Anar Shukla, Project Manager, EI,says, “ This study is not an attempt to rank or identify top schools or boards,rather it is an attempt to understand overall patterns in student learning inthe leading schools of our metros. No conclusion can or should be drawnbased on this study’s findings about individual schools, as the sampling wasnot designed for that, but rather for obtaining an overall picture about theleading English-medium schools of different cities.”

How The Survey Was DoneM E T H O D O L O G Y

SCIENCE

S T E P B Y S T E PIDENTIFICATION OF TOP SCHOOLS:

To gauge this, around 200 peo-ple were surveyed in each metro.

THE NUMBERS: 32,000 studentsof classes IV, VI and VIII weresurveyed from 142 schools.

SUBJECTS: Tests were conductedin three subjects—Maths,Science and English.

TESTS: Students of the selectedschools took the tests betweenFebruary and April 2006.

VERIFICATION: Results were discussed with experts and theirviews obtained.

12345

CLASS VIII STUDENT S CONSISTENTLY FALTERED EVEN ONCONCEPTS THEY HAD LEARNT IN JUNIOR SCHOOL.



MATH LABS: Concepts are internalised only when practised

HEMANT CHAWLA

emphasis on rote and procedurallearning is good to some extent as itbuilds in students the necessary rigourand hardwork to achieve results.Shyama Chona, principal of DelhiPublic School in R.K. Puram, says:“Memory plays a very important role inlearning and we Indians by culture arevery good at learning by heart. And thisis not learning without understanding,otherwise how would they rememberall the concepts for years. So learningby rote is not bad at all. The problemwith our education system is that it istoo bulky and the students are made tolearn too much, too fast. It’s clear weneed immediate and rapid reforms.”



Other experts though believe thatthe disproportionate emphasis on rotelearning is clearly proving to be coun-terproductive. Dr K. Subramanian aprofessor at the Homi Bhabha Centrefor Science Education in Mumbai, whowas part of the expert panel whichanalysed the survey results, says: “It’sclear from the survey that our topschools have very unsatisfactorylearning. That children are not usingtheir minds and there is somethingthat is putting their thinking andanalytical abilities off. The exclusivefocus on high marks actually produces

this kind of learning and responses andaffects the students all the way downto what the teacher chooses to stresson in class. Ultimately the goal ofeducation is not to cover the syllabusbut to uncover knowledge and that isyet to happen.”

So then what is the way out of themorass? Experts offer a wide spectrumof solutions from drastically alteringthe curriculum to changing the exami-nation system. The consensus is thatthere needs to be a shift from facts toskill. Students need to develop skills tolearn how to learn rather than simplyhaving to memorise larger and largersyllabi. They believe that in the coming

How they answered

Observation

Class VIII students fail tomake a two-step reasoning:that water is H2O and itevaporates to form steam.

Q

AABCD

CO

H2O

O2

Pure steam does not have a chemical formula

WHAT IS THE CHEMICAL FORMULA OF PURE STEAM?

A 4%

B 37%

C 6%

D 51%

To understand how well children are learning in the top schools of ourcountry, a national level research study was jointly conducted byEducational Initiatives (EI)and Wipro Applying Thought in Schools. Over

32,000 students from 142 leading schools of five metros–Mumbai, Kolkata,Chennai, Delhi and Bangalore participated in the tests conducted betweenFebruary and April 2006.

To identify 200 leading schools, a sample survey was conducted of 200-230 persons in each metro from various categories like students, teachersand professionals. The selected schools were then asked to randomly iden-tify two sections each of classes IV, VI and VIII to participate in the test.Schools were requested not to break classes or to select students for thestudy to prevent skews such as getting just toppers to take the test.

Special test papers were designed with multiple-choice questions ofknown difficulty levels from pastASSET papers. A ‘secondary study’was designed to understand stu-dent learning across classes.

A special design called ‘rotatedtest papers’ was used for the pur-pose of the study. There were twosets of papers for each class withsome common questions. Thismeans each student, in a way,wrote only half the test. This wasdone to allow a larger range ofcompetencies to be tested withoutmaking the test too long.

Some of the questions in thetest were from an internationaltest known as ‘Trends inInternational Maths and ScienceStudy’ (TIMSS). For these questions,the performance of students from43 countries from around theworld was known. This was used

to benchmark learning in our top schools with international levels. The tests were coordinated by EI’s city coordinators for the project.

During the tests, adjacent students received different papers. The secondsection of every class got the secondary study paper (which was commonfor all the classes). A written task was included in every test paper.

A panel of experts comprising principals, educationists, subject spe-cialists and assessment experts from various parts of the country guidedthe entire project. Wipro’s Anand Swaminathan says, “Their inputs weresought on the overall design of the study as well as the design of the test pa-pers, though not on the actual choice of questions.”

Regarding the caveats for the study, Anar Shukla, Project Manager, EI,says, “ This study is not an attempt to rank or identify top schools or boards,rather it is an attempt to understand overall patterns in student learning inthe leading schools of our metros. No conclusion can or should be drawnbased on this study’s findings about individual schools, as the sampling wasnot designed for that, but rather for obtaining an overall picture about theleading English-medium schools of different cities.”

How The Survey Was DoneM E T H O D O L O G Y

SCIENCE

S T E P B Y S T E PIDENTIFICATION OF TOP SCHOOLS:

To gauge this, around 200 peo-ple were surveyed in each metro.

THE NUMBERS: 32,000 studentsof classes IV, VI and VIII weresurveyed from 142 schools.

SUBJECTS: Tests were conductedin three subjects—Maths,Science and English.

TESTS: Students of the selectedschools took the tests betweenFebruary and April 2006.

VERIFICATION: Results were discussed with experts and theirviews obtained.

12345

CLASS VIII STUDENT S CONSISTENTLY FALTERED EVEN ONCONCEPTS THEY HAD LEARNT IN JUNIOR SCHOOL.



MATH LABS: Concepts are internalised only when practised

HEMANT CHAWLA

years, it would be more important forstudents to learn how to rapidly adaptto different job tasks and to constantlythink out-of-the-box.

Given that there would be a host ofnew careers requiring specialisedskills, it’s important that the base—which is school education—be flexible and innovative to helpstudents meet these challenges.Professor H.S. Srivastava, a formerdean of NCERT, says, “What we need isto develop a system that encouragesstudents to gain multiple abilities tohelp them combat the rapid changesin today’s world.”

Others call for a fundamentaloverhaul of the system. Fr T.V.



Kunnankal, former CBSE chief and amember of NCERT’s Steering Committeefor Curriculum Reforms, says: “Theproblem is that our teachers are of the‘chalk and talk’ type. But we have tomake learning much more interactiveat all levels right from kindergartenonwards. The laboratory approach inMathematics, Languages and Scienceworks far better than the text book method.”

Rajagopalan agrees withKunnankal’s approach and adds:“What is also needed is for boardexams to shift from rote questions tothose that test understanding andmake the process of correction morestringent. These would have acascading effect, eventually leading toteachers focusing more on learningwith understanding rather than byrote.” He also emphasises the need forregular external assessments to gaugethe health of the system and also to

constantly benchmark it to the best inthe world.

All this is easier said than done.Perhaps we should learn from ge-niuses such as Albert Einstein whoonce said: “I never teach my pupils; Ionly attempt to provide the conditionsin which they can learn.” With ChinesePresident Hu Jintao arriving in Delhifrom November 20 it may be more po-litically appropriate to quote Confuciuswho once said:

“What I hear, I forget. What I see, I remember. What I do, I understand.”

BC

AD35%

52%

7%4%

How they answered

Class VIII students knowthat nails conductelectricity but failto apply thatknowledge here.

Q

A

HOW CAN YOU MAKE THE TORCH WORK?Srihari has a torch with him and two new batteries.However, the torch requires three batteries to work. Isthere anyway he can make the torch glow?

Observation

ABCD

Place a nail lightly in between Place nothing in between, just the two batteries Place a piece of cloth tightly in between None of these will work

C

D

BA8%

17%

28%

44%

Who got it right?

This unfamiliarquestion requiresan understandingof density andcannot be answered by rote.

QWHAT WILL HAPPEN IF A SOLID HAVING THE SAME DENSITY AS THELIQUID IS PLACED IN IT?

Observation

ABCD

It will sinkIt will floatIt will stay in any position within the liquidA solid cannot have the same density as a liquid

How they answered

Observation

Class IV students fare well inthis typically ‘textbookish’question showing ease in handling rote problems—thisis seen in other such questions as well across allgrades and in all cities.

QTHE EARTH’S ROTATION ON ITSAXIS IS THE REASON FOR...

A 17%

B 8%

C 7%

D 66%

ACORRECT ANSWER IS OPTION ‘D’


ABCD

the different seasons

longer days in summer

eclipses

day and night



CORRECT ANSWER IS OPTION ‘A’


QA FISH BREATHES THROUGH ITSGILLS WHEREAS WHALES BREATHETHROUGH THEIR...

AABCD

lungs

air holes

skin

mouth

Observation

Even though class VIstudents know that whalesare mammals and thatmammals breathe throughlungs, the majority do notmake the connection.

A 36%

B 40%

C 11%

D 10%


How they answered

CORRECT ANSWER ISOPTION ‘A’

CLASS VI INDIAN STUDENTS IN SOME TESTS WERE OUTDONE BY INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS OF CLASS IV.

UNIFORM PROBLEM:The focus is on gettinghigh scores

HEMANT CHAWLA

INTERNATIONAL SCORECARD

We would like you to respond to the ar-ticle by sending your comments [email protected] or writing in toour mailing address. We plan to featurethe best ideas from our readers on thesubject in our future issues. For full textof the survey visit www.indiatoday.com

0

20

40

60

Maths Score

63%

50%

Inte

rnat

iona

l

Indi

an 0

20

40

60

Science Score

64%

48%

Trends in International Maths and Science Study (TIMSS) scores revealthat Indian students are not up to the mark.

Comparative performance of students in Indian metros vis-a-vis the international average in class IV

Inte

rnat

iona

l

Indi

an

years, it would be more important forstudents to learn how to rapidly adaptto different job tasks and to constantlythink out-of-the-box.

Given that there would be a host ofnew careers requiring specialisedskills, it’s important that the base—which is school education—be flexible and innovative to helpstudents meet these challenges.Professor H.S. Srivastava, a formerdean of NCERT, says, “What we need isto develop a system that encouragesstudents to gain multiple abilities tohelp them combat the rapid changesin today’s world.”

Others call for a fundamentaloverhaul of the system. Fr T.V.



Kunnankal, former CBSE chief and amember of NCERT’s Steering Committeefor Curriculum Reforms, says: “Theproblem is that our teachers are of the‘chalk and talk’ type. But we have tomake learning much more interactiveat all levels right from kindergartenonwards. The laboratory approach inMathematics, Languages and Scienceworks far better than the text book method.”

Rajagopalan agrees withKunnankal’s approach and adds:“What is also needed is for boardexams to shift from rote questions tothose that test understanding andmake the process of correction morestringent. These would have acascading effect, eventually leading toteachers focusing more on learningwith understanding rather than byrote.” He also emphasises the need forregular external assessments to gaugethe health of the system and also to

constantly benchmark it to the best inthe world.

All this is easier said than done.Perhaps we should learn from ge-niuses such as Albert Einstein whoonce said: “I never teach my pupils; Ionly attempt to provide the conditionsin which they can learn.” With ChinesePresident Hu Jintao arriving in Delhifrom November 20 it may be more po-litically appropriate to quote Confuciuswho once said:

“What I hear, I forget. What I see, I remember. What I do, I understand.”

BC

AD35%

52%

7%4%

How they answered

Class VIII students knowthat nails conductelectricity but failto apply thatknowledge here.

Q

A

HOW CAN YOU MAKE THE TORCH WORK?Srihari has a torch with him and two new batteries.However, the torch requires three batteries to work. Isthere anyway he can make the torch glow?

Observation

ABCD

Place a nail lightly in between Place nothing in between, just the two batteries Place a piece of cloth tightly in between None of these will work

C

D

BA8%

17%

28%

44%

Who got it right?

This unfamiliarquestion requiresan understandingof density andcannot be answered by rote.

QWHAT WILL HAPPEN IF A SOLID HAVING THE SAME DENSITY AS THELIQUID IS PLACED IN IT?

Observation

ABCD

It will sinkIt will floatIt will stay in any position within the liquidA solid cannot have the same density as a liquid

How they answered

Observation

Class IV students fare well inthis typically ‘textbookish’question showing ease in handling rote problems—thisis seen in other such questions as well across allgrades and in all cities.

QTHE EARTH’S ROTATION ON ITSAXIS IS THE REASON FOR...

A 17%

B 8%

C 7%

D 66%

ACORRECT ANSWER IS OPTION ‘D’


ABCD

the different seasons

longer days in summer

eclipses

day and night



CORRECT ANSWER IS OPTION ‘A’


QA FISH BREATHES THROUGH ITSGILLS WHEREAS WHALES BREATHETHROUGH THEIR...

AABCD

lungs

air holes

skin

mouth

Observation

Even though class VIstudents know that whalesare mammals and thatmammals breathe throughlungs, the majority do notmake the connection.

A 36%

B 40%

C 11%

D 10%


How they answered

CORRECT ANSWER ISOPTION ‘A’

CLASS VI INDIAN STUDENTS IN SOME TESTS WERE OUTDONE BY INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS OF CLASS IV.

UNIFORM PROBLEM:The focus is on gettinghigh scores

HEMANT CHAWLA

INTERNATIONAL SCORECARD

We would like you to respond to the ar-ticle by sending your comments [email protected] or writing in toour mailing address. We plan to featurethe best ideas from our readers on thesubject in our future issues. For full textof the survey visit www.indiatoday.com

0

20

40

60

Maths Score

63%

50%

Inte

rnat

iona

l

Indi

an 0

20

40

60

Science Score

64%

48%

Trends in International Maths and Science Study (TIMSS) scores revealthat Indian students are not up to the mark.

Comparative performance of students in Indian metros vis-a-vis the international average in class IV

Inte

rnat

iona

l

Indi

an

Documents

TOP · Educational Initiatives (EI) and Wipro. EI is a research organisation that de-velops and conducts Assessment of scholastic Skills through Educational Testing (ASSET), a diagnostic