Voices of Teachers and Teacher Educators - Arvind Gupta (1).pdfshaping the social transformation India is witnessing, ... - two distinct but inter-related dimensions that converge

Voices of Teachers andTeacher Educators

Volume II Issue 1 February 2013

Voices of Teachers and Teacher Educators

Volume II Issue 1 February 2013

Published by:

National Council for Teacher Education, Ministry of Human Resource Development,Government of India, New DelhiPreparation of the publication at Vidya Bhawan Society, Udaipur.

Cover Design: Preeti Misra and Rajesh SenLayout Design: Preeti Misra and Rajesh Sen

About the publication

The launch of the journal 'Voices of Teachers and Teacher Educators' is an initiative of

the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) to highlight the vital role of

teacher education in India, as the country is poised to provide quality education to all

its children, irrespective of gender, caste, creed, religion and geographies under the

Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act (RtE), 2009. The large influx

of teachers necessitated under RtE represents the biggest opportunity to bring fresh

life into schools for decades to come. The challenge is to enhance the role of teachers in

shaping the social transformation India is witnessing, as well as have a long lasting

impact on the quality of education, also making it significantly more equitable. Teachers

and all those in the system need to recognize that their ownership and voices are

important and that they can and do learn not only from their own experiences but also

from each other through collective reflection and analysis. The publication attempts

to lend voice to teachers, their educators, researchers, administrators and policy makers

in the varied institutions: Schools, CRCs, BRCs, DIETs, IASEs, CTEs, SCERTs etc., and

make visible their engagement in accomplishing extraordinarily complex and diverse

tasks that they are expected to perform. Contributions are welcome both in English

and Hindi and there are plans to produce the journal in a multilingual format in the

near future.

Call for contributions

This publication is for all of us: teachers, teacher educators, administrators, researchersand policy makers. It is to provide a platform and also to build a network for ourvoices, ideas and reflections. Since the idea is to make this journal reflect all ourvoices it would only fulfill its purpose, if we contribute to it in as many ways as wecan. We look forward to all of you contributing with your experiences, questions,suggestions, perspectives as well as critical comments on different aspects of teachereducation and schooling. This could also be through comments and reflections on thecurrent issue. Your contribution could be in the form of articles, reports documents,pictures, cartoons or any other forms of presentation that can be printed. We lookforward to your inputs to make this journal truly reflective of our voices. It is proposedthat this be a quarterly publication. We would like to receive contributions for thenext issue by 30th April, 2013. We also look forward to comments and suggestionsfor improvements of the publication to make this a participative endeavor and improveits quality.

Editorial Team

Dr. Janaki Rajan is Professor of Education at Jamia Millia Islamia. She was Director, StateCouncil of Educational Research and Training, Delhi from 2000-2006. She holds master’sdegrees in English Literature, Psychology and Education. Her research, publications, teachingand activist interests lie in the areas of gender, inclusive education, curriculum and culturalstudies, women and child rights.

Hriday Kant Dewan is Education Advisor, Vidya Bhawan Society, Udaipur, Rajasthan, Hehas a Ph.D. in Physics from Delhi University. He is involved in strengthening SCERTs andDIETs, textbook development, teacher and teacher educator training and research anddissemination in education.

Editorial Assistant : Preeti Misra, Vidya Bhawan Education Resource Center, Udaipur.

Chief Editorial Coordinator: Dr. Amarjit Singh, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Human ResourceDevelopment, Government of India.

Publication Coordinator: Mr. Vikram Sahay, Director, Department of School Education andLiteracy, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India.

Contributors

1. Sheshagiri K.M, UNICEF, Raipur, Chhattisgarh.2. Gurjeet Kaur, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi.3. J. Inbaraj, DTERT, College Road, DPI Campus, Chennai, Tamil Nadu.4. M. Sudhish, SCERT, Chhattisgarh.5. H.K. Dewan, Vidya Bhawan Society, Udaipur, Rajasthan.6. Rajni Dwivedi, Vidya Bhawan Education Resource Centre, Udaipur, Rajasthan.7. Kumud Purohit, Vidya Bhawan Gandhian Institute, Udaipur, Rajasthan.8. Janaki Rajan, IASE, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi.9. Sarwat Ali, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi.10. Richa Goswami, Vidya Bhawan Education Resource Centre, Udaipur, Rajasthan.

Illustrations and Photographs

1. Jaya Rathore, Yashodhara and Sneha, Vidya Bhawan Education Resource Centre,Udaipur, Rajasthan.

2. Prashant Soni, Vidya Bhawan Education Resource Centre, Udaipur, Rajasthan.

3. Teacher Education - Ministry of Human Resource Development.

Contents

Editorial

Section I: Inside the classrooms - Experiences of teachers, trainees andteacher educators

1. ChannakeshavaSheshagiri K.M

Section II: From practitioners, researchers, policy makers2. Textbook representations as reinforces of (mis)understandings : The

case of ray diagrams in opticsGurjeet Kaur

Section III: SCERTs: Reflection on issues, challenges, effective practices

3. Reading recovery intervention of SCERT, Tamil NaduJ. Inbaraj

4. Documentation of the best practices adopted by SCERT and DIETs

in Chhattisgarh

M. Sudhish

Section IV: Teacher education: Reflection on issues, challenges, effectivepractices

5. Exploring alternatives in teacher educationH. K. Dewan

6. NÙkhlx<+ ds Mh-,M- ikB~;Øe esa cnykoRajni Dwivedi

Section V: Reports of conferences, seminars, workshops7. Philosophy of Education seminar - Azim Premji University,

BangaloreKumud Purohit

8. E9 conference on inclusive, relevant quality education for all

Janaki Rajan

9. National Seminar on Art Integrated Learning: A CommentarySarawat Ali

Section VI: Book review

10. The learning tree by James Tooley – reviewed byRicha Goswami

Conference Annoucements

1

13

18

25

32

38

42

46

53

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Editorial

Over the last few years, there has been a slow if not sure consensus that teacher education is important.This realization has translated to frenetic action at local, state, national and international levels. Thecumulative neglect of the teacher education sector over the last two decades is not going to be easy toredress – more importantly, there is need for collective understanding of what teacher education is allabout in all its complexities. Currently, teacher education is largely described in terms such as pre-service, in-service, modules, 3-day, 5-day, 10-day trainings and so on. The debate on what constitutes‘quality’ teacher education invokes sharp reactions and responses, yet, gradual consensus does seems tobe emerging on the primacy and agency of the teacher, her self-respect, commitment to child-centredrather than teacher-centred teaching-learning, unprecedented interest in pedagogies and most of all, agradually emerging agreement that the purpose of education is all children learning - meaningfully andeffectively and that for this to happen, higher education needs to step in, with research-based academicsupport. In this issue, we attempt to present a panoptic on these efforts on teacher education.

At the national level, for the first time, the MHRD has constituted Joint Review Mission for TeacherEducation to assess, in a collaborative mode with the States, the progress made in teacher education, itslinkages with the school system, and the nature of research based academic support teacher educationdraws on. Hopefully, this will provide the necessary lens to re-define state initiatives in teacher preparation.Meanwhile, States have also been independently engaging in revitalizing teacher education institutions,notably the SCERTs. Following the account of Andhra Pradesh in the first issue, we present howChattisgarh has shaped its SCERT. Tamil Nadu has initiated a radical shift in school and teacher educationthrough the Ability Based Learning model, and we explore a State teacher educator’s view and action onthis process. We reflect on teacher preparation in general through an article on a possible processframework.

The E9 is a forum of high-populated nine countries, which formed to achieve EFA goals through south-south cooperation. The “E” stands for education and the “9” represents the nine highly populatedcountries: Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria and Pakistan. The E9countries met in New Delhi for a Conference on Quality, Inclusive Education for All under the aegis ofUNESCO. Teacher education challenges formed a key part of the deliberations and the joint resolution. Asummary of the conference forms part of this issue.

The substantives of teacher education has to emerge from the process of teaching-learning and materials- two distinct but inter-related dimensions that converge inside a classroom. We explore these with anautobiographical account of a practitioner as he looks back on his journey in Mathematics that began inhis school days with his teacher. Also in this issue is an article that explores conceptualizations of thestudy of science, specifically optics and the (mis)-conceptions that arise out of ritualized accounts inscience textbooks. It is interesting that while for one author, the deeper engagement with existing materialswas the route to life-long passion for Mathematics, another finds how materials themselves serve to act,as Bourdieu states, as a ‘doxa’ of scientific understanding – the unstated, taken-for-granted assumptionsor the going along with what we perceive as acceptable sense behind the ideas we accept. The report onart education as pedagogy further questions our assumptions while we translate theory into practice.

It is pertinent to bring to the forefront teachers as persons, for whom so much teacher education ishappening. One thing can be said for sure, they were all young men and women when they began to teachfor the first time, with youthful aspirations, some tried and broken, others sieved out of more competitiveoptions. Nevertheless, for the first time teachers engaged with children in a classroom, we can confidentlysay that they pour into this experience, the very best of themselves. What happens to these young menand women? What happens to them after that is the central task of teacher education.

‘Voices’ is entirely dependent on the contributions of teachers, academics, teacher educators and activists.We invite articles on classroom practices, curricula, teaching-learning materials, pedagogic practices,teacher education, snippets, reports, innovations and reflections of teachers, teacher trainees, andresearchers. Please email them to: [email protected] and [email protected].


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Sheshagiri K.M.

Channakeshava

AbstractThis autobiographical article details the impact school teachers can have ingenerating abiding engagement of students with disciplines, in this caseMathematics, that comes out of the teacher’s thorough grasp not just of content butof how Mathematical ideas developed, the questions of the times, the people involvedin the subject’s development. Complex concepts begin to look more graspable to aninquiring young mind that absorbs the passion for Mathematics that the teacherexudes.

Introduction to beauty in MathematicsI reached the eighth grade in 1983. It wasChannakeshava’s first class with us in June thatyear and it had very little to do with our syllabusand textbooks. He could have so easily startedoff with the first chapter, and we would haveplodded through, as usual. Instead, he wantedto begin by showing us ‘beauty’ in mathematics(This, I say in hindsight. It wasn’t so obviousthen). So he posed the following question on theblackboard:

142857 X 1?This was easy. Next, he asked:

142857 X 2?While we all got busy with the multiplication, hequickly wrote the answer – 285714. Then, heasked again:

142857 X 3?428571 is the answer, which he had written downas if he knew it all along while we were busymultiplying! Then he went on to show whathappens when 142857 is multiplied by 4, 5 and6. Interesting stuff was emerging:

142857 X1 = 142857142857 X 2 = 285714142857 X 3 = 428571142857 X4 = 571428142857 X 5 = 714285142857 X 6 = 857142

What we saw was a ‘cyclic permutation’ of thenumber’s original digits even as we multiplied itby 2, till 6. It was difficult to discern a pattern inthe manner the digits got shifted — sometimesone digit got shifted, sometimes two, andsometimes three but in all cases the ones getting

BeginningLet me begin this story with my school, theBaldwin Boys High School in Bangalore, whichI joined in 1978. The school was already98 years old then we celebrated our hundredyears when I was in grade 6. But I would meetChannakeshava (Channa, as he wasaffectionately called), the Mathematics teacherand the main protagonist of this story, only in1983 in the eighth grade.

There was nothing unique about mymathematical experiences up to the seventhgrade. We had sincere and hardworking teachersteaching to the syllabus and preparing us for theexams. I don’t recall being excited about matheither. Mrs. Thomas, our class teacher in sixthwas always pleasant, never lost her patience andonce told me that she could solve all the problemsin complicated looking 10 th standard ICSEtextbook by O. P Sinhal. That complex lookingbook which my seniors brought to school everyday giving rise to both fascination and fear- Icould not but help admire her for that.

Till grade 7 or so, mathematics seemed to meanthat one just had to ‘solve’ problems and get theright answers and it involved the occasional shoutand spank that one received at home and school ifone got the wrong answers. Little did I realize thenthat the world of mathematics was full of strangecreatures (such as rational, irrational, surreal,transcendental, imaginary and complex numbers,and other such creatures) which were related toeach other through even stranger relationships.Beautiful relationships, many mathematicianswould say. It was a world of its own, which couldhold fascination all one’s life.


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shifted were consecutive digits. But what wasstartling was that it was the same number whosedigits got shuffled around. Such numbers arecalled ‘cyclic numbers’, Channa told us. Andmathematics is full of such curiosities, he added,which can be studied by just about anyone. Inconclusion, he asked: what happens when wemultiply 142857 by 7? We wondered if theoriginal number would get recycled again. Butno! What we got instead was 999999! This waspuzzling, indeed! While we were soaking it allin, Channa just smiled.

That is how we were introduced to the beauty ofmathematics in grade 8. I use the word beautybecause it hits you, as a beautiful sunrise would– everything appears to be in place and it cannotget better than that moment. You are leftspeechless. In mathematics, beauty lies in thepatterns that unfold, like in the above example.Students of mathematics can access and marvelat this beauty, provided their teachers make aneffort to take them on this journey. I was fortunatein this respect.

More beautyLet me present mathematical beauty throughanother example, perhaps the most famous ofthem all.

It is acknowledged that among the most beautifulrelationships or patterns in mathematics isperhaps the Euler equation (after the great Swissmathematician, Leonhard Euler) ei = -1. To put itanother way: ei + 1 = 0. Each of these numbers: e,i, (Pi) and 0, are unique numbers which keeprecurring in mathematics. Further, note thenumber ‘e’ and are what mathematicians wouldcall as ‘irrational numbers’ — simply put, anirrational number is one which has a decimal/fractional portion that never ends. And ‘i’ isanother equally intriguing number (called theimaginary number) which is the square root ofminus 1. This is like asking ‘What number whensquared (multiplied by itself) gives – 1?’ This ‘i’is neither 1 nor minus 1 and is therefore calledimaginary.

Now let us visualize the Euler identity:(2.7182818284…)(√-1) X (3.14159265…) + 1 = 0

Note that ‘raising one number to a certain power’(which is what we do in the above expression)simply means this: If you raise a number ‘a’ tothe power ‘n’, it means you multiply ‘a’ by itself‘n’ times. So if we say a3, it would look like this: ax a x a.

There is something very intricate that happenswith the Euler identity which we lay persons canonly intuitively grasp. You have this irrational ewhich when raised to the product of anotherirrational ( ) and the imaginary i, gives –1. Thenyou bring this –1 on the left side and that leavesus with zero on the right hand side. What beatsme is how this happens. First of all, you have thise and whose decimal portions are never endingor recurring as even the most powerfulsupercomputers of our age have found. If one canfind a way of adding them, it might result inanother irrational number. Ditto, if one issubtracted from the other. If they are multipliedby each other, we might end up with yet anotherirrational number. But if e is raised to the powerof the product of i and , then the strangest ofthings occurs – the infinite strings of digits justdisappears, leaving us with –1! And when this isadded to +1 as we see in the Euler identity, weare left with nothing!

It struck me that the Euler identity in many waysis like ‘alchemy’, or so I thought then, sitting inthat Chemistry lab. Our chemistry teacher wasdemonstrating how different acids/liquids reactwith each other. There was this colourful liquidwhich was mixed with another colourful liquidand Voila! The mixture became colourless! Therewas a collective gasp in the room, and since fairlylarge glass containers were used to pour out theseliquids, the entire exercise looked spectacular. Ofcourse, we did not know enough of physics orchemistry to answer why this happened.

The Euler identity is similar in terms ofmathematical alchemy. I’m tempted to quoteBenjamin Pierce the American mathematician:

“Gentlemen, that (ei + 1 = 0) is surely true,but it is absolutely paradoxical; we cannotunderstand it, and we don’t know what itmeans, but we have proved it, andtherefore, we know it must be the truth.”


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You could spend your entire life unravellingthese relationships, like mathematicians did.What was even more fascinating, as I realizedmuch later in my explorations of physics, werethe intimate connections these abstractrelationships had with the ordering of the naturalworld. Surely, there is something fascinating hereand I’m not sure if even the best mathematicianshave understood why this is so. Isn’t it allbeautiful then, like the cyclic number that Channashowed us? Apart from offering us a glimpse ofmathematical beauty, Channa also took us alongon a fascinating journey of the history ofmathematics, including its many paradoxes andfamous solved and unsolved problems.

ChannakeshavaBack to CK: There was more to come that yearand in grades 9 and 10. There wasn’t muchexploration of numbers after that session on cyclicnumbers - it had to be business as usual in aschool that prided itself on exam results. But therewas a definite difference in the way we weretaught mathematics. First, Channa came acrossas very calm and self-assured, both as a humanbeing and teacher. We couldn’t get close to him,and there was no question of getting friendlywith him. He ensured that there was always somedistance between us and him – fair enough, Ithink, given that he may have been in his lateforties or early fifties then. But when it came tolearning math with him, it was sheer fun. Withhis partly bald head and bespectacled face andhis immaculate suit, he looked quite thearchetypal mathematician himself.

When I look back on those three years that hetaught us, I realized how grounded he was in the

realized that he was indeed an avid explorer ofthe mathematical world.

There was this unmistakable gleam in Channa’seyes whenever he conveyed somethingfundamental or profound. When he emphasizedsome deeper aspect of the topic at hand, his mouthwould open a bit wider than usual and he wouldpull his lips backward to make a point — like Iremember when we first heard the Latin phraseQuod Erat Demonstrandum when we weregrappling with proof in geometry. Q.E.D, literallymeaning ‘What was required to be proved’ iswhat one says when one has demonstrated aproof. A proof is a kind of achievement in themathematical world through which onedemonstrates underlying patterns andrelationships between numbers, spaces and thelike. Everyone was attentive in Channakeshava’sclass, from the first to the last bench because weknew that we would end up learning something.The other unique element of his teaching was hisimpeccable running handwriting and use ofblackboard space. I have not come across anotherteacher who used the blackboard as effectivelyand as beautifully as he did. His handwritingwas a visual treat, not flamboyant but clear andpleasing to the eye. The sense of proportion hehad when using the blackboard was justamazing. He would clearly demarcate areas onthe blackboard – for instance, for drawingdiagrams, for arguing, and writing down thesteps of the analysis, and for rough work orcalculations.

ProofWe also encountered the idea of the theorem forthe first time in geometry. We had earlier learntthat most common property of triangles – thatthe sum of the three angles of a triangle alwaysadds up to 180p (Well, I later realized that itdoesn’t, always, and depends very much on whatkind of surface you draw the triangle on – thiskind of thinking has led to the development ofdifferent kinds of geometries, such asRiemannian and Lobachevskian geometry, forinstance.). ‘How do you know this is true?’Channa had asked? ‘Measure and see and youwill get 180p !’ we had said. ‘How many trianglesshould I draw and measure?’ This questionstumped us a bit and I remember that we didn’t

This, I now believe, is a pre-requisite for every

teacher of the subject – a teacher of mathematics

cannot limit his or her teaching to some sharing

of procedures to solve problems but share the real

excitement that comes from exploring patterns

and relationships in the mathematical world.

And he must do this in a manner that children

can understand. While access to good reference

materials would certainly help, the fundamental

requirement is curiosity – how can one convey

excitement to the child when one is not generally

curious…?


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agree on any one number. In fact, any numberwould have been arbitrary – 10, 50, 100, 1000…?‘In any case’, Channa said, what if the 1001st

triangle’s angles do not add up to 180p ?’ Therewas no response from the class.

‘For this reason, we have to prove that no matterwhat, the angles of a triangle add up to 180p .’And so we went about proving this elementarytheorem and learnt along the way that the word‘theorem’ is nothing but a statement claimingsuch and such a thing, which has a proof that isgenerated using deductive reasoning – this issomething like saying ‘If A, then B’. Now, all thesetheorems in geometry that one encounters inschool (and usually breaks one’s head against)rest on certain foundational statements calledaxioms. In his Elements, Euclid had proposed fiveaxioms on which the whole of his Euclideangeometry rests! I had difficulty in accepting theseaxioms as ‘self-evident truths’ which did not

need proving but from which all of Euclideangeometry flowed. Later, one realized that therehad to be certain starting points anyway withoutwhich, one couldn’t even move forward.

I’m recounting all of this because CK shared thisfascinating history with us. Imagine — we werelearning something that was thought of twomillennia ago and put down in a book then! Inthe coming months and years, we would provemany theorems, in geometry and algebra andtrigonometry, and in algebraic geometry. I enjoyedthe study of theorems and their proofs onlyintermittently and kept wishing that CK wouldtell us more and more stories instead. There weredays when the proof of a theorem would justappear effortlessly and then there were dayswhen one would struggle. Channa would go on,as enthusiastically as ever, adorning blackboardspace with these eternal theorems and their mindbending logical proofs!

Years later, when I read that great book Men ofMathematics by E. T Bell (the title can be questionedand one can ask ‘Where are the womenmathematicians…?’) it struck me when he saidthat the Euclidean method that insisted on proofmay have actually hampered the development ofmathematics by at least two thousand years. Onthe other hand, if mathematicians had followedthe unfettered thinking of Archimedes, one of thethree greatest mathematicians ever (along withNewton and Gauss, and, I would add, our ownRamanujan) that Bell identifies, the age of modernmathematics (and with it, science) could haveoccurred two millennia earlier. I wonder whatposition Channa would have taken? Would hehave taken Euclid’s side or would he haveplumped for Archimedes…?

Famous problems we discussedAs we journeyed with Channa, we were oftentreated to snippets from the fascinating historyof mathematics. Some years later, when I took toteaching mathematics at The Valley School inBangalore, I realized how well he had employedthe history of mathematics as an effective tool tomake the subject absorbing. In fact, it dawned onme that this was the cornerstone of his teachingand was perhaps one of the most effective waysin which one could fire the imagination of the

The geometry we have studied in school is calledEuclidean, after Euclid, the great Greek geometerwho lived more than 2000 years ago. His brandof geometry – Euclidean geometry is what workson flat surfaces.In his Elements, Euclid had proposed five axiomson which the whole of his Euclidean geometryrests!


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learner. That there were hundreds of stories ofmathematical discovery, many of them rooted indaily life problems and that mathematicians wereas human as anyone else, hadn’t occurred to mostof us who had by then, reconciled ourselves toour highly developed math phobias.

The Seven Bridges of Konigsberg, the Barber’sParadox, Fermat’s problem and the Four ColourProblem are among the most interesting andintricate problems of mathematics which haveexcited the best minds for generations. Attemptsat their resolutions have given rise to entirebranches of mathematics. Channa told us thosefascinating stories, many of which I rememberthem to this day. I passed them on to my studentsin the best manner I could.

First, the ‘Seven Bridges of Konigsberg’. I’m notsure which grade it was, may be 9th or 10th, aroundthe time when we were supposed to learn theidea of matrices. Any teacher would haveplunged headlong into the subject and wouldhave introduced matrices as ‘an array ofnumbers…arranged horizontally andvertically…and these are the rules for theiraddition and multiplication…’ This would havebeen followed by boring problem solving fromthe exercises in the textbook. With Channa, thatwas not to be. He simply had to get to the root ofthe idea and share the excitement of hisexplorations with his students. And that is howwe were treated to the 300 year old ‘Seven Bridgesof Konigsberg’ problem. I do not remember theconnections that were made between theKonigsberg problem and the idea of matrices inmathematics, but I do remember we spent acouple of periods discussing this puzzle thatoriginated in daily life and informed thedevelopment of new areas of mathematics suchas graph theory, which finds wide applications.

We spent two classes on the Konigsberg problem,trying to draw our myriad routes across the sevenbridges only to be stumped in the end. And then,CK told us that Euler stated that the Konigsbergproblem could never be solved. The actual proofcame much later, in 1873 by one Carl Hierholzer.But the thinking that went into Euler’s reasoningspawned an entire new branch of mathematicscalled Graph Theory which was in turn

intimately connected with the idea of Matrices. Italso preceded the development of another branchof mathematics called Topology, Channa said.He did not of course go into details and enlightenus about these connections, nor did we have thetime to actually see how Euler resolved theproblem (the proof is not so difficult tounderstand, as I discovered later, but duringEuler’s time, it must have been breaking news!).When I look back today, it amazes me to eventhink that a Math teacher could have thought somuch in depth, to present just one of the myriadtopics we studied at school. How much he musthave read and reflected, before presenting us theproblem, and linking it to what we had to studyas part of our course!

Likewise, we had a fascinating discussion aboutthe Barber’s Paradox, when Channa generallytalked about paradoxes in mathematics. At thatstage, I remember that we were beginning todiscuss the idea of Sets. Channa walked in one

Briefly, the Seven Bridges problem originatedin the town of Konigsberg (founded in 1254 A.D)in Prussia (Kaliningrad in modern day Russia).The town itself was made of four land massesthat were connected to each other and themainland by a network of seven bridges built onthe Pregel River which ran through Konigsberg.The seven bridges (not all of them exist now)were named ‘Blacksmith, Connecting, Green,Merchant, Wooden, High and Honey’, and theproblem, which was attacked (actually,negatively resolved) by the great Euler in 1736was to walk through the entire town ofKonigsberg in such a manner that one wouldhave to cross each bridge once and only onceand finish at the starting point. The story goesthat when people of Konigsberg took theirleisurely walks on Sundays and used the bridgesto reach different points in the town it occurredto them that they could actually generate apuzzle based on the bridges. Thus, the aboveproblem was posed.


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day and asked if we knew what a paradox was.When there was silence in the room, he went onto explain that a paradox in mathematics occurswhen we encounter a statement that containsideas or thoughts that are conflicting (in any case,this is a simplistic way of understandingparadoxes and we will not get into a deeperdiscussion here). The Barber’s Paradox, of whichthere are many variations and which is alsocalled a paradox of ‘self-reference’, perfectlyillustrates this. I remember the loud argumentsand counter arguments in class when thisparadox, first proposed by the mathematicianand philosopher Bertrand Russell, wasdiscussed. This is how it goes.

Suppose there is a village, where all men are

clean shaven, which has a barber who shaves

only those who do not shave themselves, and no

one else…the question is: who shaves him (the

barber)? It looks simple at first sight but when

you grapple with it, you get tied in knots. Now, if

the barber shaves himself, he actually mustn’t,

since he does not shave those men who shave

themselves. However, if he does not shave

himself, then he must, since he shaves those who

do not shave themselves! So, we encounter

contradictions in both cases. In the class as the

paradox kept getting discussed, I actually

remember imagining an unshaven barber whose

beard kept growing and growing infinitely

(actually, beards don’t grow that way!). Anyway,we had fun with this paradox.

Channa then mentioned that this paradoxactually exposed a contradiction at the heart ofset theory. In simple terms, this would mean thatthere is a statement ‘S’ such that ‘S’ and itsnegation (not S) are both true. Suchinconsistencies would make the foundations ofmathematics very shaky, since we would thenhave no basis for trusting any mathematical proof(remember, we discussed the angles of a triangletheorem and its proof earlier, where weremembered Channa’s insisting that proof mustbe solid and robust, no matter what kind oftriangle one considered?). To illustrate paradoxesthat are like the Barber’s Paradox, reflect on whatis famously known as the ‘Liar Paradox’ (which,I remember, we also discussed in Channa’sclass):

“All Cretans are liars.”(attributed to Epimenides the Cretan)

Like the Barber’s paradox, the above statementresults in contradictions. Think about it.

Again, when I look back, I wonder and marvel atthe depth of CK’s understanding of the subject,which he used so effortlessly to help usappreciate the pillars around whichmathematical thought has been built over themillennia. I remember the fascination, and it stillgives me goose bumps when I recall those fewclasses which enabled us a deeper glimpse ofmathematical reality. It is only when one lovesthe subject and when one cares enough for thelearner when teaching it, that will make you takethe trouble to go the root of that discipline, andexpose it to the learner. This can bring real joy.Joyful learning, unfortunately, is a much misusedterm in the lexicon of education – instead ofconnoting that joy can arise from struggle andinsight as well, we are talking of making thingseasier for the child through fun and play. Thistrivializes the struggle and achievement that ispart of the process of learning.

I’m not sure about the context in which the ‘FourColour Problem’ (FCP) was presented anddiscussed by Channa. May be it had to do with


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the Konigsberg problem, before we got on withmatrices. Maybe CK did say that it informed thedevelopment of new areas in mathematics likeGraph Theory, Topology etc. The FCP was, tillthe 90’s a great unsolved problem of mathematics(originating in map making and cartography)which stumped the best brains. Finally,supercomputers had to be called in (for the firsttime, literally, to establish a major theorem) toprocess the huge amounts of data required toestablish the proof way back in the 70’s. Eventhen, there was debate within the mathematicalcommunity – would this constitute proof? Didthis not sound like an experimental proof whichthe natural sciences use routinely? Remember,in mathematics we are all used to deductive proof,Euclidean style! Anyway, a typical statement ofthe FCP might look like this:

“Given any separation of a plane intocontiguous regions, producing a figure

called a map, no more than fourcolours are required to colour theregions of the map so that no twoadjacent regions have the same

colour.”

To put things simply, it is like saying that onedoes not need more than four colours to colour amap such that adjacent countries or regions donot have the same colour. While mathematicianswere able to show/prove the case with fivecolours, the four colour problem stubbornlyresisted a solution for well over a century.Interesting, isn’t it? One can never be sure whicharea of human activity can actually spawn a newarea of knowledge which people keep pursuingeven hundreds of years later!

And finally, who can forget Fermat’s lasttheorem? We were discussing the theorem ofPythagoras, that the square of the hypotenuse ofa right angled triangle is equal to the sum of thesquares of the other two sides: a2 + b2 = c2, where‘a’ and ‘b’ are the two sides of the right angledtriangle and ‘c’ is the hypotenuse. Every highschool kid knows this, but few teachers wouldtake the discussions forward beyond stating thetheorem and one of its proofs (I have heard thatthere are approx. 370 ways of proving the aboveresult!). CK went on where most teachers

wouldn’t tread, and we were treated to the then348 year old Fermat’s ‘Last Theorem’, whichstates that no three positive integers a, b, and ccan satisfy the equation an + bn = cn for any integervalue of n greater than two. This, the Frenchamateur mathematician Pierre de Fermat hadasserted way back in 1637 in his famous notebookon the margins. As we can see above, thePythagorean case is a special case of Fermat’sTheorem. To quote some examples, 32+ 42 = 52;122 + 52 = 132, and there are various ways in whichwe can keep generating these ‘PythagoreanTriples’. Channa treated us to a history of thisproblem and said, rather sombrely, that theFermat problem was one of the famous all timeunresolved problems of mathematics. ‘Maybe oneof you will solve it one day!’ he said, with a twinklein his eye.

The mid 80’s were exciting times for Fermat’s LastTheorem (FLT). Countless mathematicians hadby then grappled with it, and proofs had beenpresented for specific cases, and for ‘n’ runninginto several million. But there was no generalproof. Little did we realize then (in 1985) thatAndrew Wiles, the British mathematician wasvery close to deciding that he would spend thenext seven or eight years in his attic in completesecrecy to crack the problem. Finally, in 1994,when the problem was declared as solved, I’mnot sure if Channa was still teaching at Baldwin’sto make this announcement to students of the 9th

or 10th grades. Wiles’ story is fascinating and if Italk about it here, we will move away from CK.There are popular books written on FLT whichexplain the story of the struggle behind its proof.

We were treated to these mathematical gems byCK for three years. We also discussed about themathematics of the infinite, though I do notremember any specific instance that caught myattention. There was one argument about whetherthe number of sand particles on a beach was finiteor infinite. It was also interesting to note that therewere ‘different orders of infinity’. These days, Ihave revived my interest in the mathematics ofthe infinite.

History of mathematicsThat mathematics even had a history like thiswas beyond our imagination as students, used


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as we were to rote learning methods by and large.Channa had in-depth understanding of thishistory. A topic which caught my attention inschool was the discovery about Indianmathematicians. When we discussedPythagoras’s theorem and did quadraticequations in algebra, Channa posed questionsthat Indian mathematicians attempted more thana thousand years ago. I clearly remember Channadiscussing the 12 th century mathematicianBhaskaracharya II. In fact, he had picked up aproblem from Bhaskara’s Lilavati. This isBhaskara’s treatise on mathematics (writtenwhen he was in his thirties), and as thefascinating story goes, is dedicated to hisdaughter Lilavati. If I remember correctly, Channapicked up the following problem from Lilavati:

“A bamboo 18 cubits highwas broken by the wind. Itstop touched the ground 6cubits from the root. Tell thelengths of segments of thebamboo.”

It takes the simple application of the PythagoreanTheorem to find out that the lengths of segmentsof the broken bamboo are 8 and 10 cubitsrespectively. While we all enjoyed doing thisproblem and the class was greatly enlivened as aresult, the fascinating part for me was thetravelling back in time that we did and therealization at the time that there were Indianmathematicians going back a thousand yearsand beyond who had worked on what we werelearning in school. While we had only touchedupon the ‘great’ discoveries of Indian scientistsand mathematicians in the history class,Channa’s treatment of the subject brought thingsalive, and history was no longer restricted toboring dates and events and the mugging up ofoccurrences of the past. He would have been avery good history teacher as well! Incidentally,the above problem also appears in the history ofChinese mathematics and is known as the KouKu theorem. It appears prominently in the 13th

century text known as Hsiang Chieh Chiu ChangSuan Fa Tsuan Lei.

In 1993, when I took to teaching at the ValleySchool in Bangalore after I had had enough of

manufacturing tractors, I learnt something moreabout the history of mathematics and took offfrom where we had left with Channa. A seniorcolleague of mine, who was also interested inunderstanding how mathematics was producedacross cultures, came to know that someonecalled George Gheverghese Joseph, a scholarfrom the Manchester University was in town.Joseph had researched extensively the ‘Non-European Roots’ of mathematics. We went to meethim and invite him to a lecture at the school. Toour delight, he readily agreed. His lecture wasgripping, and covered a vast canvas. He showedhow ‘Eurocentric’ the entire enterprise ofmathematics and science was – indeed, this iswhat we are taught in schools to this day – thatEurope was the centre of global mathematical andscientific development since the days of antiquity.Such a blinkered view ignores the fact that otherancient cultures also did a lot of mathematics,often predating the discoveries of Europe by atleast hundreds of years. A lot of this took placeduring Europe’s great slumber, the Dark Ages.In this context and in particular, Joseph talkedabout his pet research project — the discovery ofmathematics of the ‘Kerala School’ whichflourished between the 14th and 16th centuriesmost notably through the work of mathematicianssuch as Madhava of Sangamagrama andNilakantha of Tirur, in Kerala.

Research on this alternative history ofmathematics has conclusively shown that thework of the Kerala School predates the discoveryof that great mathematical tool, the Calculus, by atleast two centuries! While Newton and Leibnitz,generally acknowledged as the founders of theCalculus must be given their due for combining arange of disparate ideas into a coherent disciplineof the Calculus, the discoveries of the Indian,Chinese and Arab mathematicians cannot bedisregarded. In fact, as Joseph pointed out, wecannot overlook the transmission of mathematicalideas from Egypt, Babylon, China and Indiathrough the Arab world to Europe. Research inthis area has thrown up compelling evidence thatthis mathematical transmission, right from thedays of Pythagoras of antiquity, had informed thedevelopment of European mathematics


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(Pythagoras knew that the Egyptians knew histheorem, though he also knew they hadn’t provedit).

I further explored the seeds of curiosity thatChanna had sown in me in the mid-eighties as ateacher, thanks to that chance encounter withJoseph in the mid-nineties. I faithfully sharedthese exciting discoveries with the children Itaught. I also ended up buying his book Crest ofthe Peacock, in which Joseph elaborates the themeof mathematics as it was done and discoveredoutside Europe, starting with the mathematics ofthe ‘Ishango bone’ (actually, a lunar calendar)from the mountains of Central Equatorial Africa20000 years ago! It is a fascinating read and willcertainly open your eyes. I’m sure Channa knewabout the alternative perspective on globalmathematical development, but we didn’tdiscuss it in school.

The Valley SchoolI graduated from Baldwins in 1985 and becamea reluctant engineer in 1991. After a two yearboring stint in the industry in which I was aproduction engineer in a company thatmanufactured tractors, I decided to become ateacher. One reason surely was that I wanted tokeep on learning, and I wanted to share the joythat comes with discovery and insight withchildren. Also, I was angry with our insipideducational system consisting mostly of de-motivated teachers most of whom were just doingtheir jobs. In that surge of idealism that I felt as ayoung man, I wanted to change the world bybecoming a teacher.

I attribute my reasonable success as a

Mathematics teacher to the fact that I learnt fromwhat CK did with us in school. I made it a point,

for instance, to discuss the history of mathematics

in my classes. The Valley School library offered

me good resources. I dabbled in ‘Vedic

mathematics’ (VM), demonstrated some of its

methods, got children excited and got involvedin the debates around its veracity as a system of

mathematical system. Joseph does talk about

Vedic mathematics in his book but there are

questions about whether Vedic mathematics

actually originated from the Vedas, or, as I said,if the system is robust enough to be calledmathematics. I remember attending a workshoporganized on VM by the local RSS Shakha inChamarajapet in Bangalore. We were trying tosolve cubic equations, and the ‘magical shortcuts’of VM were on full view. But when we slightlychanged the coefficients of ‘x’ in a cubic equation,the Vedic methods failed. Anyway, the childrenlapped up whatever I could teach.

Wherever possible, I took children on a historicaltrajectory. We solved ancient problems based onthe Pythagorean Theorem, in Trigonometry,Analytical Geometry, Logarithms and we widelydebated paradoxes in mathematics. I includedmany of these discussions in worksheets and evenmanaged to give problems based on thesediscussions in the various test papers that I set.Further, most of what I did with the blackboard asa teaching aid was what I learnt from observingCK.

There were several ‘Aha!’ moments that thechildren and I experienced. I still remember howawestruck they all were (class IX students) whenI showed them, through a small table I hadprepared, how the idea of a logarithm actuallyworks and simplifies the operations ofmultiplication and division, by converting themto the easier processes of addition andsubtraction, respectively. Imagine, instead, if Ihad begun by saying: ‘If ax = y, then ‘x’ is calledthe logarithm of ‘y’ to base ‘a’! This is whychildren run away from mathematics. Well, wetalked about the historical context in whichlogarithms were invented, and then I told themthe story of the Scotsman John Napier who isgenerally credited with the invention of thelogarithm. It is interesting that Napier indulgedin mathematics as a hobby.

As you can see, CK’s legacy lived on in my life asa when I became a teacher. It still does, nearlythree decades later. See, that’s what a good mathteacher can do to you!

My Math TeacherI met Channa at his residence again in March2000, just before my marriage. He was happy tosee me and was curious to know what I was


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doing. We discussed the strengths and ills of oureducation system and he listened quietly to themany things I shared about my work ineducation. He had retired from Baldwins by then,but went to school every day to drop his grandsonto school. He couldn’t make it to my marriagereception and I learnt later that he was notkeeping well that day.

For me, Channa will always remain the modelmath teacher. I have not seen a better math teachersince. He perfectly straddled the discipline ofmathematics and its teaching – he was itspassionate and eternal student and at the sametime he loved teaching the subject. It is widelyrecognized in educational theory that theteacher’s knowledge consists of both subjectmatter knowledge and the knowledge of teaching(pedagogic content knowledge) among otheraspects of knowledge that are needed to becomea good teacher (if one views the teacher’s problemas a knowledge problem, that is). In a class ofnearly 50 students and in a school that wastraditional at best, Channa struck a great balance.If I remember his teaching nearly thirty years later,it is because what he taught was internalized –forever! The teaching of procedures inmathematics (procedural knowledge) is a smallpart of mathematics education. It is theunderstanding of deeper conceptualunderpinnings that is important. If one developsinsights here, these insights are likely to staythroughout one’s life. And Channa wasconstantly chipping away at the deeper andmysterious structures of the mathematical world,inviting us to explore and savour its beauty.

As I write this, I have taken easy recourse to theinternet to check if what I remember fromChanna’s classes is correct. The World Wide Webis a place where everything we discussed inschool with Channa is easily available, in print,in videos and in all sorts of forms. You can accessall the fascinating stuff and it will keep youoccupied for a lifetime. At the same time, theinternet can dumb you down – it provides manythings on a platter and you are tempted to copypaste from the myriad notes and articles and callthem your own! No wonder then, that there issoftware developed to detect plagiarism. But inthe eighties when CK taught us, the ‘www’ was

not even in our wildest fantasies of the future. Hemust have therefore read a lot, sitting in librariesand looking for his favorite books in bookshops.When some of us got a glimpse of his privatelibrary, we knew he was a serious reader ofmathematics and science and literature ingeneral. His study was filled with hundreds ofbooks then — all arranged wherever space wasavailable in haphazard but beautiful ways.Perhaps that’s where I developed a penchant forsetting up my own library.

Another meetingTill I neared the completion of this article, ithadn’t occurred to me that I could meet CK again.This suggestion (which looks rather obviousnow) was made by a few friends who read andliked the story. ‘You must go and meet him again,and find out more…’ is what they seemed to say.But almost as soon as I started thinking about it,a sense of foreboding and anxiety seized me.Would CK be around? 1985 was 27 years ago.Some of our teachers had moved on. Even if CKhad retired in the mid-nineties, I speculated, hewould be in his late seventies now. But lateseventies is not too late, right?

There was this opportunity in April 2012 when Iwas in Bangalore on a short break from work.Despite being swamped with household choresand demanding children, I finally managed toknock on the ground floor door of ‘Vasudha’, hishouse in South Bangalore. Long moments passedin trepidation before his wife opened the doorand asked ‘Yes?’

‘Can I meet Mr.Channakeshava?’‘Yes. And you…?’‘I was his student in Baldwins in the eighties…’I mentioned my name.

He was sitting on the floor in the living room,watching a game of cricket during the IPL season.Phew!! What a relief it was to see him in fleshand blood again! He must have been surprisedto see me. But Channa, I remembered, was notvery expressive (except, perhaps, when he wasteaching math!). I was invited into the living roomand we started talking. He looked a lot older, hadlost some weight but his gait was straight andthere was that gleam in his eyes as our


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conversation slowly turned to mathematics. Heasked me what I was doing. I shared my life’strajectory with him but quickly got to the point. Isaid I was interested as an educator to understandhis trajectory as a teacher. ‘Your story may havemany clues that may enable us to make betterteachers…’ I trailed off.

‘I had this urge to write about you’, I said,continuing as a matter of fact. ‘And as I startedwriting, I realized that I actually wanted to meetyou again.’ I didn’t mention the anxiety that hadseized me as a result. ‘That’s how I’m here, tofind out more.’ He just smiled, as was his wont. Ialso told him that there are very few stories aboutteachers that we can use to understand thatcomplex thing called teaching.

I told him I would come back the next day withthe article for him to read. ‘Would you have thetime for a few questions?’ I asked. ‘Of course, docome…!’ So I went back with the article the nextday, and he took about half an hour to read it.His daughter and wife kept talking about him asI waited for him to finish reading. And then, helooked up and said ‘Shoot! Ask me…’ That ishow I learnt more…

‘You can’t teach a subject without motivating thechild to learn it…’ he began. ‘And anything thatarouses the curiosity to learn is fine. Arousecuriosity, that’s it! The rest will follow.’ How true,if I look at my own case! ‘Further’, he went on,‘The key question is how does one ‘come down’to the child’s level? This can take years for theteacher to discover, and there are no hard andfast rules here. Each teacher has to figure it outon his or her own, and this cannot be force fed.’

I asked him to tell me about his formative years,about people who influenced him, and how hegot to do what he did as a teacher. I learnt that hehad wanted to become a teacher at a very youngage. The thought had occurred to him, andnobody seemed to have put that in his mind.During his Bachelor of Science days in Mysorein the late fifties, he had encountered a PhysicsProfessor from Indian Institute of Science calledSubbaraya who taught them spectroscopy. ‘Hewas an early inspiration for me. What I likedabout him was his humility. At the same time the

man had guts and loads of conviction about hisown understanding of the subject. His argumentsand debates with the Nobel Laureate C.V Ramanare the stuff of folklore.’ The Physics Professorseems to have strengthened his resolve to becomea teacher. The urge to find out, teach and sharedeepened further.

Channa also recalled how another teacher,Venkatasetty, had introduced him to GeorgeGamow’s famous book ‘1, 2, 3…Infinity’ whichset him out on a trajectory of discovery andlearning. Following his B.Sc., he taught for fouryears in a school in Sagar near Shimoga. In 1962,he joined the RV Boys High School in Bangalore.A Bachelor’s Degree in Education (B. Ed)followed, and he set foot in Baldwins in 1964.There are some defining experiences of his lifethat go back farther in time. Channakeshava, Idiscovered, came from the village Mattur inShimoga district. He became proficient at a youngage in Sanskrit – he could read, write and speakin Sanskrit effortlessly. I found this interesting.‘There was this chap called Venkatram in ourvillage and he was an avid math student. He hada copy of Bhaskaracharya’s Lilavati in Sanskrit,which I started reading even before going tocollege.’ Mattur, I later discovered when itoccurred to me that I should find out a little more,happens to be one of the two or three villages inKarnataka where everyone speaks Sanskrit!

The early experiences were definitive as I couldmake out. The early exposure to Bhaskara’streatise Lilavati stayed with him and we weretreated to problems in algebra and trigonometryyear after year from Lilavati. For Channa readingas a hobby had developed in school and stayedthereafter. ‘The teacher should essentially be astudent. Reading helps him to be a student.’

‘How was it in Baldwin’s given that it is atraditional school? I sometimes wonder what youmay have achieved had you taught in a moreliberal school…’ I ventured to ask him. ‘Baldwinswas frustrating sometimes. Every institution hasits politics, and there were colleagues whoviewed what I tried to do as a teacher withsuspicion. They may have said many thingsbehind my back. But I carried on. When your goal


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is to make teaching interesting, what can stopyou…?’

As we continued, Channa pointed out somethinginsightful. According to him, mathematicalconcepts are all interlinked. To teach a concept,underlying concepts must also be illustrated tothe student whatever the grade may be. Further,each concept has an interesting history of humanintellectual struggle and its accompanyingpolitics. When this story is told, children getnaturally curious and want to find out more. ‘Forinstance, the Konigsberg problem led to topologyand network theory, and the idea of arrays andcombinations. So when we took up the topic ofmatrices, I made it a point to tell this story.’ That’sexactly what I did too, to great effect, when Itaught nearly a decade later! Of course, it takesquite a lot to develop skills of communicationthat will enable the teacher to make complextopics edible to school going children. But as thesaying goes, the most complex ideas inmathematics are simple in their essence. It is thetask of the teacher to grasp this essence.

I realized that I was beginning to take much ofhis time and hesitated carrying on. So I told himthat I would keep in touch and that my journeyof discovering him as a teacher had only begun.He seemed enthusiastic about meeting again. Hisdaughter Ranjini, who was part of thisconversation, mentioned that her daughter wasa great fan of his and she would have much moreto add about him. It then struck me that I couldreconstruct his story by talking to his familymembers. But that had to wait for another day.

‘Over the years I have received many letters fromstudents.’ He said. My antennae stood upimmediately as I heard this statement. Here wasa great archive which if plumbed would yieldmany a secret! I realized that I needed to reachout to as many students as possible, working indifferent corners of the world, to tell me theirstories of Channa. I saw a book on Channa slowlyemerge as a story of inspiration for countlessother teachers. The next time I’m in Bangalore,I’ll go to Vasudha again and ask him to provideaccess to those hundreds of letters!

I cannot help but reflect upon the status of theteacher now and wonder what it would mean totake a leaf or two from CK’s book. Can trainingmake great teachers? Or, are teachers made evenbefore that? I would tend to believe that oneshould love teaching and I’m not sure if this canalone come from teacher preparation. At the sametime, I’m not discounting this preparation, bothbefore and after, one becomes a teacher. Thislearning is an eternal journey. But it saddens meto see how teachers are treated within theeducational system. We have created a systemwhere we see the teacher as a contract workerwho is often paid a pittance, who is made to doall kinds of things other than teaching and whosesupport systems are non-existent. Yet, we expecta lot from the teacher and somehow expect theteacher to be ‘different’ from the rest of the humanspecies. How then can we expect children toglimpse that wonderful world that CK showedus, that I continue to see and marvel to this day?


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Gurjeet Kaur

Textbook representations as reinforcers of (mis)understandings : The case of ray diagrams in Optics

AbstractImages are representations aimed at conveying shared understandings about the world and like allrepresentations they need to be appropriately interpreted. Ray diagrams are representations thatstudents are introduced to at the secondary level and are thereafter used as a primary means tounderstand and predict the behaviour of light as it passes through a mirror or a lens . This paperexamines the adequacy of ray diagrams as pedagogic tools, as they figure in the class X textbook ofscience.

Introduction

Textbooks continue to be the chief propellant that

guides the transaction of curriculum in Indian

schools. The representation of knowledge in texts

is a crucial factor in shaping students’ conceptual

understanding. Images such as diagrams,

sketches and other forms of visual representations

are important means of communication in

physics. This is specially the case in optics in

which pictures, diagrams and symbolic

representations are introduced quite early in the

study of the topic. These images act as a crucial

link between reality and our conception of it. Yet,

one must be alive to the nuanced linkage between

these representations and the abstraction of

knowledge from it. Images are after all symbols

and it is important that these symbols are

presented in such a way that they depict concepts

in the intended sense.

Status of ray diagrams in optics

Mirrors and lenses are fascinating playthings

that a child encounters in her everyday life and

provide early investigative opportunity for

studying the behaviour of light. Ray diagrams

are among the first graphic tools that a student is

introduced to for analyzing and predicting the

behaviour of light when it falls on a mirror or

passes through a lens. However, the texts provide

little help to the learner to interpret these

diagrams. Ray diagrams are presented in the

book like any other visuals, such as an

illustration or photograph. The child is expected

to make sense of these diagrams on her own and

then negotiate the linkage between real world and

symbolic representations. What needs to be

appreciated is that even the relatively

straightforward visuals such as photographs are

not a vehicle for conveying actual knowledge as

they are only depictive of reality.

Ray diagrams in class X Science textbook

Grades IX and X are a special juncture in the

school life of an Indian child since these are the

mediating grades between upper primary and

higher secondary stage. It is during these two

years that the students will decide the subject

areas that they wish to study and pursue later in

life. The textual treatment of subject matter during

these years is therefore an important factor in

shaping the conceptual landscape of learners as

they stand at the threshold of higher studies. While

the NCERT textbook for class IX has no chapter

on light, class X textbook has two chapters

devoted to the topic namely: i) Light-Reflection

and Refraction and ii) Human Eye and Colourful

World. Ray diagrams figure as prominent

pedagogic graphics in the chapter on reflection

and refraction to understand the image formation

in mirrors and lenses.

The following ray diagrams that show the image

formation in concave mirror and convex and

concave lens have been taken from the chapter

‘Light-Reflection and Refraction’ :


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15

The interpretation of ray diagrams has figuredas a prominent subject in the literature related tothe pedagogical considerations of optics. Basedon the provisional grid of features that might raisedifficulties in reading images and graphicalrepresentations of STTIS group, Colin, Chauvet& Viennot (2000) put forward these readingdifficulties: Real world vs. schematic or symbolicentities i.e. a student may misinterpret what is‘symbolic’ with what is ‘real’ and selection andsalience i.e. the authors may think it unnecessaryto represent certain aspects of an image butstudents may feel that necessity. Galili and Hazen(2000) also point out that one peculiarity of opticalinstruction is that it is based heavily on graphicalsymbolism which is subject to interpretation.Arons (1997, p.257) laments that in regular

textbooks the assigned problems in optics onlyfocus on numerical or geometrical determinationof image positions with mirrors and lenses andstudents do not get a holistic picture. Studentsare also not encouraged to visualize the overallarray of physical phenomena especially thoserelated to light radiated or reflected from theobject. Kumar (1999) also links many of theintuitive notions in physics to imageinterpretations. He lists certain important aspectsthat must be stressed by teachers while teachingoptics. These are: a) From every point on objectemanate not one but a bundle of rays; b) For vision,an object need not necessarily be a ‘materialobject’ but could be any region in space fromwhich rays are emanating; c) When a screen isplaced at the position of the real image it acts as

None of the diagrams indicate the position of the observer. In fact, the image would be observable onlyfrom certain locations. Only two rays emanating from the tip of the extended object are shown contributingto the image formation. Actually many rays emanate from each point on the object. Not all of them passthrough the lens but the ones that do contribute to image formation. The screen is not shown in any of thediagrams giving the impression that the image (without the screen) would be observable from anywhere.Only two diagrams show a slight extension of the rays beyond the point of image formation but thesignificance of this extension is not brought out


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a diffuse reflector and we see the image just aswe see any other spot on the screen; d) The bundleof rays arriving from an object P to its image P’ donot end there but continue past it.

Taking the graphic-reality dichotomy as thereferral framework, the ray diagrams appearingin the class X textbook of science can be critiquedon the following counts:

Overselectivity and Salience: While the textclarifies that though many rays emerge from agiven point on an object, only two are being shownfor convenience; this implicit message does notget translated to the accompanying visuals. Notonly are only two rays shown but it is the sametwo rays giving the impression that these tworays are the only two rays emanating from theilluminated object and the only ones contributingto image formation. Vienot (2006) pointedlyhighlights the inadequacy of such depictions. Sheconducted a study with two groups, oneconsisting of degree students and the other oftrainee physics teachers. She shows that how bymaking no other change in the instructionalinput for image formation in lenses except addingtwo ‘critical details’ to the diagram, she was ableto bring about a significant improvement in theconceptual understanding of the experimentalgroup. The two additional features were:Showing many rays and beams except for theusual two and also showing some rays that donot impinge on the lens. This is a powerfulillustration of the influence of appropriategraphics in enhancing conceptualunderstanding.

Incompleteness: Some diagrams are incompletein the sense that the rays are not extended beyondthe point of image formation. Goldberg andMcDermott (1987) point out that while it isimportant to show the extension of rays beyondthe point of image formation it is equallyimportant that the students appreciate thesignificance of this extension. The rays aftermeeting at the point of real image formation tendto diverge. If there could be some means toconverge these rays, the image would again beformed. The eye with its convex lens providesthis mechanism by converging the rays onto theretina.

Ignoring the position of the observer: We findthat all the diagrams are indifferent to the positionof the observer thus reinforcing the welldocumented (mis)conception that image is anindependent entity observable from anywherejust as any other object. Ronen and Eylon (1993)make an interesting point when they say that theterminology ‘field of view’ may itself be confusingbecause in everyday life we tend to think of it asthe expanse that is visible to the eye. However, ingeometrical optics it is the image that is observablefrom certain positions and so we need to talk interms of ‘field of view of image’. There shouldthus be a constant effort to link the image to theobserver.

Ignoring the role of eye: Just as the position ofthe observer is ignored, the role of eye also getsoverlooked. The eye may then be understood as apassive instrument of image observation whileits participation in the process of image formationmay not be attended to. The eye does not act as apassive screen that receives the rays and formsthe image.

Rather the convex eye lens is an activeparticipator in the process of image formationitself as it converges the rays diverging from theimage location on to the retina and so the imagemay be seen in the air if the eye is appropriatelyplaced.

As an initiation exercise for a wider study onfuture teachers’ ideas in optics, the followingdiagram was shown to 13 students enrolled in aone year teacher preparation programme offeredto graduate/post graduate students. All thesestudents had opted for physics as one of theirteaching subjects.

These students were asked: In the situationshown in the given diagram, would the image beseen if the eye is positioned at the screen position?The query was based on the reasoning difficultyhighlighted by Goldberg and McDermott (1987).

10 out of the 13 future teachers answered in theaffirmative. The example though notgeneralisable, nevertheless indicates that the roleof the converging lens in the eye remains unclearor is not appropriately attended to even among


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students who have studied up to graduate levelin physics.

Ignoring the role of screen:The role of the screenis neither acknowledged in visuals nor comesup as a subject of discussion. In fact,understanding the role of screen is crucial tounderstanding the process of image formationas the screen makes the image an independententity that is observable from anywhere. Studentsoften do not analyse the process of imageformation in terms of the convergence of light.The presence of a screen is thought of as anecessary condition for image formation orimage observation since screen is thought of as adevice that ‘captures’ the image andconsequently the students may find itproblematic to explain ‘aerial images’ ( Goldbergand McDermott, 1987).

DiscussionThe school curriculum is tiered into differentstages namely primary (grades I to V), upperprimary (grades VI-VII), secondary (grades IX, X)and higher secondary (grades XI, XII). Anexamination of the text books of the upperprimary and the secondary stage informs us thatthere is a sudden transition from a real worldrooted exploration at upper primary stage to amore formalistic approach at the secondary stage.While at upper primary stage the world isexplored and investigated through twocharacters – children called Paheli and Boojho; atthe secondary stage the tone becomesexplanatory and didactic. While at upperprimary stage daily life observations are takenas the starting points for the study of opticalphenomena, the subject becomes symbolic andgraphic driven at the secondary level. Despitethis visible change in approach there is little helpoffered by the textbook in helping the learnersnegotiate this transition. The idea of ‘rays’ as meretheoretical constructs needs to be clearlycommunicated and the idea of ‘light beam’ needs

to be frequently invoked. Ray diagrams need toshow many rays emanating from different partsof an illuminated object. The fact needs to bestated that the object is illuminated by a lightsource present elsewhere but not shown here.There should be some rays that do not passthrough the lens. The eye needs to be assigned amore active role and students must be led toappreciate that what would be seen or not seenby an eye in a given situation should always beanalysed in terms of the path taken by light fromthe source on to the object and then following itup from the object (or a portion of it) to the eye.The role of the eye lens in formation of the imageon the retina has to be highlighted. Thesymbolism of ray diagrams thus needs to be dealtwith explicitly and consistently reinforced.

ReferencesArons, A.B. (1997). Teaching Introductory Physics.USA : John Wiley & Sons.Colin, P., Chavet, F. & Vienot, L. (2002). ReadingImages in Optics: Students’ difficulties andteachers’ views. International Journal of ScienceEducation, 24(3), 313-332.Galili, I. and Hazan, A. (2000) Learners’knowledge in Optics: Interpretation, structureand analysis. International Journal of ScienceEducation, 22(1), 57-88.Goldberg, F.M. and McDermott, L.C. (1987).Investigation of student understanding of the realimage formed by a converging lens or concavemirror. American Journal of Physics, 55(2), 108-119.Kumar, A. (February,1999). Pitfalls in elementaryphysics: Light. Resonance, 4(2), 53-65.NCERT(2006). Science: Textbook for class X. NewDelhi : NCERTRonen, M. and Eylon, B.S. (1993). To see or not tosee the eye in geometrical optics – when and how?Physics Education, 28(1), 52-59.Vienot, L. (2006). Teaching rituals and students’intellectual satisfaction. Physics Education, 41(5),400-408.


18

J. Inbaraj

Reading Recovery Intervention of SCERT, Tamil Nadu

AbstractThe Tamil Nadu Activity Based Learning Programme (ABL) has been widely acclaimed as a pathbreaking collaborative, materials based, self-directed pedagogy for elementary education. This articletraces the ABL process and highlights stakeholder expectations, the centrality of holistic languagelearning, and offers alternatives to enhance reading and writing abilities in children which is the corebasis on which effectiveness of ABL rests.

Introduction

The Tamil Nadu Government launched the

Activity Based Learning Programme (ABL) an

innovative, interesting and collaborative class

room process for standards I to IV, in 37,000

government schools. The innovation was piloted

in 260 schools of the Corporation of Chennai from

2003 to 2006. It was up scaled to 10 schools per

district and then implemented in all the

government and aided primary schools of the

State from June 2007.

The ABL story is a tale of multiple inspirationscoming together. The vision of education andpedagogy are drawn from David Horsburgh’swork at Neelbagh and subsequent work at RishiValley. David Horsburgh came to India towardsthe end of the Second World War, as part of theRoyal Air Force. He started Neelbagh, a schoolin Kolar District. Upscaling the work ofinnovative schools to become a state-wideprogramme involving tens of thousands ofschools was the result of political will and

Neel Bagh constituted the nucleus for a host of creative methods in teaching and a vast quantum of well-planned learning materials. David developed a diverse curriculum, which included music, carpentry, sewing,masonry, gardening, as well as the usual school subjects, English, mathematics, Sanskrit, and Telugu. …..

He had vertical grouping in the classroom and the children worked on the material on cards, at theirspecific level. These pedagogic materials were systematically planned, with sketches and drawings and anoccasional touch of humour. Fresh materials on cards would be added frequently, to emphasize that thesources for lessons were not finite. David Horsburgh also planned and managed a rigorous and uniquecourse for teachers. A great deal of theoretical material was part of the reading for the trainees, while theschool provided the setting for teaching practice. When David Horsburgh passed away in 1984, the soul forceof Neel Bagh declined and the family found it difficult to maintain the school. Rishi Valley School acquiredNeel Bagh, and got some support from the HRD ministry at Delhi. Anil Bordia, Secretary in the Ministry ofHuman Resource Development, sanctioned a project linking Neel Bagh, Sumavanam (a school run by Ushaand Narasimhan) and Rishi Valley.

Radhika Herzberger, Director of the Rishi Valley had the dream of offering relevant education to children invillages adjoining Rishi Valley, while also preserving the strengths of their specific culture and conserving thenatural environment. She set up the Rural Education centre, consulting Rajeev Sethi about sustaining folkculture. The teachers and students of Rishi Valley helped to create materials, Alok Mathur and PadmapriyaShirali, teachers of Rishi Valley contributed significantly. But the early initiatives were fragmentary. At thistime, Padmanabha Rao and his wife Rama Rao came to Rishi Valley. They had strong roots in folk theatreand poetry in Telugu. With their talent and enthusiasm, they were able to propel the movement.They consulted widely and learnt from a variety of persons: artist, writers, teachers and theatre people.Arvind Gupta (renowned designer of toys), P.K. Srinivasan (a committed and gifted spokesman for Mathematics)and mime and puppetry experts from Andhra, Karnataka and West Bengal were among the resource persons.Ganguli’s programme called “Theatre of the Oppressed” offered ways to win the confidence of the local people.The Raos worked out the concept of the learning ladder. The Learning Ladder and its organization of thelearning process into small steps has become an enabling tool for barefoot teachers. Its rule-governedflexibility makes for confident and involved teachers. At the same time, it makes the students less teacher-dependent. The ladder also serves as a monitoring tool for school administrators.

Source: AnandalakshmySource: AnandalakshmySource: AnandalakshmySource: AnandalakshmySource: Anandalakshmyhttp://www.ssa.tn.nic.in/Docu/ABL-Report-by-Dr.Anandhalakshmi.pdf


19

visionary administrators. The work could visit

was introduced to Tamil Nadu teachers through

visits to Rishi Valley, dialogue with teacher

associations, eliciting voluntary support of

teachers who were interested in effecting change,

preparing teaching learning materials, setting up

ABL in select schools where teachers were

interested, after careful teacher preparation where

other teachers could visit to see for themselves,

use of the state small scale sector for producing

materials on large scale and phased roll out each

time preceded by preparation and orientation.

ABL Tamil Nadu, evolved, drawing on these

practices. Through ABL, learning materials could

be provided for several children to be working

on in a self-directed manner.

Popularity of ABL

The founder father of ABL, Tamilnadu, Shri M.P.

Vijayakumar, IAS, the then State Project Director,

used a participatory training mode, went down

to cluster level trainings and interacted with

teachers and teacher association members. This

resulted in the teaching community implicitly

accepting ABL. ABL became a buzz word among

innovation seeking states and those states faced

with multi grade education. Fourteen States have

so far replicated this model. ABL expert teams

from Tamil Nadu, visit the states and facilitate

the development of cards conforming to their

state–specific requirements.

Several international researchers also studied

ABL. Teams from countries like China, visited

the ABL program to assess its applicability in

rural remote areas. They appreciated Tamil

Nadu’s child-centric pedagogy.

The first questions

However, in 2007 itself, some DIET faculty

members raised questions about the efficacy of

the process and wanted to do action research to

see if the learning, as claimed by the developers,

did happen. They questioned the excessive use

of cards, the copious logos and the possibility of

a child staying stuck in a particular ladder for

longer spells of time. These questions and request

by DIETs to undertake action research were

discouraged.

ASER 2010 gives a jolt

After three full years of the implementation of

ABL, ASER 2010 report claimed that the reading

skills of the students and basic skills in doing

simple arithmetic calculation were poor among

grade V children in Tamil Nadu. SSA engaged

the services of NGOs, freelancers, University

professors and independent researchers to study

the levels of achievement. But, the reports

submitted by these research scholars

commended ABL’s capacity in enhancing the

learning outcomes of a vast majority of children.

Relook at ABL cards

Text books were rewritten for the common school

Board. The cards were not revised. DIET faculty

members pointed out the need to align the cards

to the newly developed content. Mrs. Jeyashree

Ragunad invited Faculty of DIETs, BRCs and

schools to consider revising the large number of

cards with the support of Mrs. D. Sabitha, the

Principal Secretary, School Education. The

revised cards were quite relevant to the newly

developed content and they helped children to

relate their card learning to text learning at home

too. The revised logos were simple and easy for

children to track their own progress.

Real Concern

Mrs.D.Sabitha, IAS, Principal Secretary, School

Education wanted to get the real picture from the

grass root level. The Director of DTERT then (now

SCERT) offered to involve DIET faculty members

in a large scale reading survey in primary schools

and give an interim report to the State

Government and to suggest remedial measures.

Rationale for the Reading Survey - The Primacy

of Reading Skill

Tamil Nadu has pioneered many educational

initiatives such as Joyful learning , ABL and ALM


20

which have attracted fair amount of appreciation

in the media, in other States and some countries.

Yet, there exists a subtle but openly unexpressedgrumble among the stakeholders of elementary

education that more than 35% students are

unable to read Tamil lessons fluently. If a reading

test is given in Tamil to 10 students of Class V

about four struggle to read. This situation prevails

even in middle schools in Classes VI,VII and VIII.This situation, if not remedied, might increase

the dropouts at the end of Class IX and the drop

outs can only enter unskilled labour force

perpetuating the vicious cycle of poverty which

education promises to break. Teachers can ensure

mastery of holistic language acquisition onlywhen children acquire all the four skills viz

listening , speaking, reading and writing. Tamil

has the advantage of being the mother tongue of

most students. The students do have adequate

exposure to the spoken language. But the

available repository of language is not used as afoundation to build on. Freedom to speak on

favourite subjects can create excellent

opportunities for language development, but

teachers focus more on copy writing and

listening, though ABL did attempt to break this

to some extent. As a result, young children’sinnate capacity to produce language lies

dormant. They grow up without the ability to

think and express their ideas clearly. This

inability to express oneself affects one’s career

opportunities and growth in diverse ways. There

is a dire need to create supportive environment

to allow the voices of children to be heard. ABL

and ALM ,the popular self-learning strategies,

can produce spectacular results only if the

students can read and succeed in making

meaning. A large scale survey of reading was

therefore absolutely essential.

More than 45,000 Government Schools are

offering elementary education in Tamil Nadu. To

ensure quality outcomes , it is mandatory to

monitor and review the impact of class room

processes in improving the skills of students inreading and writing. Reading is the most

important requirement for ensuring academic

achievement. As large number of schools are less

frequently monitored due to limited number of

monitoring officers, the real status of students

could be noticed only when a report by Pratham(ASER) is flashed in the media.

The Reading Survey

A large-scale survey of reading skills was

conducted in December 2011 in 2229 primary

schools and assessed 40,188 students. 412 DIETFaculty were involved in the survey. A simple

format for recording the reading skills of students

was evolved for students of Classes V and VIII.

The text books of the previous class were used

for the purpose of the survey. They were assessed

both in English and Tamil reading.

Table-1: Student Reading Skill in Tamil

Only 53.3% students in Class V and 60.57% students in Class VIII could read Tamil fluently and this leaves

much to be desired.


21

Table-2 : Student Reading Skill in English

The reading skills in English are very low, yet children at the elementary level need to develop their reading

skills in English more in order to move on to higher education and acquire greater self-confidence in their

abilities to succeed in school and to meet the career related challenges after school

Table-3: Class V students’Reading Skill in Elementary Schools in Tamil :

Districts with highest percentage

Table-4: Class V students’Reading Skill in Elementary Schools in Tamil:

Districts with lowest percentage

Table-5: Class V students’Reading Skill in Elementary Schools in English:



22

Table-6: Class V students’Reading Skill in Elementary Schools in English:


Table-7: Class VIII students’Reading Skill in Middle Schools in Tamil:


Table-8: Class VIII students’Reading Skill in Middle Schools in Tamil:

Districts with lowest Percentage

Table-9: Class VIII students’Reading Skill in Middle Schools in English:


Table-10: Class VIII students’Reading Skill in Middle Schools in English:


*Source: SCERT, Tamilnadu


23

Interventions

The findings of the survey was brought to thenotice of the Director, SCERT with a proposal toinitiate a reading recovery experiment all overTamil Nadu. Being a quick decision maker, heorganized a workshop for studying the modeland perfecting it with a simple trainer manual.The recovery experiment was incubated in a fewblocks by a faculty from DIET, ThirumurthyNagar. The Director, SCERT also released fundsfrom Centrally sponsored schemes for training60 DIET faculty, two drawn from each DIET, andalso initiated research on the impact of ReadingRecovery intervention in all the thirty districts.

Methodology

a. Diagnostic cards

Initially eight A4 sheet cards were used. Thechronological use of these cards by the teacherfacilitated the diagnosis of the status or thereading level of the child. This first batch of cardswould also take the child step by step intosuccessful reading practice. Experiments havedemonstrated that within three months studentscould read even Tamil newspapers fluently.

The second batch of cards were 6 A4 size sheetcards. These cards help students identify letterswhich cause pronunciation problems and theyovercome the problem following the strategiesrecommended in a very short span of time. These14 A4 size cards are a great resource support toteachers who wish to help children recover fromreading problems on a fast track mode.

b. Steps involved in reading recovery

(i) Introducing letters/Reintroducing letters

Teacher requires enormous patience in writingthe letters of the alphabet on the black board ornote book. She needs to encourage children tooverwrite on the outline of the letters of alphabetslowly. While writing each letter teachers mustspell out the corresponding sound of the letterwith accurate pronunciation and encourage thechild to repeat the sound of the letter whilewriting it.

(ii) Identifying the learnt letters in the

newspapers

The teacher has to increase the pace of

introducing letters two or three per day

depending on the grasping power of each

student. After ensuring that the student has

mastered a few letters, he/she must be

encouraged to encircle the letters in a Tamil

newspaper. The repeated identification of new

letters learnt with appropriate pronunciation

gradually encourages children to join letters and

read headlines of the newspapers. Care must be

taken to ensure that each line in the newspaper

is searched with alertness to identify the letters

learnt. When this is done in all sincerity the

curiosity to know the other letters gets triggered

and peer tutoring blossoms naturally.

Incidentally the shapes of letters get imprinted

in the impressionable minds gradually. The game

of identifying the letters in the newspaper must

be played every day for at least 15 minutes. It is

advisable to have as many copies of a newspaper

as possible (could be old copies as well copies

from the school library or from the personal

collection of the teacher).

(iii) Joining the learnt letters and reading

By combining the letters, mastered words could

be coined and children can be encouraged to read

them. The teacher can also encourage children to

combine the letters they have learnt to coin their

own words and share them with their friends

and discuss their meanings. When ever they seek

help, the teacher may provide it.

When children join the letters they have recently

acquired and try to read, the shapes and sounds

of letters get etched in the minds of young ones.

When students attempt to read out the coined

words, teacher shall not assist them because only

in that momentary struggle for linking the letters

with appropriate sound lies the opportunity to

learn. Peers might help if required but teacher

should not meddle with the freedom of the learner

to make mistakes and learn in a constructive

manner with the support of friends.


24

Tamil is a unique language in the sense it ishighly phonetic. Each letter has itscorresponding sound, unlike English. Joiningtwo letters, if a child successfully produces thesound then reading will naturally happen.Meaning making is a spontaneous process as thechild listens to Tamil around herself all the time.

(iv) Connecting letters with symbols and sounds

There are special symbols in Tamil which joinletters to give different sounds. Children need toassimilate how each symbol, while joining letters,undergoes change in the sounds they make andthey must be given repeated practice in this. Afterthey learn to associate the symbols with theirsounds, they must identify the symbols in thenewspapers. Besides, children must practicewriting new words, combining the symbols withletters and spell them out correctly. Such a steadypractice will increase their confidence and makethem great readers in a few months.

The way forward

The Director, SCERT wanted to involve 40,000student - teachers from DIETs and TTIs to visitschools and address reading problem squarely.As he migrated, the project awaits a successorwith a passion for reform. Till then, the seeds ofreform will await the magical touch of anotherseasonal leader . The diagnostic cards developedthrough this process has been found effective inAustralia and Sicily for their beginners of Tamillanguage and foreign learners of Tamil.

References

ASER 2010 Document.

http://www.ssa.tn.nic.in/Docu/ABL-Report-by-Dr.Anandhalakshmi.pdf

Tamil Reading recovery cards can bedownloaded from the link http://www.thamizham.net .

Reading Survey Reports (December 2011 ) from30 Districts of Tamil Nadu


25

M. Sudhish

Documentation of the best practices adoptedbySCERT and DIETs in Chhattisgarh

AbstractThe quest for innovations in the public sector has been on-going for quite some time, andwith the need for the world to achieve the commitments made by its leaders in the MillenniumDeclaration, the 2005 World Summit and other global and regional conferences, it has attaineda level of urgency. The global consensus on the urgency of reinventing ‘government’ is alsomanifested in research efforts that are focused on improvement of performance and governancein public administration institutions. It is the need of the day for innovators to come togetherand share their information and knowledge about their initiatives to minimize wastage ofresources and time in reinventing the wheel. This paper is a modest attempt to documentsome of the successful processes of institutional transformation and renewal, experienced atthe State Council of Educational Rerearch and Training(SCERT), Chhattisgarh.

SCERT Chhattisgarh was established after thecreation of the state. Starting from scratch, theSCERT has grown tremendously and many oldand big Indian states are learning from itsfunctioning, innovations and governance today.There is much to learn about how the potential ofan SCERT can be harnessed with proper visionand team work. This paper will explore howSCERT, Chhattisgarh evolved and the work doneby it along with the DIETs in the state and iswritten with a purpose of dissemination to peopleworking with public institutions in education aswell as school leaders who want to be “change-agents”.

Initial conditions

SCERT Chhattisgarh was formed in the year 2001.Five senior faculty members from two teachereducation colleges were deputed to work inSCERT. However, no experienced staff fromSCERT, Madhya Pradesh (of which Chhattisgarhhad once been a part) was deputed. Thefunctioning culture necessitated all action at thebehest of directions from top. The office wasestablished in a DIET campus in four rooms withold furniture received from Madhya Pradesh.State level institutions need to be role models forthe grassroot organizations. This is not possiblewhen waiting for orders from the top which cancause lack of motivation and lethargy among thestaff. The processes of the SCERT gainedmomentum only in 2005 when it organized a

conference to discuss the future education systemof Chhattisgarh, the role and responsibilities ofdifferent institutions and the way forward. Alarge number of individuals and organizationsparticipated in the conference.

Developing a 'new' SCERT

Developing Reading Habits. As a result of thediscussions, the SCERT introduced a culture ofreading books. Every month one title was chosenand discussed by the faculty members. Thepurpose was not just to develop a reading habitamong the members but also their ability tounderstand, analyze, appreciate different kindof texts and to increase their knowledge baseabout various kinds of books available. The sameculture was later introduced in all DIETs and amonthly discussions on particular books wasinitiated. The habit was also developed amongthe DIET students. Every school was supportedto start their own library. Books were procuredand teachers were trained to use school libraries.Regular state level reading day celebrations wereorganized. On this occasion, every village wasencouraged to spend the whole day readingbooks. Chhattisgarh received the Limca Book ofworld records for arranging the maximumnumber of readers reading books state-wide on aparticular day.

Core Groups and Open Discussions.SCERT hasdeveloped a culture of encouraging employees


26

to contribute their ideas for the betterment of

school quality. The staff members are asked to

assist in developing policies and programs and

setting rules and procedures. Different cell in-

charges are authorized to establish a committee

or core group to build consensus. Once the issueis discussed in the core group, it goes for further

action to the concerned authority. Based on the

decision taken by core group, proposals may be

turned down and also be improved and

reshaped. The entire faculty of SCERT also meets

regularly every week. During the meeting, eachfaculty presents his tasks of the week, future

strategies along with the support required.

Experiences of a meeting that the member may

have attended or monitoring feedback of different

programs is also a part of the meeting. Along with

these issue related to education is also discussed.Same kind of process works at DIET level as well.

Every month, one DIET is elected for organizing

the state level monthly meetings of DIET

Principals. During this meeting, apart from the

review and presentations, the host DIET

showcases its activities and arranges for visits tothe model schools. This process has brought

remarkable changes in DIETs and also helped to

identify inspiring academic leaders working in

different districts.

EduSat. EduSat Network was established inSCERT Chhattisgarh in year 2006-07. There was

a gradual scaling up of the network coverage and

presently the state has 128 SIT to cover different

blocks. Education department makes regular use

of this network for the capacity building of district

and block officials and to have a direct contactand two way interactions with grassroots

functionaries. During summer vacation, it is used

to give special coaching to students appearing

for various competitive exams. Experts are also

invited at times to talk directly with children on

identified issues. This network has helped tobuild the capacity of our teacher educators as

well to make effective use of media as a distance

education mode. State has also planned to use

EduSat for monthly review meetings, receive

feedback or interviews for research and regular

training programs.

The SCERT's work

Textbook Development. The state initially wasfollowing the M.P. curriculum and syllabus withslight modifications. However, they were clearthat the context of new state was different andtherefore the state would require to developtextbooks that were rooted in our concerns andcontext. The process of making changes in theexisting textbooks (M.P. Board) made it clearerthat a lot more work was required in the area oftextbook and curriculum revision.

The process of revising textbook and curriculumof elementary level was initiated in year 2002.The task was huge and rigorous and was alsoseen as an opportunity to evolve a capableresource group that could gradually take up theresponsibility to work for better quality educationin the state in near future.

It required not only vision and proper planning,but also novel ideas, expertise from varioussubject areas and a committed team. Thisdemanded involvement of other agencies. Aresource team with the support of ICICI centrefor Elementary Education was formulated andEklavya, Bhopal, Vidya Bhawan, Udaipur andDigantar, Jaipur were part of this resource team.People were identified from schools (Primary,Middle, Secondary, and Higher Secondary),colleges, DIETs and other NGOs. A workshopwas organized with the purpose of developing astate resource group who can carry forward thework. The purpose was also to develop a sharedunderstanding among the group about somebasic issues such as: What is the purpose of


27

education; what do we mean by qualityeducation, Nature of subjects, Knowing thelearner, and the Learning processes etc.Discussion on: What is a curriculum and whatis a syllabus and what are the criteria to decide asyllabus for various levels were also held.

Groups were made subject-wise and class-wisekeeping in mind the interest and capability ofthe people. In the subsequent workshops peopleworked in these groups. The design of theworkshop was such that people not only wrotethe chapters but also read reference books,discussed the concepts among each other andtried out the content with children of that class.It was ensured that at the end of the day eachgroup, in brief, shared what all they did duringthe day. For example issues raised, conceptsdiscussed, difficulties etc were shared. Some ofthese issues were common for all, such as how todecide the content; which concepts and at whichlevel and why; how many chapters; length of thetextbooks, kind of illustrations etc. Some issueswere subject specific - what do we understandby counting; fractions and variables; how theseshould be introduced etc.

Textbook thus developed were then pilot tested.Feedback from teachers as well as from childrenwere taken and shared with experts and writingteam and then incorporated in the textbooks.

As mentioned above the textbook writing processwas initiated with the support of ICICI Centre ofElementary Education(ICEE), UNICEF andinstitutions like Vidya Bhawan, Digantar and

Eklavya. To ensure continuity of support, theChhattisgarh Education Resource Centre wasalso formed near the SCERT. This was a rigorousand continuous process and as per timelines, thetextbook reform took place successfully in thestate.

Improving Teachers’ Training (in collaboration

with the DIETs). Teacher training was also a new

area for the state the DIETs followed whatever

was instructed or guided from SCERT, Madhya

Pradesh till then. The state needed to design its

own training program. New elements such as

identifying training needs, provision of help boxinside the training hall to receive doubts,releasing TLM grants during teachers trainingthrough DIETs and developing teaching-learningmaterial during the training program itself,Cafeteria approach of teachers training, clusterresource centres as subject-wise booster resourcecentres, using technology like EDUSAT and radioto train for Interactive Radio Instructionprograms, dove-tailing with UNICEF and othersupport agencies to get best resources’ orexpertise cost from them and meeting the localexpenses from state budget etc were introduced.In some cases, teachers were given theopportunity to have field experience to get propertraining of that particular subject. DIETs weregiven various assignments from their CentrallySponsored Funds to have a firsthand experienceof the program or develop materials and try outwith small groups before scaling it. DIETs werealso given chance to organize state levelworkshops and seminars on different relevantissues. In order to fill the gap between Schoolsand DIETs we introduced, Jhatpat Surveys ondifferent topics and Shodh Yatras in DIETswhere regular students-teachers were initiatedduring vacation time so that students comingfrom different villages could go back and collectthe required data from their schools during theirtwo years training program. To monitor the block-wise progress of teachers training, teachertraining tracking tool was developed.

D.Ed. New Syllabus. The need to change the age

old content of pre-service training was realized

while working on the new school curriculum and


28

textbooks and after their implementation inschools.

Teachers were required to have a certain kind of

perspective, attitude, and ability to use new

textbooks which the old curriculum was not

offering. NCTE also developed new curriculum

and states were expected to develop it curriculum

in the light of NCTEF.

The process of revamping the whole D.Ed.

curriculum was restarted in 2007-08 by SCERT

with the support of some external organizations

like Vidya Bhawan, Diganter, Eklavya, CERC and

Azim Premji Foundation. A series of workshops

were organized with DIET faculty, SCERT faculty,

NOG members to discuss the curriculum, and

also to select translate, edit and finalize the

material for chosen subjects areas. Sufficient

reading materials were developed and referred

for the students and their ability to produce their

own thoughts was emphasized, reducing the

scope for cramming and reproducing withoutapplication.

Some specific changes made in the courseinclude. Longer school experience program;content which push student-teachers to think,analyse and question; and makes them able tounderstand education in a wider perspective i.e.the philosophical, social, psychologicalfoundations of education.

To introduce and share the perspective behindthe course, orientation workshops for DIETfaculty were also organized. A mechanism to getindividual feedback of students and faculty werealso developed. SCERT has also taken the chargeof conducting exams for D.Ed. and implementingthe new curriculum.. Now the state is planningto revise the curriculum of the B.Ed. course.

Systemic Reforms in the SCERT

Educator professionalism. SCERT has taken thelead in developing educator professionalism inteacher education. “Professionalism” is a formof liberty that is not simply conferred; it is earned.Accountability must be provided throughrigorous training and careful selection, seriousand sustained internships for beginners,meaningful evaluation, opportunities forprofessional learning, and ongoing review ofpractice.

Some of the systemic reforms initiated are:1. Screening procedure for Resource Persons:

In order to improve the quality of teacherstraining, the first and most important aspectis to have good and efficient ResourcePersons. Generally Resource Persons areselected by the block level officials and thereis no specific criterion. Block level officialshave been forced to send those who are easilyfound to attend the training and workshops.This affects the quality of training and theirimpact in the classrooms. To overcome thissituation, SCERT started a screening processfor teachers’ selection as Resource Persons.Teachers are now required to pass an examto qualify to giving training programs andthey are also given honorarium.


29

2. Testing of teachers: Whenever teachers areasked to attend the training, some of themboast “we have experience of many years ofteaching and our students are now holdingbig posts hence we don’t require anytraining”. Experience counts but lack ofreadiness to learn new things and not seeingthe causes of poor performance is a majorproblem of our education system. There isalso a conflict between the old, seniorteachers drawing handsome salary and thewell qualified, newly recruitedShikshakarmis drawing minimum salary.The state decided to organize large scaletesting of teachers to break up this mindsetand identify the areas for teachers’ training.There was a big protest against this initiativeand in many areas teachers were not readyto appear in the test. But after talking withmany organizations, teachers agreed toappear in such tests and results of these testsacted as eye-openers for them.

3. Online admissions: Earlier a lot of time wasdevoted in admission procedures. The wholestaff was involved for more than one monthto accomplish this task. SCERT developedthe system of online admissions.

Fresh Thinking for Community Ownership

The role of the community in school managementis increasingly being advocated. The state ofChhattisgarh witnessed a remarkable change inthe area of community involvement and SCERTwas a part of this process. One of its districts -Dhamtari -was a pro-active in this field. The ideaof a four level community-involvement wasintroduced and gradually the journey fromcommunity participation to communityownership was initiated. The first step was takenin a small village Mainpur, situated on the borderof Orissa. Parents here are daily wage earners.They played a very active role in making theschool building attractive, constructingboundary walls, gardening as well producingvegetables for mid-day meal. They have alsohelped in purchasing computers for the school.A big library has also been developed with thehelp of the community.

Parents of another village Mahamalla in Rajpurcluster, Nagari block made bricks andconstructed the boundary wall for the school.They introduced BALA concept in school andgrew vegetables for the Mid-Day Meal. Parentsin many of the villages have issued a card underthe scheme “Ann Ghat Yojana” in which eachhouse puts a handful of rice in a pot for school.Another scheme “Gyan Chakra Policy” motivatespeople to leave drugs, liquor, tobacco and investthe money thus saved for the improvement ofschool facilities.

In one of the schools of Pandripani village, theteacher is allowed to stay in school premises andthe school starts early morning at six o’clock withyoga and sports. Parents also attend the yogasessions and take charge of school in the absenceof the teacher. In the evening, the teacher providescoaching classes for weaker children andsupport in home work. Mr. Narsingh Netam, a55 year old person from Dongripara village haspassed class 5 long back. The village donatedcomputers for school and this old man learnedcomputers from the school and now he teachescomputers to children. He also types the questionpaper for all the cluster schools himself. Morethan 80000 parents supported schools in thedistrict to undertake the students’ assessment ina single day throughout the district, withtransparency. Based on such experiences, stategovernments have introduced the concept ofclass-wise evaluation and quality improvementcommittees in all schools of the state and issueddetailed guidelines to form such committees andprovide orientation to the community.

Motivation mattersDirector SCERT, gave utmost importance to themotivation of staff members and employees. Heinitiated the process of long-awaited large scalepromotions. Maximum number of employees gotthe benefit of promotions. School set-up wasapproved and teachers’ posts were tried to befilled as per new set up.

State Human Resource policy was developed andspecific job charts for different posts werereleased. Performance-based appraisal policywas also introduced. SCERT also developedschool education policy, policy on MLE, policy


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to stop physical and mental harassment, ECCEpolicy etc.

Most of the DIETs lacked adequate staff. Thisaffected the functioning of DIETs and they werenot able to give expected outcomes. In order tobring expert staff from Elementary level, an examwas organized for those Shikshakarmis whowere interested to work in DIET as deputationlecturers. After their internal exam and interviewby the committee, they were given the post ofDeputation lecturers in DIET. Presently morethan 100 such teachers are working in differentDIETs.

SCERT staff is regularly asked to write on differentrelevant issues. They are also supposed todevelop different projects and write reports. Theirreports were read carefully by the Director andcomments were given for further improvements.On every good report, the faculty used to getcomments as well as the sign “!!!” as a reward.Faculty used to get motivated whenever theyused to get such remarks and this was one of themost discussed and shared issue among thefaculty.

The faculty used to contact district officials fortheir work done and to know about the status ofthe work. They used to call from their mobilesand expenses were to be borne by the facultyitself. In order to have much closer contacts andprovide more academic support to the districtsand have more and more interactions, SCERTdecided to provide them mobile connections andfree call facility among the group in the system.This helped them to improve the coordinationand timely information dissemination.

The faculty members were also provided trainingon the use of computers and after getting thetraining, they were provided latest laptops andother equipments to have a good workstation.SCERT also spent money to develop beautifulcabins for the staff. Centralized cooling systemand clean drinking water facilities were arrangedto have a good working environment.

One of the best parts of employee motivation isthat the faculty is given full liberty to choose thework of their interest and expertise. They are

allotted work as per their request andbackground.

All DIETs were able to send their faculty todifferent IIMs to study different issues of theirconcern. They came to know about the latesttrends and cultures being followed by advancedinstitutes and were able to adopt some of them intheir own DIETs.

Exposure visits are very important for learningnew initiatives as well as employee motivation.SCERT provided them the opportunity to haveexposure visits to some of the European countriesand learn many new things. Officials learnedhow the school functions, school administrationmechanism and various reforms being done inthe field of education in other developedcountries. Faculty members were so motivatedthrough these visits that they started taking theinitiative for having such exposures withoutGovt. support or funding. One of the faculty gotthe opportunity to visit United States and studyeducational system from Pre-primary toUniversity level under IVLP program.

Conclusions and ImplicationsThis paper has tried to document varioussuccessful initiatives undertaken byChhattisgarh SCERT. In-depth analysis is notpossible with limited resources, expertise andtime. There is a need to identify the criticalelements of reform. There is further requirementto focus the study on the vision guiding reforms;the leadership driving reforms; the knowledgeand research/ inquiry foundation upon whichthe reforms are built; the opportunities forlearning needed to sustain these reforms; themechanics for communication used to coordinatethem; the organizational arrangements designedto support them; and the strategies used tosupport them.

If we go through the strategies followed toimplement the above programme, we find thefollowing principles being followed to achievetime bound sure success:1. Create a culture that works: The courageous

leader takes ownership, working closelywith the employees and plays a major role in


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building a climate that can make thedifference between winning and fallingbehind the curve.

2. Possess the courage of your convictions:courageous workers have a strategy andgame plan in place of how to lead humanresources, and the courage to “just do it”.

3. Adapt to a changing environment: Someorganizations are stuck in the past. This isthe way it was done yesterday, and we’llcontinue to do it the same way. The bestleaders accept two truisms. First, there is nosuch thing as staying in the same spot; youare either advancing or falling behind. Andsecond, it’s sheer lunacy to continue doingthe same thing and expect different results.

4. Operate with minimal fears: Old-styleworkers were riddled with fears. Anxiousabout losing their job, uncertain about theirroles in the organization, and often viewedas outsiders, they operated with a defensive

posture. But the new leaders lead with a cleardirection, set strategy, work with others,believe in their own skills and can facedisagreement. Fear is not the motivatingforce, but doing what’s best for theorganization and creating strong strategy todeal with the change are.

5. Let the projects be the managers: A rigidhierarchy of authority makes employees lessfocused on the output and more focus on theirnext promotion. If all team members arecommitted to a goal, politics fall to thewayside and a focus on a successful projectsdrive the result. This encourages innovation,allowing more people to step up to the plateand great ideas to come from anywhere.

The good news is that as the SCERT,Chhattisgarh demostrated, the ability to innovateis a learnable skill which the educationaladministrators must learn. The process ofinovations is never-ending and the work ofSCERT & DIETs not yet over.


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H.K. Dewan

Exploring alternatives in teacher education

AbstractOver the few years, the need for teacher education courses that are more than face-to-face hasbeen increasingly felt. The article examine the factors behind this new demand and suggestssome alternatives and the enabling conditions needed to make them possible.

IntroductionThe importance of teacher preparation andprovision of opportunity for their continuousdevelopment has gained prominence in the lasttwo decades. The emphasis on pre-servicepreparation of teachers has been furtherheightened by its inclusion in the RTE 2009, thetime-bound nature of the recommendation haslent an urgency to the efforts. The act mandates,as part of the definition and essentialrequirements from a school, the presence oftrained teachers (those who have undergone pre-service education). The act, apart from the criteriafor teacher qualifications, also describes the wayteachers are expected to work with children.Theyare expected to encourage learning through activities,discovery and exploration in a child friendly andchild-centred manner and make the child free of fear,trauma and anxiety and help the child to express viewsfreely. The courses and programs of teacherpreparation and development have to keep theseexpectations in mind and gradually transformthemselves to align with similar ideas in NCF2005 and NCFTE 2009 and yet avoid the pitfallof being dogmatic about pursuing them to theletter. Both these advocate redefining of thecurriculum and seek to establish teaching as asocial practice that promotes local knowledge,active citizenship, diversity and inclusion. Theyemphasise the role of the learner in building herconcepts and clarify the distinction betweenknowledge and information or betweenunderstanding and then finding one’s own pathversus knowing and following rules and/ormethods taught.

The above - namely teachers’ qualifications, theirapproach to teaching and their continuedcapacity building - have implications for manyaspects of the education system and itsrelationship with the teacher as an individual as

well as to the collective of teachers. Teachers oftenare reduced to implementing agencies for newincomplete and impractical ideas that areimposed albeit transiently before moving on toanother idea through programs and projects.Their autonomy has steadily declined as hasscope for initiative as they are forced to conformto centralized patterns of teaching andassessment. The content and pedagogy of teacherpreparation programs needs to be overhauled.But more importantly than this also is the needfor change in the way the system addresses theirspace for thought, respects and nurtures theircapability and sense of purpose. It is alsoimportant for the system to take cognisance ofthe need for their motivation and challenges theyface. These are aspects that are crucial to anyimprovement in schools and classrooms.Undermining their self-respect and their agencyeven by giving them well prepared recipes cannot lead to interesting and meaningfulengagement for students. While all these issuescannot be addressed in this article theirimportance cannot be over emphasized.

In the context of the window of time for pre-servicepreparation as mandated by the RTE 2009, it iscrucial to remember that we need to providetraining not only to prospective teachingcandidates but also to another category of teachers– those without any pre-service educationalready placed in schools. These teachers arealready teaching, perhaps with some guidance,advice and support from their experiencedcolleagues. Their experience in terms of howchildren learn (in general and for a particularsubject), classroom transactions and groundrealities is valuable and cannot be replicated inany school experience program. Any programfor their preparation must take that into accountand use this experience. Further, their sheer


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numbers in some states and the fact that theycannot be withdrawn from schools while theyundergo training, forces us to consider modes oftraining different from the conventional B.Ed. andD.Ed. courses.

There always was a resistance to alternativemodes of Teacher Training, that were not face-to-face, as it was argued (and justifiably so) thatpreparation of teachers and teacher educatorsrequired them to have a substantial dialogue withthose who could expose them to a wider visionas well as theoretical foundations. Questions ofhow a teacher can utilize the diversity in herclassroom; what knowledge (of education,philosophy including educational as well associal purposes, human learning andpsychology, social dimensions includingstratification, diversity and conflict as well as ofspecific disciplines) is required to be an effectiveteacher; how the community can play a role; andwhat is meant by terms such as child-centred,activity-based etc. need to debated amongteachers but also require resource persons toguide the dialogue.

Face-to-face discourse was meant to build newcapacities in teachers and consolidate theirunderstanding of education, in alignment withthe principles that were expected at any point oftime. It provided scope for interaction not justwith the teacher but also among student-teachersas well as room for group discussions and ctivities– both vital components of learning process notthought possible in distance mode. But, there isnow reluctant agreement to the need ofalternatives to face-to-face mode. Indeed, in manyways the lack of quality of face to face interaction,governed largely by the lack of appropriateresource persons has led to this conclusion. Sincesuch quality resource persons required wereunavailable therefore there was a reluctance toprovide them with any space or autonomy toconstruct the engagement with teachers duringteacher trainings. Forced to follow pre-designedpackages and modules with little scope forinnovation, the level of trainings deteriorated andled to such processes becoming a farce. From thesearch of quality resource persons, the emphasishas therefore shifted towards attempting toprovide well-structured content to the teacher

educators and teachers across the country. Theimportance placed on presentation of coherentand conceptually grounded ideas to a wideaudience is welcome. However, the requirementsof some form of dialogue cannot be entirelyoverlooked. It is in this context that we need tothink about the structuring of capacity buildingof teachers and ways of ensuring theircontinuous developmentwhich combines theelements of face-to-face with distance education.

Continuous teacher professional developmentWhile the need for pre-service courses that aremore than face to face has assumed recentsignificance - due to the several factors outlinedabove – in-service teacher programs have beenadvocating it for over two decades. This stemsfrom the notion of building a discourse ordialogue around teachers’ and teacher educators’ideas of education that have emerged throughserious engagement with classrooms, withtheoretical concepts and debates. Several of theseideas have been included in the NationalCurriculum Framework (NCF) 2005 and NCFTE2009. It has been many years since thesedocuments were made public yet the teachertraining scenario, both in-service and pre-service,seems to have not responded to them in asignificant manner.

Recent discussions on teacher development havenot only emphasized pre-service preparation butmechanisms for supporting and motivatingteachers subsequently as well. There have alsobeen suggestions that instead of the entire periodof teacher development been used up in thebeginning or at one go, it should be interspersedwith period of time spent on teaching. Further, toalign the teacher development programs to theNCF 2005 necessitates a change in the followingbroad dimensions. These are:

1. The length, nature, scope and manner oforganization of the time spent by the traineeteacher in the school (school experienceprogram, SEP) as well as the classroom.Analysis of the purpose of SEP and aconvergence of the different views held bythe teacher educators.


34

2. A shift from emphasis on merely techniquesand methods to concepts of childhood,diversity and inclusion, purpose and role ofeducation.

3. To consider the nature and processes ofhuman learning, the importance of dialogueimbued with mutual respect and to arrive ata shared understanding of the essentialelements needed for it.

4. To help the teacher understand the nature ofthe subject, feel confident of the underlyingconcepts and ideas. Also understand theways to help children develop concepts andfeel confident in it.

Given the fact that most of the educators, existingprograms, syllabi, modules and materials areoriented to the didactic way of teacherpreparation and education, the challenge toachieving the above is huge. This has led to theneed for providing opportunity to teachers andeducators across the country for reflecting ontheir beliefs. To do this over wider regions a needhas arisen to use techniques that are more thanface to face.

It has been suggested that teachers should haveopportunities for capacity building throughprograms; for practicing teachers to be able toaccess courses without having to take breaks fromtheir teaching duties. There exist some courses ofthis kind that have been implemented in the past,others that exist currently and the learning fromthese that can be used in the design of newcourses.

Continuous professional developmentprograms – past and presentIn the last two decades, the concept of capacitybuilding for teachers has evolved from occasionaltrainings into continuous interactions and effortsto build systems to put this idea into practice.Many institutions have partnered with the SSAin order to provide opportunities for capacitybuilding of teachers. Under some of the Statespecific programs (Lok Jumbish; Bihar EducationProject; Education for all, UPE etc.) andsubsequently the District Primary EducationProgram, spread over the entire country, effort

was made to incorporate various dimensions ofcapacity building. Irrespective of the programunder consideration, reviews have identified thelack of resource persons as a major bottleneck inimplementation, expansion and success.Institutions that can serve as platform forengaging with the learning needs of teachers ina continuous manner are also missing. The in-service programs have often focused on buzzwords and have not been able to engage teachersin a meaningful and challenging manner.

Many States have recently introduced Certificateprograms offered by Open Universities, inparticular by Indira Gandhi National OpenUniversity (IGNOU) in an attempt to enrichteacher capacity building efforts. The course,teaching of primary mathematics (comprising ofAMT01 and LMT01) has seen significantattention. However, the structured counsellingand consultation provisions demanded by thecourse are missing, making it impossible toprovide teachers with feedback on assignmentsor guide them about the spirit and purpose ofthis course. This highlights the need not just forother such meaningful courses for in-servicecapacity development, but more importantly forsupport required for these programs to berelevant. While we have institutions like IGNOU,ELTI and a few others who can devise programs,there is a lack of support structures. Further,looking at the size and variety of the teachingforce, the gap between the need and availabilityof courses is extremely large. Organizationsoutside the government structure have developedsome meaningful programs and mechanisms forinteraction with teachers, but have not yet beenable to come up with processes that can be takethem to scale without loss of quality.

What is neededThe need for expanding the opportunities forlearning had been recognized many years agobut what has emerged from the efforts towardsachieving this is the need to develop programsthat have a solid grounding in foundational ideasof education, its nature and disciplinaryknowledge as well as concrete ideas of what canbe done in the classrooms and schools. Werequire structures where these programs will behoused (resource centres) and where the teachers


35

can contact peers as well as more knowledgeablediscipline experts; people who can enthuseteachers and ensure that they can continue tolearn. The interaction between people at theresource centers and the teachers who come toget exposure needs to be non-didactic, openended and conversational. The teachers shouldnot come expecting lectures or simple solutionsto their problems provided by the resource person.Instead, the centres should be a space where theycan interact with their peers and discover theirown solutions and resources. Solutions that areinformed by their experience of the context of theirschool, children in it, the materials available tothem physically, emotionally as well asintellectually and knowledge of what includingmaterials and ideas children would becomfortable with.

As discussed in previous sections, earlierprograms depended largely on face-to-faceinteraction with resource persons who wereinspirational and confident. The success of theprogram and their scaling, were both hinderedby shortage of such persons. Therefore, we nowrequire programs with quality materials andprocesses that are accessible to all teachers anddo not overly rely on the facilitator. Much of thematerial for these programs is available in theform of material designed by NIOS, IGNOU, ELTIand other agencies although it needs to berestructured and contextualized. For example,the language material of one state may not onlyneed to be translated using appropriate idiomand expression but it would also need suitableexamples inserted to replace earlier ones, beforeit can be used in another state. Careful scanningand editing is required rather than meretranslation for the material to make sense whentransposed into another setting.

Quality material that is simple for the teachers tounderstand and is based on real experience ofclassrooms is required. It should be able to engagethe teachers giving them opportunity to think.The materials available should address theexperience of the teachers and not negate it. Thesuggestions provided must be of doable tasks thathave been tried out and seems to be workable. Inbrief, what is required is having a learning and

meaningful system that brings the desire of theteacher to learn alive.

More pressing is the need to build processes andstructures to avoid the failures faced by earlierprograms. There have been many massive scaleorientation programs for teachers since the1980’s. These have suffered from the lack ofinstitutional capacity to host good programs bothlogistically and in terms of content andproccesses as well. The brief attempts in some ofthe state level efforts at specific times not-with-standing, there has been very little attempt tocorrect this. It always appears that the resourcesallocated, the timing of the sanctions and theirrelease pattern is always behind the requirementsat that time. There seems to be an inability to planan intervention slowly and systematically. Thereseems to be a pressure to cover all at the sametime resulting in inadequate inputs that thereforeget wasted. The challenge thrown by RTE 2009should be taken as an opportunity to designprocesses and programs that will provide pre-service training to teachers in school whilesimultaneously achieving the goals of educationoutlined by NCF 2005 and NCFTE 2009.

To be able to explore and begin the process ofreflection and learning in teachers, we requireengagement that would comprehensively exposethe teacher to alternative ways of looking ateducation, purpose of education as well as natureof the subject and concepts in it. They would alsobe required to appreciate the capability of thechild, the diversity of the background they comefrom and recognize the need for equity in termsof the opportunities we provide to all children.Within this broad contour , teachers needspecifically identify the individual small changesthat they can make in the functioning in theirclassrooms, and in their relationships withchildren and the community. They need to bebecome excited about the subject that they teachand develop the confidence that they can learnmore in it. This is certainly not a simple processand cannot be done by making a scheme.

To achieve this, we need to build a program thathas the possibility for multiple levels ofinterventions with a clear focus on where wewant to go. Everyone engaged in the process


36

needs to feel positive about her role and developthe confidence and competence to perform it withauthority and pleasure. This requires acontinuously learning system with structuredand unstructured dialogues with people ofsimilar and different experience basis. This alsorequires processes where there is a space forparticipants to explore, make small mistakes andhave the opportunity to recognize these mistakesand the opportunity to learn how to correct it.

Emerging ideas and mechanismsThe deliberations held in the 3 teacherdevelopment seminars in which MHRD was aparticipant, underlined the need for buildingsuch processes and recognizing the institutionsthat could help in taking the leadership role tomake all this possible. The seminars exploredcomprehensive teacher development andmanagement to be followed by further detaileddiscussions on pre-service and in-serviceelementary teacher education. Participants tothese included those who were concerned withteacher education and development from acrossthe world and also many who are working inIndia for decades, trying to seek answers to themulti dimensional challenges of teacherpreparation, development, motivation andperformance. A common concern voiced acrossthe three seminars was the need for continuousteacher preparation as opposed to disjointed pre-service and in-service programs. Further, theyemphasized the need for multiple avenues ofteacher education, multiple points of entry intothe profession and more programs along the linesof the B.El.Ed program offered by DU or MAElementray education offered by TISS. Thedialogue also brought out the advantage andthus re-emphasised the need to increaseparticipation in the academic resourceinstitutions, both officially and non-governmental, in partnering with the StateEducation Department and the academic bodiesat State and National level responsible forimproving the quality of education.

There are signs of such partnership in some ofthe States. Some of these partnerships existedearlier and there are signs for some moredeveloping. It is important to work towardsdevelopment of possibilities to encourage such

possibilities and consolidating them so that theycan support interventions made by the Stateeducation system. The state of Chhattisgarh, inorder to be able to provide pre-service training tountrained teachers, has seen partnershipbetween the State educational team and non-governmental resource agencies on multipleoccasions. Earlier there was a lack of centerswhere teachers could collect and get a chance tointeract with each other and with those whocould act as facilitators and provide input fortheir further learning. Centers have been set upat the moment to cater to the open and distanceD.El.Ed. program and are functioning for thisspecific purpose but the plan is to make thesepermanent learning centers for teachers and havea large team available at the center to make itpossible for the teacher to receive support whenshe needs.

The idea of these centers functioning as centersfor continuous learning would need constantattention. The materials and the facilities at thecenter would have to be strengthened and up-graded. The persons engaging teachers at thecenter would need to be kept fresh, motivated andexposed to new learning and new ideas. For this,they themselves will need to undergo frequentand regular trainings and meetings at the centrallevel where they can share their experienceswhich can be used to enrich and modify theprogram. They would need to have access to eachother as well as to resources. They would alsoneed to be in touch with persons who are knownto be knowledgeable in that domain. Theaccessibility of sources of knowledge would haveto be improved and their numbers increased.Right now these are largely DIETs and Sr.secondary schools. The facilities and capabilitiesat these institutions do not allow for many moreto be considered. There is a need to both improvethe facilities at the existing centers and identifymore of them. Competently and carefullyorganised engagements with persons from schoolsystem have always drawn full interest andparticipation. There is keeness to be respectedand to do well among most teachers. Theingredients for this seem to be a diverse set ofcapable people working in close tandem.Creation of relevant materials imbued with


37

current knowledge on education developed andshared in the vernacular language and localidiom.

The fact that over-rides all this is a consistentinterest in this endeavour and space to useavailable resources meaningfully andautonomously. The defining of the nature of theinteraction at an optimal and doable level andthen ensuring that what is planned happens. Thedanger of stating much more that what can bemade possible leads both to depression and tohypocrisy. Given the goals of making the teacherand the educator an autonomous learner it is notso much that correct explanations have to be givento her but rather her capability of formulatingher own logic and seeking relevant ideas for herself are necessary. She, of course, needs to be

exposed to or rather immersed in the aspects ofeducation outlined above but all that within aframework that respects her as a person in alldimensions of her existence as a teacher or aneducator. It should focuss on buildingcapabilities with enablement with access tosources for more learning. Expanding vistas todevelop the interest to seek new questions andexplore answers in order to also create newerways of thinking. Education is not abouttransmitting edicts and information or evenknown concepts and ideas, it is about seeingexcitement for new knowledge in whatever is apart of human endeavour. It is thus importantthat we create capability, desire and possibilitiesfor teachers to constantly engage with themselvesand their knowledge and share the joy of thisengagement with their students.

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i`“BHkwfeNÙkhlx<+ esa fu;fer Mh-,M- gsrq ikBîØe fuekZ.kdk dk;Z o"kZ esa 'kq: fd;k x;kA ikBîØeesa cnyko D;ksa fd;k tk; blds dbZ dkj.k FksAfiNys dbZ o"kksaZ ls ,d ikBîØe py jgk FkkAysfdu ;g ikBîØe u, jkT; ds xBu ds ckncuh u;h ikBîiqLrdksa ds vuq:i ugha FkkAfofHkUu eapksa ij f’k{kdksa ds lkFk gqbZ vUr%fØ;kvksaesa ;g eglwl fd;k x;k fd ikBîØe f’k{kdksadks lS)kafrd <kapk rks çnku djrk gS ysfdud{kk&d{k dh okLrfod fLFkfr esa fdl rjg dkedjuk gS ;g le>us esa [kkl enn ugha djrkAblds vykok] o"kZ dh jk"Vªh; ikBîp;kZ dh:ijs[kk dk nLrkost f’k{kk D;ksa] f’k{kk dSls ofdlds fy, tSls ewyHkwr ç’uksa ds ckjs esa ,du;k –f"Vdks.k nsrk gSA ,u-lh-,Q- dsvk/kkjHkwr fl)kUrksa o mldh vuq’kalkvksa dsçdk’k esa bl ikBîØe dks iqu% ns[kus dhvko’;drk FkhA

ikBîØe ds voyksdu ds nkSjku ;g Hkh irkpyk fd fu;fer Mh-,M- gsrq ikBîØe dh dksbZBksl :ijs[kk ¼ÝseodZ½ o mi;qä iqLrdksa dhlwph vFkok iBu lkexzh miyC/k ugha FkhA ;grks irk Fkk fd D;k fo"k; i<k, tkus gSa ysfdu;g Li"Vrk ugha Fkh fd ;gh fo"k; D;ksa i<kusgSa\] D;k lUnHkZ iqLrdsa gksuh pkfg,\vkSj Nk=f’k{kd ls D;k vis{kk,a gksa o D;ksa\

blh rjg i<+us&i<+kus ds rjhds Hkh O;k[;kuvk/kkfjr Fks ¼tcfd Nk= f’k{kd ls visf{kr Fkkfd og d{kk esa dqN u;k djs o Qjd djs½ vkSjewY;kadu Hkh blh le> ij vk/kkfjr Fkk ;FkkewY;kadu ;gh tkap djrk Fkk fd Nk= f’k{kd}kjk nh x;h lwpukvksa dk iqu% çLrqrhdj.kfdruh vPNh rjg ls dj ikrs gSaA bu lHkhlanHkksZa] ljksdkjksa o fparkvksa ds eísutj o"kZesa ,l-lh-bZ-vkj-Vh- o lg;ksxh laLFkkvksa ,dyO;¼Hkksiky½] fnxarj ¼t;iqj½ o fo|k Hkou lkslkbVh

2008

2005

2005

2008

tk;k tk ldsxkA

vr% ;g dgk tk ldrk gS fd ,d rjg lslsokjr f’k{kdksa gsrq ikBîØe fuekZ.k dk dk;Z o"kZ

esa gh 'kq: gks pqdk FkkA f’k{kd rS;kjh dsbl dk;ZØe ds ckjs esa vk/kkjHkwr ppkZ,a ;FkkikBîØe esa D;k cnyko gks] D;ksa gks] vkSj bUgsadSls ykxw fd;k tk;sxk] ikBîØe dh fo"k;oLrqesa D;k&D;k gks] lkexzh dSlh gks] vkdyu dhçfØ;k D;k gks] ikBîØe ds mís’; D;k gksabR;kfn ds ckjs esa ppkZ rHkh ls 'kq: gks pqdh FkhAlsokjr f’k{kdksa ds fy, rS;kj fd;s x, orZekuikBîØe dks Lo:i nsus esa bu ppkZvksa ls cgqrenn feyhA

bl ys[k ds rhu fgLls gSa ftuesa vçf’kf{krlsokjr f’k{kdksa ds fy, vkSipkfjd çf’k{k.k rS;kjhmiyC/k djokus ds ç;kl dh >yd gSA

igyk fgLlk ikBîØe ds mns’; ds ckjs esa gSrFkk nwljk ikBîlkexzh p;u ds vk/kkjksa ds ckjsesaA rhljk fgLlk] dk;ZØe ds fØ;kUo;u ds fy,D;k D;k O;oLFkkxr ç;kl fd;s x, gSa bllUnHkZ esa gSA

f’k{kd f’k{kk ds fy, miyC/k vf/kdka’k ikBîdeksads dsaæ esa dqN fo’ks"k f’k{k.k fl)kUr o mudkf’k{k.k gSA ;s fl)kar dkQh iqjkus gSa vkSj budkf’k{k.k Hkh bl rjg ls fd;k tkrk gS fd buesalkspus dh xqatkb’k u ds cjkcj jgsA Nk= f’k{kdtks dgk x;k gS mldks ekus] tks crk;k x;k gSogh d{kk esa djus dk ç;kl djs] pkgs ;g f’k{k.kdh fof/k;ksa ds ckjs esa gks] cPpksa ds O;ogkj ds ckjsesa gks ;k fQj lekt dh fLFkfr ds ckjs esaA Nk=f’k{kd gks ;k lsokjr f’k{kd] f’k{kd f’k{kk dsikBîØe ds varxZr os Ldwyksa esa le; t:jfcrkrs gSa ysfdu mlesa gkfly vuqHkoksa dksfl)kUrksa ds çdk’k esa ugha ns[k ikrsA viusvuqHkoksa ij fparu djuk vkSj vius fo’oklksa dksaO;ä djus] mudh tkap djus dh muls vis{kkugha gksrhA f’k{kd çf’k{k.k dk;ZØe dk ,d eq[;

2009

ikBîØe ds mís’;

mís’; ;g gksuk pkfg, fd og fl)kar o O;ogkjdh njkj dks ikV lds] Nk= f’k{kd o lsokjrf’k{kd i<+s x, fl)kUr dh le> dks vius LdwyvuqHko dk;ZØe ds nkSjku mi;ksx dj ik;sa vkSjlkFk gh ;g Hkh le> ik,a fd fn, x, fl)karfdl lhek rd mi;qä gSaA

vis{kk rks ;g Hkh gksuh pkfg, fd os viuh le>ds vk/kkj ij vius fl)kar o muesa vUrfuZfgrfojks/kksa dks Hkh ns[k ik,A

f’k{kd rS;kjh ikBîØe dk mís’; ;g Fkk fdNk= f’k{kd tehuh gdhdr ls xgjkbZ ls :c:gksa vkSj mls le> ik;sA lkFk gh lkFk ;g Hkhle>s fd ml gdhdr ds lkFk fdl rjg dkefd;k tk,A ikBîØe Nk= f’k{kdksa dks bl rjgrS;kj djs fd os Lora= :i ls lksp ldsa]ifjfLFkfr;ksa ds vuqlkj lgh fu.kZ; ys ldsa] mulsfuiVus ds fofHkUu rjhds lksp ldsaA

mns’; ;g Hkh Fkk fd Nk= f’k{kd o lsokjrf’k{kd cPpksa] mudh i`"BHkwfe vkSj orZekulkekftd lUnHkZ dks f’k{kk ds n’kZu ds lUnHkZ esale> ik,A os viuh ekU;rkvksa ls tw> ik,a omUgsa mu y{;ksa o ewY;ksa ds vuq:i cuk ik,a tksgekjs lafo/kku] f’k{kk uhfr;ksa o ikB~;p;kZ dsnLrkostksa esa fu:fir gSA bl dk;ZØe dk ,dmís’; ;g Hkh gksuk pkfg, fd ikBîØe }kjkNk= f’k{kdksa esa Lo;a i<+us dh ço`fÙk fodflr gkso /khjs /khjs os i<+us dks viuh ,d vknr cukik,a] tks fd ,d f’k{kd gksus ds fy, vko’;dgSA

f’k{kd f’k{kk ds nks o"khZ; fMIyksek dk;ZØe dsfu/kkZj.k o mlds i<+k, tkus ds <ax ds ckjs esaO;kid ppkZ,a gqbZa vkSj buesa cgqr ls yksx tqM+sAblesa f’k{kk ds mís’;ksa ij ppkZ gqbZA ikBîØe esaD;k&D;k 'kkfey gks o fdl çdkj 'kkfey gksbl ij Hkh ppkZ,a gqbZaA ,slk ekuk x;k fdikBîØe ,slk gks tks f’k{kd dks f’k{kk o mldsfofHkUu vk;keksa dks lexzrk ls ns[kus esa enn

ikBîØe fuekZ.k

djsA O;kid ppkZvksa ds ckn fuEufyf[kr {ks=igpkus x, %&

vk/kkjHkwr fo"k; % blesa bl rjg ds elys'kkfey gSa& f’k{kk D;k gS] f’k{kk ds mís’;]f’k{kk fdl&fdl ds fy,] balku dh ç—fro f’k{kk] Kku] Kku ds çdkj o muds vk/kkj]muds xq.k o fofHkUu çdkjksa ds chp varlaZca/k]f’k{kk o lekt dk fj’rk] orZeku Hkkjrh;lekt dh jpuk o mldh çeq[k pqukSfr;k¡D;k gS] mldh D;k fo’ks"krk, gS D;kleL;k,a gSa] bl lekt dk oSf’od ifjos’k lslaca/k] cPps] cpiu] cPpksa ds lh[kus&fl[kkusdh izfØ;k,a vkfnAnwljs {ks= esa lfEefyr gS Ldwyh fo"k; omudks lh[kus&fl[kkus dh rS;kjh ;Fkk Hkk"kko Hkk"kk f’k{k.k] xf.kr o xf.kr f’k{k.k]i;kZoj.k o i;kZoj.k f’k{k.k] dyk o dykf’k{k.kArhljk {ks= gS Ldwy fparu euu dk;ZØe %Ldwy fparu euu dk;ZØe bl ikBîØe dklcls egÙoiw.kZ fgLlk gSA pwafd ;g muf’k{kdksa ds fy, gS tks Ldwy esa dbZ o"kksaZ lsdk;Zjr gSa vkSj ftUgsa Ldwy dk] mldhfofHkUu ifjfLFkfr;ksa dk vPNk vuqHko gSA

vr% dk;ZØe dk eq[; mís’; gS fd dk;Zjrf’k{kd vius Ldwy ds iwoZ o orZeku vuqHkoksa dksO;ofLFkr dj ik;saA ,d fuf’pr fo"k;oLrq dksi<kus dh f’k{k.k ;kstuk cukus ls vkxs c<djvius }kjk jkst fd;s tkus okys dk;ksaZ ds ckjs esalexz :i ls lkspsa o ;kstuk cuk,aA okLrfodfLFkfr esa ,slk gh gksrk gS f’k{kd dks ,d ghdkyka’k vkSj ,d gh fo"k; ugha i<+kuk gksrkcfYd ,d ls T;knk fo"k; i<kus gksrs gSa rFkk iwjsfnu cPpksa ds lkFk ,sls dk;Z djus gksrs gSa ftllsfd cPps O;Lr jgsa] lh[ksaA blds vykok ;g HkhegÙoiw.kZ gS fd os fd;s x, dk;ksaZ ds ckjs esa] bln`f"V ls lkspsa fd tks mUgksaus fd;k mlesa cPpksadh Hkkxhnkjh] muds fy, vkuan] lh[kus dh ek=ko xgjkbZ dk iqV fdruk&fdruk FkkA os ;g Hkhlkspsa fd tks vkt fd;k mlds vkxs vxys fnuD;k djsa vkSj bls dSls djsa fd dk;Z fiNys fnuls csgrj gks ldsA ;g vk’kk gS fd /khjs /khjslkspus fd ;g çfØ;k jkst+ Ldwy esa muds dke

1.

2.

3.

djus dh çfØ;k dk fgLlk cu ldsaA mís’; ;gHkh Fkk fdv/;kid vius Ldwy] Ldwy tgka fLFkr gS mlleqnk; xkao eksgYys dh i`"BHkwfe dks] cPpksa omudh #fp;ksa dks Hkh igpkus vkSj ;g Hkh tkusfd bl tkudkjh dks mUgsa dSls çkIr djuk gS obldk lh[kus&fl[kkus esa D;k&D;k egÙo gSA blgsrq lacaf/kr lUnHkZ ekxZnf’kZdk esa miyC/k Hkhdjk;s x,A

ikBîoLrq ds p;u ds lkFk&lkFk ;g ç’u Hkh Fkkfd ikBîoLrq dk çLrqrhdj.k dSls gksxk\lHkhfo"k;ksa ds e/; ,d tqM+ko gS vkSj ;g tqM+ko fn[kso v/;;udÙkkZ dks eglwl gks ;g ,d egÙoiw.kZfcanq gSA Mh-,M- nwjLFk f’k{kk dk ikBîØe ewyr%mu f’k{kdksa ds fy, cuk;k x;k tks orZeku esaLdwyksa esa dk;Zjr gSa o ftUgsa Ldwy esa dk;Z djusdk vuqHko gSA dk;ZØe cukrs le; mudh #fp]muds ikl miyC/k le;] mudh {kerkvksa] mudhi<+us dh vknrksa dks /;ku esa j[krs gq, fo"k;oLrqdks çLrqr djus dk ç;kl fd;k x;kA ;g ç;kldjus ds fy, fd muds i<+us dh {kerk c<+s] iBulkexzh dh 'kq#vkr esa laf{kIr esa ifjp; fn;kx;k fd ;g ikB D;k le>us esa enn djsxkAiBu lkexzh ds chp&chp esa ,sls ç’u fn, x,ftlls mUgsa egÙoiw.kZ ckrksa ij nqckjk /;ku nsusdk ekSdk feysA ;g ç;kl Fkk fd v/;;udrkZLo;a vkdyu dj ik, fd og i<+h x;h@x,fo"k; oLrq dks le>k gS vFkok ughaA le>us esaenn ds fy, dbZ dne mBk;s x,A tSls& T;knkfDy"V ij egÙoiw.kZ iSjkxzkQ dks iqu% c‚Dl esafy[kdj le>k;k x;k] lacaf/kr mnkgj.k fn;krkfd D;k dgk tk jgk gS fdl ifjizs{; esa dgktk jgk gS ;g le> vk ldsA eq[; ckrsa ftuij Qksdl djuk gS mUgsa cksYM fd;k x;k rFkkikB ds var esa dbZ txg lkjka’k fn;k x;kA

rhljk fgLlk ewY;kadu dk FkkA vDlj ewY;kaduesa ;kn djus o jVus ij t+ksj gksrk gSA iqjkus Mh-,M- dk;ZØe esa lkekU; /kkj.kk Fkh dh iklcqd odqaft;ksa ls i<+ks o ikl gks tkvksA ;gka tksj Fkkfd yksx i<+sa] le> cuk ik;sa o i<+h gqbZ lkexzhij euu dj ik,a o vkxs c<+ ik,aA ç;kl ;g HkhFkk fd ewY;kadu Hkh mudh mlh le> dk gksA

Ldwy fparu o euu dk;ZØe ds fy, vkSjfofHkUu fo"k;ksa ds fy, ewY;kadu dh çfØ;k esaFkksM+k Qjd gksuk vo’;EHkkoh gSA LoewY;kaduLdwy fpUru o euu dk;ZØe dk egÙoiw.kZfgLlk gSA LoewY;kadu dh çfØ;k f’k{kdksa dksviuh vkxs dh ;kstuk cukus esa ennxkj gksrh gS]vr% vis{kk gS fd f’k{kd ikBîØe ds mijkUr HkhLoewY;kadu dh bl çfØ;k dks cjdjkj j[ksaxsA

i<+h gqbZ lkexzh ds ckjs esa xgjkbZ ls lh[kus olkspus ds ewY;kadu gsrq vko’;drk Fkh vPNsç’uksa] vlslesaV o VkLd dhA ;g ,sls gksus dhvis{kk gS ftudk tokc nsus ds fy, mudk dkelkexzh i<+dj flQZ mls udy djus ls ugha pysoju lkexzh dks le> dj] mldk fo’ys"k.k djrsgq,] vius vuqHkoksa ls tksM+rs gq, tokc nsuk gksAewY;kadu dSls fd;k tk;] mlds fy, D;k rS;kjhgks] ;g vius vkiesa cM+h pqukSrh gSA Lo;aikBhdk;ZØeksa esa dkslZ ds ikBd ds lkFk laokn omlds dk;Z ij QhMcSd feyuk cgqr dfBu gksrkgSA Ldwyh vuqHko esa Mwcus dh lezxrk ds ckotwnvPNh lkexzh] vPNs vH;klksa o le; ij lkFkZdQhMcSd ds vHkko esa ;g lc fujFkZd gh gks tkrkgSA

bl o"kZ yxHkx 10000 vçf’kf{kr f’k{kdksa us bldkslZ ds fy, ukekadu djk;k gSA vxys o"kksaZ esayxHkx 35000 vkSj f’k{kd blls tqMsxsaA bldk;ZØe ds fy, iwjs jkT; esa fofHkUu ftyksa esa

ikBîØe dk fØ;kUo;u

CykWd Lrj ij 100 dsaæ cuk;s x, gSaA ;s dsaæ ;krks MkbV esa gS vFkok fdlh lhfu;j lSd.MjhLdwy esa] tgk¡ ,MqlsV dh O;oLFkk gS] rkfdle;≤ ij dsaæ dh Vhe ls ckr dh tk ldso mudh enn yh tk ldsA dsaæ ij vdknfedo çca/ku dk;ksaZ ds fy, l{ke o mi;qä fMxzhgkfly fd;s 14 yksxksa dh ,d Vhe fu;qä dhxbZ gSA Vhe ds yksxksa ds p;u dk vk/kkj mudhbl dk;Z esa #fp rFkk mudh 'kS{kf.kd ;ksX;rk¼,e-,- ,oa ,e-,llh- ds lkFk ,e-,M-½ FkkAçkFkfedrk mu O;fä;ksa dks nh x;h tks lSd.M+jh]gkbZ Ldwy esa f’k{k.k dk dk;Z dj jgs gSa vFkkZr~ftUgsa f’k{k.k dk vuqHko gS o mlh CykWd esadk;Zjr gSa] tgka dsaæ LFkfir fd;k x;k gSAp;fur O;fä;ksa dks ikBîØe dsvk/kkjHkwr fl)karksa] mlds mís’;ksa o ikBîlkexzhls ifjfpr djokus o mls le>us gsrq lHkh fo"k;ksagsrq vyx&vyx dk;Z’kkyk,a vk;ksftr dh xbZaAorZeku esa dsUæksa ij dk;Z 'kq: gks pqdk gSA ,dO;fä dks nks pj.kksa esa 14 fnuksa dk Bkslvkeus&lkeus çf’k{k.k fn;k x;kA blds nkSjkumudks Hkkxhnkjh dk Hkjiwj ekSdk Fkk rkfd os Hkhf’k{kdksa ds lkFk vkeus&lkeus laidZ d{kkvksa dsnkSjku Hkkxhnkjh o [kqysiu dk egÙo igpkuik,aA bl lkexzh dks rS;kj djus o çf’k{k.k nsusgsrq cgqr lh laLFkkvksa o O;fä;ksa us feytqy djdke fd;kA fofo/k ljdkjh laLFkkvksa dh Hkkxhnkjhgh dfBu gksrh gS fdUrq bl lk>s ç;kl esa udsoy ljdkjh cfYd dbZ xSj&ljdkjh laLFkkvksaus feydj dk;Z fd;k o dj jgh gSaA


42

Kumud Purohit

A report of the

Philosophy of Education seminar organizedby the Azim Premji Foundation

AbstractAn international seminar was organized by Azim Premji University on “Philosophy ofeducation” held at Bangalore on 23-25 January, 2013. The seminar was the culmination of aseries of regional seminars held in Dehradun, Pondicherry and Jaipur, in which 28 paperswere presented.

IntroductionPhilosophy of education (PoE) has been a part ofits sailent features the curriculum designed fordegrees offered in the field of education,especially teacher education, in India. However,a closer examination of the content of thiscurriculum would soon reveal that courses inphilosophy of education thin themselves intorecitation of names and ‘opinion’ and seem toappear disconnected with the rest of thecurriculum.

The persistence of this image of philosophy ofeducation forecloses the possibility of utilizingthe analytical tools that philosophy offers inscrutinizing assumptions and concepts, definingframeworks and terms, examining justification,implications and normative foundations. Whatis lost sight of here is the need to carry over the habitsof thought as a tool.

The syllabi at various teacher education institutesand for training programs at different levels,while claiming to be receptive to the needs of aninevitable interdisciplinary approach, seem tooffer little and in some cases almost nothing toground the concerns raised by the theoreticalfoundations that form the matrix of such an inter-disciplinarity.

The inclusion of these disciplines, as a resourcesto draw from, seems to pull the programs inmyriad directions and lack of emphasis onintroducing a set of conceptual tools to groundthese approaches merely add to the mountingissues.Through the present seminar, Azim Premji

University has tried to rejuvenate the task ofopening the possibilities philosophy ofeducation has.The seminar served the following purposes:-a) Take stock of trends and character of work

that has been done in other parts of the world.b) Provide exposure to leading contemporary

figures in philosophy of education topractitioners in the country.

c) Explore the possibility of articulating aphilosophy of education drawing fromindigenous traditions in the country.

d) Provide a platform for individuals to pursuetheir interests in philosophy of education,present their work and imitate discussions.

The event - day oneThe International seminar was an event whereestablished scholars in the discipline from acrossthe world made presentations on the currentissues in PoE. Through this seminar debates inphilosophy of education world over wereconnected to the Indian Scenario and asignificant number of academics in India werebrought together. A total of 23 papers, spread over6 sessions, by established scholars in thediscipline from across the world, reflected andgenerated a body of knowledge about thephilosophy of education.

Prof. Rohit Dhankar of Azim Premji Universityintroduced the Seminar and the ProgrammeStructure. Prof David Carr. University ofEdinburgh, UK in his paper reflected about theconcept of education. In the first part of his paper,he discussed about confusions of different senses


43

about different conceptions of education. In thesecond part of the paper he identified severaldifferent conceptions of education, betweenegalitarian and non-egalitarian aims ofeducation, between instrumentalist and non-instrumentalist purposes of education, betweenthe roles of schooling in promoting bothconformity and independence and betweendifferent views of the educational value ofschooling. In terms of these tensions Prof. Carr’spaper also identified six competing conceptionsof education as schooling, namely, Platonic orelitist traditionalism, liberal egalitariantraditionalism, utilitarian traditionalismpsychological (psychoanalytic) progressivism,pragmatist (instrumental) progressivism, andeducational radicalism or deschooling.

Prof. Krassimir Stojanov, Catholic UniversityEichstatt, Gemany reconstructed the distinctionsand interrelations between two quite differentmeanings of the term ‘Education’– “the humandevelopment” and “as teaching”. Prof. Krassimirdiscussed the concepts of education of Deweyand Peters, who failed to draw a clear analyticaldistinction between the two meanings ofeducation introduced the Hegelian theory ofBuilding as a theory of the development of thehuman ability to participate in the universallogical space of world that consists of conceptsand of inferences between concepts, that is, ofarguments. To inhabit this space, transformationof one’s own beliefs to conceptual contents andassessing the validity of these beliefs byarticulating them in argumentative discourses isneeded. Hence, for teaching to be educationallysupportive, he demanded teachers toacknowledge empathetically the precognitivebeliefs and ideals of students and encouragestudents to articulate conceptually these beliefsand ideals by involving them in practices ofpublic reasoning.

Professor John White, University of London, UKdiscussed “An Amines-based curriculum” bywhich he showed that by beginning with generalaims that equip each learner to both lead apersonally fulfilling life and help others do sotoo. Specific aims to be derived from these to coverthe personal qualities, skills and understanding

needed for a life of personal, civic, and vocationalwell being. Mina O’Dowel, Associate Professor,Lund University, Sweden presenting a briefsummary of the History of Human capital theorydiscussed how its underlying assumptionscontrast to the philosophy of education.

The paper presented by Cludia Suhumannargued for a return to the critical core of thecosmopolitan idea and also that the critique ofreification can serve as a vital tool for re-imaginingthe cosmopolitan teacher education as a critique.Her paper also focused on how educationalInstitutions can provide, strengthen, andenhance the conditions for binding ourselves ascitizen of the world in non-reifying ways.

Roop Rekha Verma, former Vice-chancellor,Lucknow University, highlighted the need torevisit some older conceptions of the aims andnature of education and examine if education canstill be resorted as a tool for humanizing thesociety. She also suggested education as a toolfor peace to be molded as to became aninstrument of ameliorating conflicts of differentkinds of identities and interests.

Alok Mathur, Head, Rishi Valley Institute forteacher education reflected upon 2 interconnectedand generative notions deriving from KrishnaMurti’s educational work; ‘philosophy inpractice’ and ‘school as a center of inquiry’. Hispaper attempted to place these notions in thewider framework of the calls for educationalreform and renewal in the 21st Century.

Days two and threeProf. D.C. Phillips, Stanford University,California, expressed his concerns about thecriticisms of mainstream epistemology raised bythose academics who believe that it is a tool usedfor the domination of minority groups. His paperdescribed the most common misunderstandingsabout epistemology, and pointed to the importantepistemological issues in education research andthe field of policy.

Prof. Arindam Chakraborty, and Dr. BenjaminZurk, University of Hawaii, Manoa, U.S.A.pondered upon the paradox faced by theeducators of philosophy between authority of


44

teacher’s intelligence and autonomy of learnerthrough inquiry which is a demand of rationality,and which gives us the skill of questioning theauthority. The paper also discussed aboutRadhakamal Mukherjee’s description of VedicUpanishadic pedagogy, J. Krishnamurthy & St.Augustine who agree with Rancere’s radicalclaim about teacher’s intelligence radical claimabout teacher’s intelligence standing betweensubject and pupil’s own mind was criticallyexamined in the paper.

Prof. Padma Sarangapani of TISS, Mumbai in herpresentation explored the concept of culture asrelevant to education discussion and advocatedto build a Susangati learning culture’ whichinvolves primarily learning social ordering thatsimultaneously constitute person and society.

Mr. Hriday Kant Dewan of Vidya Bhawan Society,Udaipur raised several pertinent questionsincluding what the school should attempt to do,how it should proceed and what should be theelements. It should emphasise, what can theschool, as an externally structured formal system,do for children and their choices. He also exploredthe attempts at infusing development of moral,experiences, reasoning and choices through theschool, and the basis and constraints for choosingthese. Avinash Kumar, M.A. (Edu.) student fromAzim Premji University discussed the positive of‘philosophy of education’ in the syllabi of teachereducation programmes in India, presenting theresults and analysis of survey of the B.Ed. syllabiof 11 Indian Universities. His paper highlightedthe limitations of the traditional approach andunderscored the relevance of some salientfeatures of analytical approach for contemporaryteacher education, by showing its congruencewith the ‘visions’ of teacher in NCF, 2005 andNCFTE 2010.

Prof. Dina Kuhlee, Humboldt University Berlin,Germany in her paper provided an overview ofthe German teacher education structures its legalcontexts with regard to the role of the state ineducation, and its embeddedness in therationalities of teaching as a profession. Herpaper introduced some recent developments andproblems in German Initial teacher education,and presented some contrasts with the situationin England and its most recent shifts into a “craft

of philosophy” of teaching. Prof. ChristopherWinch, Kings college, London. Outlining threeinfluential conceptions of teachers, as craftworkers, as executive technicians, and asprofessionals and related these to different modelsof initial teacher education. He also presentedthe anglo German perspectives with reference totheir relevance to the contemporary Indian policyscene.

Prof. Rohit Dhankar, Azim Premji Universitycritically discussed the foundation versusintegrative approach to and scope of theoreticalknowledge in NCFTE and ETE (ElementaryTeacher Education Programme) and suggestedan interconnected disciplinary approach.

Prof. Amitabha Mukherjee, University of Delhi,inquired into the nature of mathematics arguingthat engagement with nature of mathematics isimportant for those who teach mathematics. Healso raised questions about what makes mathsdifficult or unique.

Vijaya S. Verma, Ambedkar University, Delhistressed upon the necessity to revisit the methodsand philosophy of science since it has no absolutetruths and is a process always information.

Mr. Kamal Mahendroo, VBERC- Criticallyexamined the concept of constructivism fromvarious philosophical perspectives. His paperalso tried to examine the impact and implicationsfor the practice of Science teaching, in Indiancontext.

Prof. Sundar Sarukkai, Manipal Universityexplored how perspectives on science drawnfrom Indian experiences can contribute to theinterface between history and philosophy ofScience (HPS) and Science Education (SE). Healso discussed definitions and nature of scienceto be the challenges that needed philosophicalintervention. His paper suggesting howphilosophy of science can be relevant for scienceeducation, aimed to make both HPS and SE moresensitive to other cultural formulations of scienceand scientific method.

Mr. Richard Pring, Oxford University- this paperanalysed what could be meant by an educated


45

person, so that education could be placed morewithin the realm of ethics than in that of socialsciences. He also drew through his paper someof the consequences for educational policy,practice and research, with particular referenceto language of education, pursuit of higherstandards, assessments of standards throughtesting, false dualism between ‘academic’ and‘vocational’ and the practice of teaching. Thushe raised a significant question about theimportance of philosophical issues foreducational research.

Prof. Robin Barrow, Simon Fraser Universityraised his concern about empirical researches,concluding that an imaginative understandingof one’s role is more important then a set of‘proven’ methods and ethos. Thus philosophicalinquiry into the nature of the enterprise isessential in teacher preparation.

Venu Narayan, Azim Premji University andRajesh Kasturi Rangan, National Institute ofadvanced studies emphasized that for anintegrative conception of wellbeing, we need to

intertwine the social, biological and cognitivefactors in a manner that does justice to all three.They used the notion of embodied cognition as acrucial bridge between the many levels at whichconception of well being operates.

A broad based notion of wellbeing must informeducational theory. The paper suggestedBuddhist ideas and Indian philosophy of mindand their normative implications to offer analternative route to undersanding and inquirythat is significant for education.

In between these enlightening and informativesessions about the philosophy of educationthrough exchange of ideas and questions, severalview but significant questions about the nature,present status and possible routes of philosophyof education emerged.

The seminar ended with the declaration by Prof.Rohit Dhankar about an annual forum onphilosophy of education to be organized everyyear.


46

Janaki Rajan

A report of the

E-9 Conference on Inclusive, Relevant Quality Educationfor All Teacher Education

AbstractThe Ninth E-9 Ministerial Conference ‘Inclusive and Quality Education for All’ was held inNew Delhi between 8-12 November 2012 and provided rich insights into strategies withwhich the countries were moving towards relevant and quality education for all.

BackgroundThe challenge of achieving education for all isparticularly daunting in the following largedeveloping countries - Bangladesh, Brazil, China,Egypt, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria andPakistan, which represent half of the world’spopulation, and most of the adult illiterates. TheE-9 initiative was launched at the EFA Summitin December 1993 in New Delhi-India and sincethen Ministers of Education of these countrieshave been meeting to review achievements inbasic education and define possible jointprogrammes. The education of girls and women,teacher training and literacy are on top of theagenda and these are strategically considered themost important for enhancing developmentalperspectives. While each of the countries facesspecific complexities, they also share commoncolonial histories and challenges instrengthening and deepening independentnation-building offering much scope for sharingof experiences.

The U.N. representative Irena Bokova pointed outthat E9 have been co-operating since 1993, butworld has changed since 1993. Rising economiesalso have large peoples in poverty. Quality is thebest way to move forward towards social justice.Everywhere, children and parents aredemanding education, education is always thefirst concern. 61 million children are out ofprimary schools, 71 million are not in secondaryschool. Among those in schools, many are notlearning. Inequality is deep. Poorly qualifiedteachers, sub standard education are wide-spread. This is gambling with our children’sfuture. We will not be able to meet the 2015 goals.

Skills hold the key to the future. Strengthen publicpolicies for quality, and these efforts must bemaintained. Stronger assessments are needed.There is need for GEQD framework to diagnosecritical elements that prevents provision ofquality education. We need national levelassessments, but also assessment for comparisonacross countries.

The Minister of Education of the host country,Dr. Shashi Tharoor, pointed out that we are hereto deliberate on Inclusive, Quality Education for2/3 illiterate adults and over half of the world’schildren. The critical factors that impede reachingEFA goals are bi-litateral and multi-lateralunderstanding among E9. E9 has a seat in theEFA High Level Group and can be greatlyinfluential. The systemic nature of the qualityrequires Frameworks. He quoted Mistral: Theworst sin is abandoning the child. She cannotwait for tomorrow. Her name is today.

Stock taking of ProgressThe progress since the 8th E-9 meeting held inAbuja, Nigeria was presented by Prof. RuqayyatuAhmed Rufai, Hon’ble Minister of Education,Nigeria. During the period 2010-2012, in the E-9countries, the number of illiterates reduced from537 million to 525 million illiterates in 2010. TheAbuja Framework of Action in 2010 had acollective commitment to effective new resourcesfor literacy. The progress has been considerable.New laws have been enacted, implemented, andnational education policies evolved. Pakistan’sgoal was 80% literacy by 2010. India passed theRight to Education Act. Bangladesh goal was100% literacy by 2014. In India, Egypt, Brazil


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and Nigeria there was strong advocacy foreducation. Mass mobilization took place inPakistan, for literacy in India, advocacy amongParliamentarians in Pakistan, Nigerian TV andEgyptian villages. India launched SaaksharBharat Mission with the goal of 80% literacy.Brazil launched the Literate Brazil program (6.5%by 2015) in Brazil. Pakistan has committed tomake 2 million people literate in 3 years and toreduce drop out to below 5%. Equity is the focus- India with programs for literacy for womenand girls; Nigeria with focus on 22 minoritylanguages, literacy across the life span, literacylinked to income generation and capacitybuilding of personnel. There has been morecommunity involvement and decentralization.Pakistan has devolution of management, throughthe National Commission for HumanDevelopment, Nigeria has managementcommittees under National Mass EducationCommission. NGOs, CBOs, have been active inIndia and Bangladesh. There has been stepstaken for assessments and equivalence. Indiawith its National Institute of Open Schooling andliteracy for 2 million people; Nigeria with itsequivalency frameworks which enable adultlearners to join public schools after literacyprocess. India’s private sector involvement ineducation is 1.2 Billion USD. There is increasedprivate sector and community donations inPakistan and Business Forum in Egypt. The E9is a useful E9 platform. There have beenworkshops in India, Nigeria, Indonesia,collaboration with each other. At theInternational Centre for Policy for Education, 35countries have signed up and made their POA,the Paris Communique on Global Partnership forEducation.

Delegates highlighted their country’s progressin education.

Bangladesh - The second chanceWith a literacy rate of 59.8%, Bangladesh viewsnon-formal education for adult and youth ascontributors in economic development. Way backin 1972, the Constitution recognized educationas fundamental right. 51% of girls are in schools.Whereas in the 1970s, literacy was 50% it is now93%. The Net Enrolment Ratio in Primaryeducation has increased up to 99.47%. In 1998,

the prestigious “UNESCO Literacy Award 1998”was accorded to Bangladesh. There is strongfocus on livelihood based education for urbanchildren of the 10-13 age group and livelihoodtraining for the 14 plus age group. There arearound 700 NGOs involved in literacy programin Bangladesh. BRAC, the non-formal primaryschool program reaches a million children.Around 10 million children have graduated fromthis program. 40,000 teachers have been trained.This is a ‘Second Chance’ program for primaryeducation for those children who had droppedout of school or grown too old for school.

Inclusiveness is a constantly evolving process tomake education more welcoming to all childrenirrespective of their backgrounds. Thearrangement is to provide 1 room, 1 teacher, for 4years. Most of the teachers are women. TheSecond Chance program is started only when2/3rd of students are adults. There are separateschools for ethnic minorities; if students comefrom two tribes, there will be two teachers, onefrom each tribe. Every school must have at leastone child with special needs. Lot ofarrangements are made in the classroom toinclude this child such as special calendar, table,charts. Classroom formations are either ‘U’ or ‘O’shaped. The classroom is decorated by studentartwork. National curriculum is followed; butwith supplementary books both for general andspecialized.

Learning achievement assessments are leastresearched area in Bangladesh but what researchexisted shows that urban children did better thanrural; boys did better than girls; and children ofthe mainstream sections of society did better thanethnic groups. One of the major reasons for thisis that all children have to use mainstreamlanguage as medium of instruction and so therewas no level playing field. Bangladesh iscommitted to achieve the EFA goal of 100%literacy by 2014, but faces some challenges. Needfor materials to be prepared based on cultureposes a challenge. Education does not havelinkages with other programs. While the Non-Formal approach has been highly successful,there is absence of large long-term formaleducational programs. Teachers engaged in Non-Formal sector have no career path. Naturalcalamities adversely affects educational efforts.


48

BrazilAccording to the 2010 census, 9.6% of thepopulation of Brazil are illiterate. 96.9% ofchildren of the 7-14 age group are in school. Brazilhas a Basic Education Development Index, whichhas contributed greatly towards improvingquality. There is Priority Assistance for thechildren. Education initiatives are linked withpoverty alleviation programs, sanitationprograms, etc. Attendance of their children inschools is linked with monthly allowanceprovided to poverty groups. This improvesregular participation in schools. Brazil is engagedin creation of public services for the poor peoplein collaboration with non-government andprivate sectors. Brazil has achieved the followingadvances in the last two decades:

� Access to primary and lower secondaryeducation has become almost universal.94.4% of the population in the ages 7 to 14 isnow included primary and lower secondaryeducation.

� The proportion of young people attendingsecondary education at the right age hasdoubled compared to that of 1995, showinga significant advance in the access tosecondary education.

� The rate of youth and adult illiteracy has beenreduced.

� Access to higher education has increased.

Literacy for all the children by 2013 is thecommitment of the government. The biggestchallenge is wide income disparity.Brazil lays great importance to South-SouthCooperation and E-9 forums.

ChinaChina is well on its way to achieving EFA goalsby 2015. China has already achieved nearuniversal enrollment in primary and secondarystages. This marks a 20% increase from 1990. In2010, a National Plan for Equity and CompulsoryEducation was announced. Public educationbudget is now 4% of GDP. There are NationalStandards for Schools and every school has toacquire the standards.

For education for disadvantage groups, there isa financial support of 40USD as scholarship.

Teachers are provided special education trainingto enhance their abilities to reach out to thedisadvantaged. With increased urbanization,there is focus on education of migrant groupsand teachers training in rural areas. 6 Nationaluniversities have been offering scholarships forteachers who work in rural areas. China lays greatemphasis on ICT in education and the sharing oftheory and practice. High speed internetconnection is provided to all schools. Educationis one of the highlights of the commitment of theNational Congress and very high on nationalpriority. Support for education from all walks oflife and society is strongly encouraged. Currently,the focus is on monitoring and assessment ofeducation. After achieving EFA goals by 2015,technical education and vocational education tosupport economic development will be on theagenda post 2015.

EgyptThere has been a paradigm shift in educationdue to the recent political changes in the country.Egypt is committed to reforms in education.Literacy centres have been established throughpartnerships with private and other actors andcollaboration with World Food Program (WFP).Egypt won the UNESCO Literacy award in 2010.The Strategic Plan for 2007-2011 emphasizedaccess to equal education, support systems andcommunity participation in education. Thereexists an enrollment gap of 1.2 between boys andgirls in KG. However, children belonging todisadvantaged and difficult circumstances areaccessing education in the 45, 773 schools.Learning, Life skills and accepting of others arethe focus areas in education. Girl friendlyschools are being established through supportof NGOs in remote areas. Active learningstrategies and cooperative learning is beingadopted. Quality and organizational capacitybuilding initiatives have been progressing withfive workshops for the literacy teachers.

Future Challenges include need for more schools,and funding. To improve quality in education,student involvement, curriculum reform anddecentralization are being tried out along withprofessional development of teachers, ICT.Curricular content is being aligned with marketneed and employability. The needs of groupswho are victims of multiple discrimination hasto be addressed.


49

India

On universal primary education, India hasensured availability of schools in a 1 km radius.

There is near full participation in enrollment and

there are lesser number of children out of school.

However, 30% children fail to complete primary

school cycle. There is a huge establishment of

pre-school centres through the Integrated ChildDevelopment Scheme by the government for non-

formal education. There is still a struggle to

improve quality in the non formal centres.

Literacy - India is on track to achieve this goal by

2015. Gender parity is quite reasonable at primarylevel but parity is not as good at higher level. The

Right to Education Act opened up a new area for

children and education. Adoption of right based

framework need to be taken to ensure entitlement

for every child. The Right to Education cannot be

implemented only by government. To ensureequity and quality private schools have been

included. 25% of admissions in private schools

must be from economically weaker sections.

Inclusion has to start from classrooms,

classrooms need to be child friendly.

It’s not an easy task to take education forward in

a country like India. Challenges are huge. The

thrust is that no child should drop out from

elementary education cycle. Back to School

campaigns have been states in many states to re-

enroll children who have dropped out. Retentionof girls is also a focus and residential schools

have been established. The role of Civil Societies

are important in achieving these goals.

Malnourishment of children also contribute in

dropping out. There is a universal program of

Mid Day Meals as a basic right. Availability ofquality teachers is an issue, there is a back log of

one million of teachers in remote areas of the

country. Quality is a major challenges

inrecruiting teachers in such large numbers.

Modern technologies are being used for teachers

training and on-site support as well as trainingthrough distance education. School monitoring

and school improvement programs are being

undertaken. Textbooks and curriculum reviews

are also being done.

For out of school adolescents, literacy missionprovides life skills and certification programs.There is also vocational education frameworkalso for youth and adolescent groups. India is onthe right track, probably on a fast track. Financialrequirements are not a big challenge. Technologyis also a big help to achieve the goal.

NCF 2005There are two parts to the development of NCF2005. India is a federal country and anydocument of the nation has the formidable taskfor getting consensus. NPE 1986 saw the NCF asthe means of building national consensus andthe curriculum load. 1990s was a decade thatwas characterised by fragmentation of thediscourse.

At the apex, is the Steering Committee withscholars, teachers, NGO, teachers. Then therewere 21 Focus groups: curricular areas, nationalconcerns, etc. ensuring that this was not just adocument to be prepared.

The document consists of perspectives, objectives

and also the conditions, necessary for curricular

change through a participatory nature of

curriculum making. Learning in the classroom

must reflect what the child experiences outside

the classrooms. The two are divided in a colonial

country like India. Opening chapter touches on

what is globalization; chapter 2 is about learning

and knowledge and it is not conext that we

stereotypes the child from one type of response

from a child. A single axis of success is presented.

This document stresses on diversification,flexibility in children’s learning styles.Psychology, specially constructivism approachwhich has more spaces for learning. A spacewhere the children of the marginalized moveaway from one notion of success, and those whodo not meet it, are considered failed. Thisdocument spells out a more cognitive andsociological idea of children’s learning, and re-conceptualisation of the areas. Chapter 3 talks ofcurricular areas and what are the definingfeatures, and also see what curricular areas havecome to mean-they have become devoid ofvibrancy, language is taught in such a way thatchildren are unable to articulate their thoughts


50

or debate. It creates an ethos that does not pushchildren to memorise and that enables the teachernot to feel forced to ‘cover’ the syllabus. Lastchapter, explains ‘quality’ as a self awareness ofthe need to improve. Also, there are multiplicityof governance structures. Vocation and academicare brought close together. The NCF was finalizedbased on consensus. Then text books, a new kindof textbook was created. Textbooks to be used toinspire. What we need is to provide a ‘taste’ forlearning. The child can learn on his/her ownsteam after that. China was inspired by the NCFas it takes into consideration the diversity. Chinahas made some reforms in curriculum, 8 reformshave been conducted.

Krishna Kumar said that this is a persuasivedocument, it is not imposed by the centralgovernment. But it was approved by the states.RTE also specifies that NCF will be the academicorder. Because it is a persuasive document, itshows the better ways to go about things, butdoes not prescribe. How can there be morehumane evaluation, assessing in a more holisticway. Use this document as a goal settingdocument which is above politics. 15 states havedecided to use these textbooks.

IndonesiaIndonesia has strong commitment for EFA andhas taken many steps to ensure medium and longterm planning towards this. Curriculum,Teachers training and national assessment arethe initiatives. Several changes have been madeto get the competency based curriculum after 2006.Learner’s characters and combination of soft andhard skills are the focus. 2.9 million teachers arethere. One million teachers are certified by 2011.

Milestones for teachers reform20% of National budget is allocated to Educationnow. School Accreditation system for formal andnon formal education system are in place.Construction of schools, classrooms, new libraryhas been initatied. Unemployment is a majorconcern so we have national framework ofeducation for employment. Ethics, morale, scopeof knowledge have been described. Competencybased curriculum and trainees for vocationaleducation/training are there. To ensure learningout come, national system of examination havebeen established. New system for improving

quality consists of 40% share from classroomassessment and 60% from national assessment.

NigeriaIn Nigeria, progress has been made. 74% urbanand 64% rural children attend primary schoolsin Nigeria. 100% access is the target along withequity and gender parity. To ensure quality ineducation, criteria has been laid down forteachers. Teachers need to improve theirmethodologies. Drop outs are low in 2010 whencompared with the data of 2004. Nigeria has moremale teachers than female teachers. There are alarge number of untrained/unqualified teachersbut Southern states have good quality teachers.Basic science and technology has been introducedat basic education level. Social study iscompulsory at basic education level.

Low quality at entrance is a challenge forteacher’s education. Low motivation is also achallenge. Teacher’s trainees have negativeattitude towards teaching profession resultingin poor learning environment. There is paucityof laboratories in schools. Teacher: Pupil Ratiovaries from 1-30 to 1-70.

Nigeria was short of 660,000 classrooms but nowthe deficit has come down to 330,000 classrooms.Private sector support is poor. In areas withdifficult terrain, schools are far away from homeand this results in less student participation.Data gathering system is also poor. Projects havebeen initiated for out of school children. Girlseducation projects: equipments are beingprovided to school and support to teachers.Provision of text books in English, Science havebeen made. Advocacy and sensitization is beingdone with parents and community on education.Quality assurance, ICT are in place for teachereducation. Curriculum for teacher education andreview have been done. ECCE is compulsory inall public schools of the country for one year ofpre-school. Annual teachers awards are beingintroduced to recognize teacher’ work. Provisionsfor library, textbooks is being enhanced. Multisectoral efforts, EMIS contribute to girls educationinitiatives. Infrastructural facilities are stillinadequate. Northern part has less participation


51

of girls in comparison to southern part of the

country. Nigeria spends 2% GDP on education

in addition to local matching grant.

Nigeria recognizes that more funds will be

required for education. While education is on theConcurrent List, the role of central government is

limited. Quality education can only be achieved

through political will. Even if EFA goals are not

achieved by 2015, 80% of teachers will be qualified

by that time. Sensitizing parents, advocacy for

the teaching profession and making it attractiveare key strategies being pursued for quality

education for all.

Pakistan

Natural calamity and conflicts created challenges

to achieve the goals. Terrorisim, lack of properinfrastructure and teachers made it more difficult

to progress. There is lack of political will, lack of

community participation and the political

context further creates challenges in Pakistan.

Pakistan is facing war against terrorism,

(Afghanistan ) and resources are being utilizedfor that. National education Policy 2009,

National commission for Human Development

are two key steps in education.

Free education and text books up to secondary

level have been ensured by the government.Pakistan has also tried to improve quality

through reform in teachers training, examination

system and promotion of need based literacy,

functional literacy , child friendly schools have

given a boost to the goal in the county.

Under the 18th amendment , Article 25 A of the

constitution of Pakistan- ‘State shall be

responsible to compulsory education for all the

children of 5 to 14 years age group’.

Lessons learnt in Basic Education

� ECCE of 3 years or 2 years emerged as keystrategy for quality basic education (China,Indonesial).

� Initiatives that had a cycle of 10 years to 20years have yielded measurable gains inquality improvement in basic education.

� E9 Countries most effective in their quality

basic education had 9 years of basic

education and 2-3 years of prior ECCE

(China, Indonesia).

� Teachers need to be at the centre stage of

planning and leadership of EFA. They needto be seen as a key constituency in and of

themselves.

� Education needs to be viewed along with

related social development specially poverty

alleviation.

� What do we mean by quality education- whyeducation and what for education needs

debate.

� E9 experience is that education is the best

contraception (India decadal birth rate fell

after DPEP/SSA- before 1990s population

growth was 24% per decade, now it is 17%and 11% in the south of India).

� While two E9 nations have reached a point

where 9 years of basic education has reached

99.95% of children (China) and 99% (India),

the gap of unreached in terms of absolute

numbers remain huge.� Nigeria has been able to exponentially

increase its higher education institutions.

� Schooling has been linked with poverty

alleviation programs (Brazil) and gender

equality (Ladli Scheme, India).

� China and India have clear goals forsubstantial presence of young people with

higher education in the work force.

� China has clear strategies, after UEE, for

‘balanced’ approach i.e. correcting

imbalances in rural schooling by ensuring

ICT in rural schools and massive investmentin infrastructure development of rural

schools. Urban schools have been drawn in

to twin with rural/urban poor schools

(China, Delhi). University students have been

drawn in to work in rural areas for 3 years

and this is paid for by the central government(30,000 students, China)� 6 National ‘Normal’

Schools provide special curriculum for

teacher education for rural schools. No

tuition fees, additional benefits.

� Education index has been developed and is

in use (Indonesia).


52

� Even countries at risk of natural calamities,war, have greatly expanded ECCE with astrong Quality Framework (Pakistan).

� Gender as barrier to education not an issuein some E9 countries (China, Brazil) but ahuge issue in others (India, Pakistan,Nigeria).

Quality concerns� Equity concerns strongly inform most

country effective strategies for qualityimprovement.

� How can we persuade governments that notonly is our concern that of education, but alsoof development. How can we draw otherministries into EFA agenda?

� How can we, E9 countries help each otherand carry them along for 2015 and beyond

� Generic and concrete replicable experienceshave to be shared (Olav).o Share China’s experience of piloting

central schemes in different socio-economic settings, learning from thesebefore roll out.

o Share children’s stories, textbookmaterials so that they may be includedin each others’ teaching-learningmaterials.

o Action plan of 2013 for most E9 countriesalready in place-let us find spaces whereE9 can observe, participate in each of E9.

� Language: Learn from China, the only one ofthe E9 countries which presented in theirlanguage, while all other E9 struggled topresent themselves in English.

� Which country will lead which initiative tobe decided by their comparative edge.

Strategies� Bridging the Rural-urban divide, reaching

unreached areas drives most strategies.� E9 problems and issues have great

commonalities and there is huge potential tocollaborate and strategize collectively.

� South-south geo cultural commonalities is aplus, a resource and not a liability.

� Need research to assess on our achievements,and experiences we can learn from bestpractices. And failures. Spectacular failureis the best of teachers!

� All children are unique and special;otherwise we categorize and separate, tendto exclude - but certain exclusions happenbecause people belong to a certain group.What are the implications for planning andimplementing strategies for special groups.Some disabilities are physically and visiblydisabilities, the question is also one of whatis not visible: It is a matter of human andfinancial resources. There is value for acountry saying ‘do this, or it will break thecamel’s back’. This principle is transferable[to all excluded groups at different points intime]. Otherwise, powerful voices caninfluence, and decisions can be taken forpolitical reasons than for technical orresearch based reasons.

� Platforms of local governments and judiciaryto be systematically involved to generatepolitical will and judicial support.

� Post 2015, we need to hasten slowly, andmove with deliberate speed-rather than haveglobal agenda that countries feel they needto force fit.


53

Sarwat Ali

National Seminar on Art Integrated Learning:A Commentary

AbstractThis article attempts to explore the salient features of Art integrated learning as an innovativepedagogy developed by the Department of Arts and Aesthetics, NCERT in MCD schools ofDelhi. Examples on learning language and mathematics to break rote memorization arehighlighted along with a word of caution that it should be guided by Constitutional provisions,and social justice.

The Department of Arts and Aesthetics, NCERTorganized a National Seminar on Art IntegratedLearning (AIL) for primary level of schooleducation on 17th and 18th December 2012 in NewDelhi. The seminar was organized, so as toprovide opportunities to school teachers, teachereducators and children to share their experiencesof AIL with Heads of DIETs and SCERTs.Educational Authorities of MCD, NDMC andDirectorate of Education were special invitees.The initiative was based on recommendations ofthe NCF 2005 to make Arts Education acompulsory component of school education.

Background

The focus, as specified by the concept note on theseminar was to use Art Education as innovativepedagogy for holistic learning and developmentof children in school at primary level, not merelymaking arts a compulsory component.

The concept note highlighted the variouscomponents of the initiative as follows:� Focus group discussions with teachers and

principals of the school.� Preparations of the material on the basis of

FAQ’s from teachers and stakeholders.� Preparing teacher training modules, seven

of them for understanding of AIL as a concept.� Ten day training program of selected

teachers from 20 schools based on the trainingpackage.

� Organizing various activities of artexperiences in the classroom and integratingthem with curricular subjects.

� Launch of AIL in 20 MCD schools incollaboration with DIET, Rajender Nagar

� Hand holding meetings with AIL teachersonce a month

� School visits for a follow up

A pilot study was conducted by NCERT with 20schools of Municipal Corporation Schools ofDelhi. The presentations of the activities in theschool and the findings of the impact of the studywere shared during the seminar.

The proceedingsDuring the seminar, school teachers of MCD weregiven an opportunity to share their experiencesof the initiative. Almost all of them made powerpoint presentations; some showed video films.The teachers appeared confident, motivated andwell versed with pedagogical techniques andissues; much more than the teachers in schoolusually seem to know. Bringing school teacherson a forum and giving them opportunity to be onthe other side where they are not just listeners isa welcome step. The children in schools whoparticipated in these activities seemed involvedand appeared to enjoy the art activities and artintegrated activities as was evident throughvideos and still pictures. The transition frommerely copying from the black board to writingpoems and answers on their own is certainly agreat way to help children to learn language.

A good example of the NCF 2005 recommendationwas presented by a participant who wasindependently trying out AIL for classes 3, 4, and5 at MCD Primary school, Sahyog Vihar in Delhi.


54

She described that to address grammar in context,children were asked to draw anything they liked.Children drew cycle, ice cream, butterfly, bird,jalebi, pencil etc. One picture at a time wasselected at random. One picture was that of jalebi.The picture of jalebi was pasted on a flannel board.The children were asked what the picture lookedlike. One child said, it looked juicy, another saidit was yellow, a third said ‘round’, yet anothersaid circular. All these words were written on theblack board - as many as 17 different responses.The teacher pointed out that all these wordsdescribe the special qualities of jalebi. And suchwords were called adjectives.

Relating numbers with art was less effective, anddisplayed limited conceptual understanding ofhow children learn. For instance, making thenumbers with clay may be good for motordevelopment and for recognition of numbers, butdoes not seem appropriate for understandingnumber concepts. Drawing and painting fractionsis one step forward by seeing the concept visuallyfor learning fractions but insufficient to grasp theconcept. These are just few examples, scrutiny ofthe activities by pedagogical professionals whoare subject experts as well would perhaps betterinform conceptual misconceptions. Therefore, itnot only seems essential but inevitable to get theseactivities authenticated before they are furthermade use of in other schools of the country as it isbeing planned; executing extensive try out besidesprofessional advice also seems essential.

Some areas of concern

Despite the impressive work presented, it appearsthat for Art Integrated Learning, art needs to beseen as a means and not an end to the means.Enlisted below are few examples which seemedproblematic in the plays staged by children of 12-14 age groups at the end of the first day.� One play depicted the poor and the rich. The

depiction was based solely on depictions onmaterialistic possessions that the rich haveand poor do not. This single-dimensionalway of depiction lacked nuance andcomplexities that define poverty and wealthwhich children of the 12-14 age groups canwell grasp and often do. Despite the creativityof children, the play served to legitimize ofpoverty through AIL.

� Another play establishing that Mughals didnot bring this land with them and this landbelongs to the community. So far so good. Butthe ‘community’ was portrayed as one whichonly has Sadhus as priests. What was themessage and how would it be understood byyoung minds in a multi-cultural society?

� Yet another play brought forth the idea ofwomen having the right to come back homelate night just as men do, as a straight forwardlinear analogy. The roots of gender inequality,the social realities that are manifested and itsvarious forms were not explored. The nextmorning, the news paper informed us of theghastly gang rape of young women at 9 p.m.in a bus.

� Religion was visible in presentations madeby the teachers of MCD, while sharing theirexperiences of the AIL project. This includedmaking idol of Ganesh, reading Namaz,preparing and celebrating Chat Puja etc.These pictures were not related to curriculararea nor were they followed by anydiscussion.

Seen in the background of inclusive educationwhich the Right to Education Act assures allchildren, inclusive education “is a point of viewthat cuts across all subject areas, and addressesthe histories and experiences of people who havebeen left out of the curriculum. Its purpose is todeal equitably with all gender, caste, class,ethnicity, differences in the human community;why things are the way they are in terms of powerrelations and equity issues, by equippingstudents, parents, teachers the tools needed tocombat discrimination and to find ways to builda society that includes all people on an equalfooting.''

“Education is not just about having children fromdifferent backgrounds in the classroom. Bodiesof children are not enough. And dances anddresses and dinners portraying variouscommunities are not enough. Dominant cultureis as different as all cultures. But it doesn’t getnamed as different, it gets named as normal. Anti-discriminatory or inclusive education helps tomove this perspective over to the side to makeroom for all cultural perspectives.''


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What we need to ask ourselves''What kind of pictures are up on the wall of theclassroom? What kind of festivals gets celebrated?What are rules and expectations, kinds oflanguage that is considered acceptable? Whatkind of interactions is encouraged? How arechildren grouped? Teachers will need toacknowledge that their own education has had acultural bias, that is exclusionary and this needsto be purged. They need to look at how dominantcultures and biases affect their view of non-dominant groups in society. They need to look attheir own culture, see what their idea of normalis, and realize it is quite limited and is justreflecting a particular experience. They have tosee that what they often view as universal isactually exclusionary. To be really universal, theyhave begun to learn what the marginalizedsilenced groups have to say about themselves.Educators will be dishonest if they do not pointout that some people benefit from marginalizingcertain groups. We have to talk about how youngpeople, teacher and students can use that tochange the order of things so that more peoplebenefit” Wayne Au (2009). Even though inclusiveeducation was dealt with in one of thepresentations, it was not from the perspective ofsocial justice.

It was argued that AIL is the teacher’s choice, sowhat is wrong with it? It is only art, as oneparticipant tried to point out. It may also be arguedthat suppression would not help and this is anhonest expression of how people feel. I am notsure if we have complete freedom of expression atcost of making certain communities invisible. Thenotion in the play that land belongs to all and weall have to make it better would have been a morereal expression of a peaceful society.

The National Curriculum Framework for TeacherEducation (NCFTE) 2009 details out secularismin education in unit 9 as follows:

“The essence of secularism rests on two basicprinciples:� Separation of religion from politics.� Acceptance of religion as purely and strictly

private affairs of individuals having nothingto do with the state.''

It further reiterates “In India, secular tradition isdeep rooted in its history. Indian culture is acomposite one which is based on the blending ofvarious spiritual traditions and socialmovements”.

India has enormous diversity and ourConstitution pledges equal opportunities. Weneed to make sure that all cultures find expressionin the class room, not just familiarizing withcultures of some dominant groups alone.Uncritical enthusiasm may be counterproductive.Innovative pedagogies need to ensure that theyare guided by social justice and constitutionalprovisions.

Celebrations are important, but what celebrationswe choose has immense significance. Whybirthday celebrations? A birthday celebration isa middle class and elite and colonial culture. Howrelevant is it to bring it in school education,especially with MCD school children, where someof them find it difficult even to avail basicamenities. The teacher’s need intense training toinclude culture specific pedagogies, tounderstand the sensitivities and pedagogicaltechniques before integration of culture ineducation is considered.

The AIL initiative included a pre- and post teston curricular achievement after AIL. The findingsof the study informed that no significantdifference was found in achievement among thechildren who learnt through AIL and throughconventional chalk talk.

ConclusionOn the second day of the seminar, Prof. KrishnaKumar former Director, NCERT, expressed hisdiscomfort at considering art as subservient toother curricular subjects. He reiterated that art initself is essential for peace and non violent societyand recommended Devi Prasad’s, Art, The Basisof Education, as one of the essential readings inthis context. He also emphasized how importantit is to develop aesthetic sensibilities. Aestheticbeauty, he felt was essential for creating beautifulminds.

It would be pertinent to include a debate on theforum ‘Kitab Copy’ which noted that in recent


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times, a few private schools have startedcelebrating Annual Days and other functions

from 2/3 PM in the afternoon to 9/10 PM as if it is

a wedding ceremony. During this period,

students from 5 year old to 18 year olds participate

in various cultural programs and voluntary tasks.

Recently, a Ranchi school kept the children in

December without warm clothes for these seven

hours as the children were required to perform in

summer costumes. The dignitaries present were

the Director and Inspector Generals of Police and

School Management members from Delhi. The

children were made to prepare for the cultural

programs for a month or so, leaving the class

rooms during regular class hours. Clearly, Art

Integrated Learning is an initiative worth taking

forward more thoughtfully and certainly not in

haste.

References� Devi Prasad (1998) Art: the Basis of Education,

National Book Trust, India http://books.google.co.in/books/about/Art_ The_Basis_ Of_ Education.htm l?id = ifOCAAAACAAJ & redir_esc=y

� National Curriculum Framework 2005,NCERT, New Delhi http://www.ncert.nic.in/rightside/links/pdf/framework/english/nf2005.pdf

� National Curriculum Framework for TeacherEducation: Towards Preparing Professionaland Humane Teacher, NCTE, New Delhihttp://www.ncte-india.org/publicnotice/NCFTE_2010.pdf

� Wayne Au (2009) Rethinking MulticulturalEducation: Teaching for racial and cultural justice,Rethinking Schools Publication, Wisconsin,USA


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Richa GoswamiBook Review

James Tooley, The Beautiful Tree: A Personal Journey into How theWorld’s Poorest People Are Educating Themselves. 302 pages (hardback).

Penguin Viking. 2009.

The first six chapters of the book, A beautiful tree,present the picture of budget private schools invarious countries - India, Nigeria, Ghana, Chinaand Kenya. James Tooley in these chapterspresents how in these countries private schoolsare serving the poor people’s need for educationfor their children. Also during this journey, hehas shown the various merits of private schoollike accountability to parents, commitment fromteachers, cost efficiency, English medium etc. Inthe book he has tried to argue how these privateschools show us a way to achieve the goal ofuniversal education.

The story of each country starts with thegovernment officials and development expertsdenying the presence of any budget privateschools, which is then proven to be incorrect byTooley’s research team, which goes into streets ofslums and villages and unearths these smallenterprises. Another interesting observation thatTooley presents across the countries is the stateof work at all levels of the government educationsystem. The system works more or less in similarways across the countries and is ripe withcorruption, nonchalance, bureaucracy and blamegames. The state officials across the countriesbelieve that the poor people are sending theirchildren to private schools out of their ignoranceor peer pressure. To this he points out some veryreal problems of public schools:

1. Teacher absenteeism2. Socially distant teachers3. Poor/”horrific” conditions4. Low standards/poor outcomes5. Out of school children

And development experts unanimously agreedto this situation. But instead of giving up andlooking elsewhere, the solution that the reportsfrom several of these organizations suggest ismore and better public education. Tooley usesthese reports for shunning private schools and

quotes the reasons cited in them - lack of teachers’training and poorly paid teachers, low qualitybuildings and motivation to make profit. But theseare not the reasons why the reports still preferpublic education – these have been presented laterby Tooley. Tooley compares these schools withlaptop manufactures being motivated by profit.Although, it is fair to question whethercomparisons between providing education andmanufacturing are valid.

The author’s own research tested 24,000 childrenin India, Nigeria, Ghana and China, in Mathsand language proficiency; in India and Africa, hefound that in almost all respects, children inprivate schools performed better than those inGovernment schools. In other words, teachers maybe unqualified, and school buildings may bedreadful, but private schools more thancompensate, because they are directly accountable.Only in provision of playgrounds did theGovernment schools do better across the board.

Some development agencies have beencontemplating role of private schools inuniversalization of elementary schools but theyhave also advocated strong governmentregulations. But Tooley says that the alreadyexisting regulations with regard to schools orother sectors are constantly flouted and are animmense source of bribery in all the countries.Tooley questions why the accountability has tolie with the state and why not to the parents whichin case of private schools already exists. Privateschools make changes to keep up with parentdemands and thus are more responsive. In caseof government services for poor, parents have nocontrol as they are directed by the state and poorpeople do not have voices which can be heard bygovernment. It is important to note at this pointthat the work of another researcher in this areahas shown that parents are not entirely satisfiedwith the quality of education in low fee private


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schools also, but they are sending there onlybecause they do not see any other option.Srivastav writes, “While low-fee private schoolswere seen as a better option, they were notnecessarily seen as a good option”

In one chapter the author has presented “five goodreasons” why development experts have beenrejecting private education and counters them:1. With the rise of enrollment in private schools,

government schools are left only with the mostmarginalized children and reduced parentalpressure to improve and further privatizationwill worsen this problem. Tooley has notdirectly countered the point, rather arguedthat if the poor children get the education theydesire for by private means, then why shouldit be relevant whether this undermines thestate system.

2. The second reason is Tooley’s interpretationof the UNDP report which he perhapsparaphrases as “market failure”. Educationis seen as a public good as investment ineducation not just benefits the person whogets it but also the society at large. He saysthat UNDP is concerned that poor people maynot see the investment worthy in terms of thereturns they would get. Thus, it is possiblethat large number of people will not invest init and thus education cannot be left on thechance of private investment. This hecounters by pointing out that poor people seethe private benefits and thus are alreadyinvesting in it.

3. The third reason is phrased as the “pro poor”idea, where the concern is that privateeducation cannot be the possible route foruniversalization of education as it requirestuition fees to be paid. Not all parents canafford it and will thus get excluded. ThisTooley has countered by the possibility ofcreating targeted vouchers.

4. The fourth reason is that education is afundamental human right and thusgovernments should play an active role in it.Tooley presents two version of theInternational commitment towards this right.The millennium development goal commitsgovernments to ensure that by 2015, childreneverywhere will be able to complete a fullcourse of primary schooling. The second

version is the Dakar framework for action,commonly known as Education For All (EFA)which commits governments and NGOs toensure that by 2015 all children have accessto and complete free and compulsory primaryeducation of good quality.Tooley sees a remarkable difference betweenthe two and says that where the MDG doesnot rule out the role of private sector, EFA byincluding the clause of free education rules itout. From here the argument goes to the lastone, where the most important thing is notfree education but poverty not being adeterrent and thus targeted vouchers may bea solution.

5. The last reason was about historicallyeducational expansion being achieved bygovernment intervention and not through themarket. To counter this Tooley, presents threepoints. First, he says that by the timegovernment involvement happened“universal primary school provision wasmore or less achieved in 19th century Englandand America”. Secondly, he raises doubtsabout the education for all states consideringtruancy and dropouts. Thirdly, he questionswhy the route taken or imagined to be takenby the west may be considered to be the onlyway forward. The first and the second pointsseem to be contradictory to each other.

The eleventh chapter traces the existence of selffinance schools in India as late as 1820s andshows that the criticism that the British presentedof this indigenous system at that time is verysimilar to what states and experts present now.

1. Low paid teachers.2. Lack of building.3. Low quality teaching methods.

He says that similar private schools/systems ofeducation were prevalent in other countries tillthe time government entered. He also draws acorrelation that the government introducedschools neither achieved the contextual aim ofeducation nor reached the desired numbers at thattime, nor is it capable of doing so now. So goingback to private schools is in fact the culturallyappropriate model for these countries.Tooley reiterates his solution for taking all thechildren to school by


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1. Targeted vouchers and2. Loans to budget private schools.

He believes that since these are profit makingventures small loans can be given and will bepaid back. Tooley says that the biggest criticismof private schools is regarding the infrastructurewhich can be supported in this manner. As soonas the proprietors have money at their disposal,they invest it in the schools. The other concernabout quality of education and pedagogy inspecific has only obliquely been answered by twoarguments that even in public schools educationis mainly reduced to rote learning and sinceproprietors are keen on betterment they are alsokeen on knowing what will help them improvelearning in their schools.

Tooley in this book has not touched the matter ofthe kind of textbooks being used in these schoolsand the question of teacher preparation. Theseare two major critiques of the private schoolsimpacting quality of education. He also does notanswer the question how vouchers will helpworking children get to school.

At one or two places, Tooley has pointed out thatthe salaries being given to the teachers areextremely low, but he justifies it be saying that it’swhat they will get anywhere else.

How Tooley views education and schooling isalso questionable? Are they comparable?Education in a very vague sense also impliesholistic development of the students not justknowing some facts. So if the private schools areable to achieve the task of getting students to passthe grades by knowing some facts with nounderstanding or critical and mental faculties orrespect for constitutional values, then can it becalled education?

It seems that Tooley comes from theunderstanding that education is only meant to befulfilling the needs of the job market and hasnothing to do with the kind of society a nationwants to build. As Srivastav points that the choiceof private schools are only a choice of desperation.This is not a quality statement for the privateschools and the goal of universalisation is notjust to school children but to provide qualityeducation.

The book is definitely written as a personaljourney (as the name also says) and sometimesdescribes in detail the experiences and emotionsof the author more than the topic being discussed.As a result many of the arguments that he hasmade are familiar and commonsensical. This bookis written in a very easy to read language and fullof anecdotal references which make for a novellike reading. It is for the reader to decide whethershe agrees with Tooley or not.

The reader can also read another book with thesame title: The beautiful tree - indigenous Indianeducation in the 18th century. It is available onthe website www.arvindguptatoys.com

BibliographySrivastav, Prachi. (February 10, 2012), Why isschooling failing in the new India?www.open2.net/society/international _development/india_failing_schooling.htm

Chudgar, Amita. (March, 2012), Economic andPolitical weekly, Variation in private schoolperformance.


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Conference Announcements

3rd International English Language Teacher Educator Conference, HyderabadThe British Council, EFL – U (English and Foreign Languages University), ELTAI (the English Lan-guage Teachers’ Association of India) and IATEFL (the International Association for Teachers ofEnglish as a Foreign Language) have come together again to host the 3rd International English Lan-guage Teacher Educator Conference. This conference will be held in Hyderabad from 16 – 18 March2013 at the Hyderabad International Convention Centre.

For more details visit the www.britishcouncil.org.in website.

13th International Pragmatics Conference (New Delhi, 8-13 September 2013)The 13th International Pragmatics Conference will be held from 8 to 13 September 2013 at the IndiaHabitat Centre, New Delhi, India. The conference is hosted by the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT).The theme is: Narrative pragmatics: Culture, cognition, context. The conference is open to ALL OTHERPRAGMATICS-RELATED TOPICS as well (where pragmatics is conceived broadly as a cognitive,social, and cultural perspective on language and communication). The conference is chaired byRukminiBhaya Nair (Indian Institute of Technology).

For more details visit: http://ipra.ua.ac.be/main.aspx?c=.CONFERENCE13

Making education inclusive - By identifying and dismantling exclusionary pressures and practicesin education.The Southern African Association for Learning and Educational Differences (SAALED) in associationwith the UNESCO Chair in Teacher Education for Diversity and Development at the Wits School ofEducation announces its biannual conference to be held in Johannesburg from 1 – 6 July 2013.1 – 3 July will have a research focus, and students, academics and researchers are invited to submitabstracts of current and completed research for consideration for inclusion in the programme.4 – 6 July will include various plenary and workshop sessions presented by invited local andinternational speakers to equip teachers and therapists to meet diverse learning needs.

For more information visit: http://www.inclusionconference2013.org/

Visit https://www.coursera.org/#universities for information on free on-line courses conductedthrough collaboration of 33 Universities offering 215 Courses including in Sociology, Psychology,Micro Economics, Media Studies, Language processing, Management, Computer Sciences, ArtificialIntelligence, Engineering, Global Warming and many more condcuted by MOOc, Massive Open OnlineCourse.


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AbbreviationsAIL : Art Integrated LearningB.Ed. : Bachelor of EducationB.El.Ed. : Bachelor of Elementary EducationBRC : Block Resource CentreCPD : Continuous Professional DevelopmentCRC : Cluster Resource CentreCTE : College of Teacher EducationD.Ed. : Diploma in EducationDEO : District Education OfficerDIET : District Institute of Education and TrainingDPEP : District Primary Education ProgramDU : Delhi UniversityECCE : Early Childhood Care and EducationEFA : Education for AllELTI : English Language Teaching InstituteEVS : Environmental StudiesGDP : Gross Domestic ProductIASE : Institute of Advanced Studies in EducationICDS : Integrated Child Development ServicesICT : Information Communication TechnologyITP : Initial Teacher PreparationM.Ed. : Master of EducationMCD : Municipal Corporation of DelhiMDG : Millennium Development GoalsMHRD : Ministry of Human Resource DevelopmentNCERT : National Council for Educational Research and TrainingNCF : National Curriculum FrameworkNCFTE : National Curriculum Framework for Teacher EducationNDMC : New Delhi Municipal CorporationNGO : Non Government OrganizationNPDE : National Professional Diploma in EducationNUEPA : National University of Educational Planning and AdministrationODL : Open and Distance LearningOoS : Out-of-SchoolPDS : Public Distribution SystemPh.D. : Doctor of PhilosophyPISA : Program for International Student AssessmentPTC : Primary Teaching CertificatePTR : Pupil-Teacher RatioRBC : Residential Bridge CourseRMSA : Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha AbiyanRtE : Right to EducationSC : Scheduled CasteSCERT : State Council of Educational Research and TrainingSMC : School Management CommitteeSSA : Sarva Shiksha AbhiyanST : Scheduled TribeSTC : School Teaching CertificateTISS : Tata Institute of Social SciencesUPE : Universalization of Primary Education

Ministry of Human Resource Development

2013

Documents

Voices of Teachers and Teacher Educators - Arvind Gupta (1).pdfshaping the social transformation India is witnessing, ... - two distinct but inter-related dimensions that converge