1. Education as Tritya Ratna - NCERT · 2020. 3. 31. · CONTENTS Editor’s Note 3 Education as...

CONTENTSEditor’s Note 3

Education as Tritya RatnaTowards Phule-Ambekarite Feminist Pedagogical Practice 5SHARMILA REGE

Participation and Consequences of Education of 37Scheduled Castes in Andhra PradeshP. ADINARAYANA REDDY and E. MAHADEVA REDDY

Teaching of Social Science 52A Situated Cognition PerspectiveSANDEEP KUMAR

Translating Social Constructivism into 64English Language TeachingSome ExperiencesA.K. PALIWAL

Curriculum Implementation in Rural Schools 71Issues and ChallengesSHANTOSH SHARMA

Acquisition of Concept of Conservation of Length in 83Elementary School Children through Piagetian Teaching ModelREENA AGARWAL

Helping to Learn Science 97A.B. SAXENA

Resilience in Promotion of Schools as Learning Organisations 104Reflections on Karnataka ExperienceRASHMI DIWAN

JOURNAL OF

INDIANEDUCATION

Volume XXXV Number 2 August 2009

Examination and Assessment Principles 114Integrating Assessment with Teaching-Learning ProcessesRAVI P. BHATIA

Evaluation of Inclusive Education Practices in 125Sarva Siksha Abhiyan (SSA) Primary SchoolsAMITAV MISHRA and GIRIJESH KUMAR

Some Problems of Human Rights Education 139SHANKAR SHARAN

Book Review 150Growing Up as a Woman Writer by JASBIR JAIN

REVIEWED BY KIRTI KAPUR

EDITOR’S NOTE

Ever since India got Independence, the search for quality in school educationhas been on the agenda of policy-makers and authorities at all levels.Institutions like NCERT, SCERTs and DIETs have been continuously makingefforts for that. The NCERT has been engaged for years in curriculumdesigning and development process for school education along with variousstakeholders including policy-makers. The Journal of Indian Education inthis issue highlights various aspects pertaining to the curriculumimplementation and also different approaches of teaching and learning inrural and urban areas.

‘Children are the pillars of the Nation’ is a common phrase but in orderto fulfil this slogan we need to build a constructive approach. Sharmila Ragein her article ‘Education as Tritya Ratna: Towards Phule-AmbedkariteFeminist Pedagogical Practice’ emphasised for the needs of equality basededucation irrespective of which caste he/she belongs. Her article alsoprofoundly provokes the readers regarding the prevalent issues of genderbias in education and the relationship between teachers and students. Nextin this series, an article by P. Adinarayana Reddy and E. Mahadeva Reddy‘Participation and Consequences of Education of Scheduled Castes in AndhraPradesh’ brings out the progress in terms of enrolment in the school andtheir participation amongst scheduled caste. The study also finds out thatparents do realise the usefulness of education.

Once students enrol and start their study in schools, the issue of learningand understanding stands before us. In this regard, Sandeep Kumarhighlights how the knowledge and understanding of children develop. Hisarticle ‘Teaching of Social Studies : A situated Cognition Perspective’demonstrates various methods of teaching and learning. Further, A.K. Paliwalin his article ‘Translating Constructivism into English Language Teaching:Some Experience’ discusses how constructivist approach leads childrentowards better learning of language.

Efforts to design new curriculum, syllabus and textbooks to improveteaching-learning process and address diverse groups of students arecontinued in many countries including India. An article by Santosh Sharma,‘Curriculum Implementation in Rural Schools : Issues and Challenges’authentically pointed out the loopholes in the implementation of curriculumin rural areas. For effective implementation, she emphasises the need fornumber of interacting factors which can influence each other. The studyconducted by Reena Agarwal on ‘Acquisition of Concept of Conservation ofLength in Elementary School Children through Piagetian Teaching’ revealson the designing and development of appropriate teaching-learning strategy

for children. She uses Piaget’s work where explanations are based on theprocess of assimilation and accommodation.

Each subject has its own pedagogy. Teachers need to realise this fact. Inthis regard A.B Saxena’s article ‘Helping Learn Science’ briefly explainspedagogy of science for teachers and teacher-educators. ‘Resilience inPromoting of Schools as Learning Organisations : Reflections on KarnatakaExperience’ by Rashmi Diwan is an article that provides an idea about thelearning experiences and the activities that can be carried out within thecurriculum. She also emphasised the need for the educational institutionsto be free from the bureaucratic framework.

People who are concerned with the education of country’s children feelthat unless Assessment and Examination system will change educationreform will not take place smoothly. Taking up this very aspect of schooleducation Ravi P. Bhatia in his article ‘Examination and AssessmentPrinciples — Integrating Assessment with Teaching-Learning Processes’reminds us the need to go beyond the traditional examination system basedon assessing the student’s performances.

India is a country with an extraordinary complex cultural diversity whichrequires a curricular vision which promotes flexibility, contextual andplurality. The attempt to improve the quality of education will succeed onlyif it goes hand in hand with steps to promote equality and social justice.Amitav Mishra’s and Girijesh Kumar’s article takes an analytical look at theprogress towards Indian education system. Their case study shows us howthe school children got benefitted from the government-sponsored educationalschemes like Sarva Siksha Abhiyan. Democratising education is fundamentalto addressing the diversity in optimistic way. Wherever issue of diversityemerges, it joins with the issue of Human Rights. Shankar Sharan in hisarticle ‘Some Problems of Human Rights Education’ explores some of theHuman Rights issue in Indian educational system. Finally, the issue ofJournal of Indian Education concludes with a review essay by Kirti Kapurentitled ‘Women who Write’ in which she has highlighted the potential ofwomen in literatures which many of the developing countries including Indianormally ignore.

We believe that this issue will enlighten our readers to criticallyre-examine education system, and also motivate them to contribute theirideas in the endeavour of educational reform in India.

Academic Editor

Education as Tritya RatnaTowards Phule-Ambedkarite Feminist

Pedagogical Practice*

SHARMILA REGE**

Abstract

It is now well-accepted that colonial knowledges in India were structured onbinaries that distinguished India from the West, Orient from the Occident, thushomogenising the Indian experience into a Hindu brahmanical one. The nationaliststoo, imagined alternate knowledges within these binaries, reversing them to claimover the West, a civilisational superiority located in the Vedas. This normalisationof knowledge as Hindu and brahmanical structured by both the colonial andnationalist binaries had/has implications for curricular and pedagogical practicesin our classrooms. In this lecture, with an apology to the innumerable modern day Shambhukasand Eklavyas, and to students reduced to cases of suicides on campuses, I shallmap some of the hidden injuries caused by the violence of these pedagogicalpractices. In the last decade and more, there has been a welcome change in thegender, caste and class composition of students. But this, as we know, is happeningin a context constituted by the conflicting demands of discourses of democraticacceptance of social difference, conservative imposition of canonical common cultureand of marketisation of higher education. Invoking Phule-Ambedkarite feministperspectives which envision education as Tritya Ratna and are driven by theutopia of ‘Educate, Organise, and Agitate’, I seek to dialogue with fellow teacherson the different axes of power in our classrooms; more specifically to exploremodes through which inequalities of caste are reproduced in metropolitanuniversities and classrooms. How may we as teachers and co-learners addressquestions of pedagogy and authority, pedagogy and transformation by throwingback the gaze of the ‘invisible’ and ‘unteachable’ students in our classrooms onour pedagogical practices?

* This is the written text of a lecture delivered during Savitribai Phule Second MemorialLecture Series at SNDT Women’s University, Marine Lines, Mumbai on 29 January 2009,published by NCERT.

** Sharmila Rege is the Director, Krantijyoti Savitribai Phule Women’s Studies Centre,University of Pune.

6 Journal of Indian Education August 2009

Education as Tritya RatnaTowards Phule-AmbedkariteFeminist Pedagogical Practice

‘‘O learned pandits wind up the selfishprattle of your hollow wisdom and listento what I have to say”

(Mukta Salve, About the Grief ofMahar and Mangs, 1855)

Let me ask you something oh Gods!... Youare said to be completely impartial. Butwasn’t it you who created both men andwomen?

(Tarabai Shinde, A Comparison ofMen and Women, 1882)1

I begin this lecture with wordswritten by Mukta Salve, a fourteen yearold girl student of the mang caste in Jotibaand Savitribai Phule’s school andTarabai Shinde a young maratha womantrained in the Satyashosdhak (Society ofTruth Seekers) tradition. For what bettertribute can one pay to the greatestteachers of modern India than the wordsof fire with which their students talkedback to the injustice of their times? I amdeeply honoured to be delivering theSavitribai Phule Memorial Lectureorganised by the NCERT in collaborationwith SNDT, Mumbai. Savitribai in herwritings and practices addressed thecomplex relations between culture,knowledge and power and sought not onlyto include girl students and studentsfrom the ex-untouchable castes but alsoto democratise the very processes oflearning and teaching. This memoriallecture is particularly special because itis instituted in the memory of this greatwoman visionary and institution-builder. I am grateful to the NCERTfor deeming me worthy of deliveringthis lecture instituted in her memory. Iwould also like to place on record my

sincere thanks to the faculty, staffmembers and students at KrantijyotiSavitribai Phule Women’s Studies Centreand the Department of Sociology at theUniversity of Pune, as also the Phule-Ambedkarite, Left and feministcommunity for providing meaningfulcontexts for the practice of criticalpedagogies.

This lecture in many ways is acollection of ‘stories’ of our classrooms,relationships between students andteachers and the political frameworkswhich constitute these stories. Like allnarrators, I have selected some andignored or postponed other stories;interpreted them in one way rather thananother. As narrators, we imagine thatwe shall achieve something by telling thestories the way we do to the people. Thesestories, I imagine, are a dialogue withfellow teachers on addressing caste andgender in the metropolitan classroom.The present set of stories are put togetherfrom diary notings made on teaching,discussions with colleagues andstudents, notes written by students oftheir experiences – often in moments ofdisruptions or departure, commentsmade on formal course evaluationsheets, the comments they half scratchout from these sheets, questions raisedin class and those asked hesitantlyoutside the class, their silences that onerushes past in the business as usualmode during peak periods of thesemester and gestures that defynarrative expression.

Many of these emerge as narrativesof ‘betrayal laced with temporality andplace’ – betrayal by the system (this isnot what I expected of this place; it wasnot like this earlier), betrayal of students

Education as Tritya Ratna 7

by teachers (I did not think that someonewho waxes eloquent on democracy wouldbe so selective in practice, teachers oftimes bygone, or in other places were/are committed to practicing what theypreach) ; betrayal of teachers by students(I thought at least students would standwith me against the injustice byauthorities; it was not so in the magical70s/is not so in other places). Oftenthese narratives of betrayal and ofdecline in plurality and of standards ofour university become cynicalannouncements of the ‘impossibility’ ofpracticing critical pedagogies in ourtimes or place. The present state ofuniversities then comes to be explainedeither in terms of incompletemodernisation or the modern universitybeing an alien concept in ‘our’ culture.The explanations are thus framed withinbinaries that distinguish India from theWest, Orient from the Occident, andthereby often equating Indian culture tothe Hindu brahmanical practices. Thatis to say the liberal voices bemoan theloss of pluralism arguing that the din of‘parochial identities’ of caste,community, gender on our campuses isthe result of ‘bad modernity’; theindigenists call for gurukul likealternatives that may better suit ‘our’culture.

It is not a coincidence that thesenarratives of decline come in times orplaces where the entry of a newgeneration of scholars and students fromvulnerable sections in Indian society isposing challenges to the socialhomogeneity of the classroom, boards ofstudies and other academic bodiesleading to obvious frictions on issuesrelated to decline of standards and merit.

A new generation of dalit scholarship forinstance, drawing upon the modern dalittestimoniol, has underlined the limits ofpluralism of the Nehruvian era andbringing to centre the violence of thebleeding thumb of Eklavya and death ofShambhuka; rejected the regime of thegurukul as an alternative. Thisscholarship, following the ThoratCommittee Report on AIIMS, suicide ofRajani (a dalit girl student whocommitted suicide because the banks didnot find her credit worthy for a studentloan) and Senthil Kumar (a dalit Ph.D.student whose fellowship was stopped)has raised questions both about theaccessibility of higher education and thelimitations in making it enabling forthose who struggle to gain entry into it2.The nexus of networks of exclusion thatoperate formally and informally oncampuses in the absence of transparencyto reproduce caste inequalities in themetropolitan university are beingdebated3.

While there are at present severalefforts at ‘talking/writing back’4, I wouldlike to mention a few by way of examples–Insight: Young Voices, a journalpublished by students and researchersfrom Delhi, the work from Hyderabad ofresearch scholar like Murali Krishna,who employs his autobiography totheorise educational practices, IndraJalli, Swathy Margaret, Jenny Rowenawho bring caste to centre to interrogatefeminist practices in the academy, thefilm ‘Nageshwar Rao Star’ which startswith reflections on the star/asterix, themarker of caste identity in the admissionlist and moves to reflect on and recovernew knowledge on the Tsundurumassacre, ‘Out-caste’ an informal, public


wall-journal which looks at caste as acategory that structures both exclusionand privilege, discussions on caste oncampuses on several list-serves like Zest-Caste, and on-going M.Phil. and Ph.D.thesis across campuses in India. Closerhome, in Pune University, mention maybe made of Dilip Chavan’s caste-classcritique of the debate on reforming theUGC-NET, the efforts of Sajag (conscious)students’ research group to reinvent therelationship between social movementsand the academia and the ‘ResearchRoom Diaries’ put together byresearchers in women’s studiesreflecting on their diverse histories ofhidden injuries and privilegesexperienced as students on ‘teacher’sday’5.

These and several other efforts areseeking to challenge disciplinary regimesof caste, opening up new ways of lookingat the present of our disciplines andpedagogical practices and suggest thatcritical teachers should be ‘listening’rather than bemoaning the loss of bettertimes. I wish to argue that these are ‘newtimes’ in the university, the suicides andother forms of ‘routine’ pedagogicalviolence notwithstanding. Men andwomen from vulnerable castes andclasses are entering higher education forthe first time and those for longconsidered ‘unteachable’ are talking/writing back. This makes it possible tothrow back the gaze of the students whohave long been ‘invisible’ and ‘nameless’in the classrooms onto disciplinary andpedagogical practices. Is it that years ofconfidence and certainty of teaching inour areas of expertise makes usembedded in certain kinds of argumentsso that we foreclose other possible ways

of looking and listening?6 Do we asteachers become used to ferreting outinconsistencies in stories offered to usby students and prematurely discardthem as irrelevant? This lecture is anexercise that is both restitutive andexploratory; I seek to re-listen, reflect andassign new value to ‘stories’ and ‘voices’ignored and discarded earlier as also topresent recent experiences from theclassroom for exploration.

Recently, a young dalit researcherand colleague narrated to me hisexperiences of the school and theuniversity, the ways in which thecurricular, extra-curricular andacademic success (lesson onDr Ambedkar in the textbook, elocutioncompetition, becoming a UGC-JRFscholar) were all instances thatreproduced caste by reducing him to a‘stigmatised particular’7. Pointing to aparadox, he asked ‘why do evensociologists whose object of analysis iscaste, believe that caste identities do notmatter in academic practices’? I wish totake this question for consideration inthe next section, reframing it a littleprovocatively to ask – Why are ‘we’ afraidof ‘identity’? Why do we assumeneutrality when it comes to identities ofcaste, ethnicity, and gender andpresume that they do not affect thecontent and practice of our discipline?Do we disavow caste – say it does not existin our context and talk of it in other termsand codes – like standards, language andso on? It is common for many of usteaching in state universities andcolleges not only to categorise ourstudents into neat categories of Englishand Marathi medium or English andGujarati medium but also reduce these


students to this singular identity (forinstance in a local college where I taughtit was customary to ask students to addan EM or MM when they introduced theirnames in any gathering). However, wemay not always be open to discussing thedifferent and contradictory identities ofteachers, students and other players inthe social relations of teaching andlearning. In the next section, I want toexplore this issue of medium ofinstruction – the ‘language question’ soto say and fear of identity on a ground Iam familiar with, namely the practice ofsociology.

Hidden in the ‘Language Question’ —Tracing the Fear of Identity 8

The hierarchy of standards betweencentral and state universities, it mighthelp to recall, draw not only on superiorinfrastructural facilities but also onEnglish being the medium of teachingand research in the former as againstthe local/regional language in the latter.As teachers in state universities andlocal colleges, we may counter this logicthrough an opposition that assumes allsocial science practised in English to beelitist and that in the vernacular to bemore down to earth. At other times, wemay respond to the ‘language question’through efforts to find quality readingmaterial in Indian languages and developEnglish language proficiency throughremedial classes. Interestingly, this‘language question’ appears quiteprominently in some of the discussionsthat sociologists have had on theirdiscipline being in ‘crisis’.

Sociologists more than other socialscientists in India, have from time to timedescribed and reflected upon the crisis

in the discipline, with a moreconcentrated debate happening in the1970s and 1990s. If we revisit some ofthe articulations of ‘crisis in thediscipline’ in 1970s, it is apparent thatthe ‘language question’ is stronglyimplicated in the salient features, causesand solutions suggested to the crisis. Thecrisis is described in terms ofunrestricted expansion of sociology atthe undergraduate level and in Indianlanguages, market-driven textbooks andtakeover of ‘pure’ pedagogies by politics.The script is one that narrates the storyof expansion of sociology at theundergraduate level and in regionallanguages as ‘provincialisation’ of highereducation, in general, and sociology, inparticular. Re-reading this debate, oneis struck by two rather paradoxicalanxieties of the sociological community.On the one hand, is the angst withacademic colonisation (why do not wehave ‘our own’ theories and categories),while on the other is the apprehensionabout the new and diverse ‘expandingpublic’ (what will happen to ‘standards’,if teaching and learning is no longer tobe done in English). The new publics ofsociology are denigrated and assumed tobe ‘residual’, those who are in sociology,not because they want to because of apolitically imposed expansion of regionaluniversities/colleges.

The calls of ‘crisis’ in the disciplinesurface again in the 1990s withcomments on the increasing number ofstudents registered in doctoralprogrammes and their ignorance ofelementary facts and concepts. It comesto be argued that both teaching andresearch are in a deplorable conditionbecause most of our universities and


other centres of higher learning havebecome cockpits for caste, regional andlinguistic conflict and intrigue. As theenrolment rates of the ‘upper caste’9,middle class metropolitan students marka relative decline and the sociologyclassroom comes to be more diverse interms of caste, region and linguisticidentities, the anxiety about theexpanding ‘public’ turns into a script ofaccusation. The accusation operates attwo levels; the upsurge of identities inIndian society and politics is seen ascausing the demise of merit and anyappeal to questions of identity andlanguage on the campus and in theclassroom come to be viewed as alwaysand already interest group politics. Intimes of Mandal, these narratives ofdecline of the discipline from its goldenage have to be contextualised in thebattle between the pan-Indian Englisheducated elite and the new regional elitesmoving on the national scene.

Interestingly it is practioners locatedon the institutional and organisationalmargins of ‘national’ sociology whoshifted the axis of the debate fromstandards to questions of equality;inquiring into the legitimacy ofsociological knowledge and thepronouncements of decline. Further, the1990s were marked by prominent‘national’ sociologists lending support tothe anti-Mandal position whichdominated the middle class urbanperception of the issue. Additionally, thedebate on dalits joining the DurbanConference against discrimination basedon race and caste underlined the waysin which sociologists in the name ofobjectivity valued the opinion of expertswhile rejecting perspectives emerging

from the lived experience of caste and thehorror of atrocities. If in the 1970s, asseen earlier, ‘national sociology’ describedthe expansion of sociology in regionallanguages as provincialisation of thediscipline; in the 1990s the claims of‘National sociology’ stood ‘provincialised’.‘National’ sociology was ‘provincialised’as it failed to say anything beyondpopular commonsense on the Mandalcontroversy though its identity hingedupon theorisation of caste; as alsobecause several questions came to beraised about nation as the ‘natural’ unitfor organising sociological knowledge andabout selective processes that equatedhappenings in the elite set of institutionsin Delhi to Indian Sociology.

So if we go back to my colleague’squestion with which we began – why doeven sociologists assume that theseidentities have no consequences for thecontent and practice of their discipline?Why was there an expectation on his partthat sociologists would be different fromother social scientists? Probably becausecaste, gender, and ethnicity are theirobject of study and they have been thefirst to include courses and modules onwomen, dalits and tribals in the sociologycurriculum? Yet as we just saw, it issociologists more than others who seemto be afraid of any claims to caste orgender identities. They appear to assumethat avowal of gender and caste identitieswill lead to feminification of theory ordemise of merit – in other words to‘pollution’ of academic purity. It mighthelp here to focus on the ways in whichsociological knowledge and practice areorganised by the professional bodies andthe curriculum. Women, dalits, adivasis,may be included as substantive research


areas of sociology and in optional coursesbut this inclusion keeps the cognitivestructures of the discipline relativelyintact from the challenges posed by dalitor feminist knowledges10. Thus ‘goodsociology’ continues to be defined interms of the binaries of objectivism/subjectivism, social/political, socialworld/knower, experience/knowledge,tradition/modernity and theoreticalBrahman/empirical Shudra.

So every time, the problem ofexpansion of the discipline in Indianlanguages or the language questioncomes to be discussed, we gloss over theseveral layers of identities and assumesimplistic binaries of sociology practisedin English being national and rigorous,and those in Indian languages beingprovincial and simplistic. Alternatively,indigenists and nativists assumesociology practised in English to be elitistand incapable of grasping ‘our culture’and that in regional languages down toearth and applicable to ‘our culture’.While the former position seeks to resolvethe tensions through remedial Englishcourses, translation of textbooks or asimple commitment to bilingualism; thelatter proposes teaching and writing inIndian languages as a ‘cultural duty’.These positions though they seemdifferent are similar in that they seelanguage only in its communicativeaspects as if separable from powerrelations and the cultural and symboliceffects of language. In contrast, dalitimaginations of language, wedge openthe symbolic and material power oflanguage. In the next section, I shallbring to centre some dalit imaginationsof language to underline ways in whichcaste and gender identities remain

hidden in what we discuss as a ‘languagequestion’.Dalit Imaginations — Wedging Openthe ‘Language Question’

“Now if you want to know why I ampraised – well it’s for my knowledge ofSanskrit, my ability to learn it and to teachit. Doesn’t anyone ever learn Sanskrit?…That’s not the point. The point is thatSanskrit and the social group I come from;don’t go together in the Indian mind. Againstthe background of my caste, the Sanskrit Ihave learned appears shockingly strange.That a woman from a caste that is the lowestof the low should learn Sanskrit, and not onlythat, also teach it is a dreadful anomaly …”

(Kumud Pawade, 1981 : 21)

“In a word, our alienation from the Telugutextbook was more or less the same as itwas from the English textbook in terms oflanguage and content. It is not merely adifference of dialect; there is difference inthe very language itself. …What differencedid it make to us whether we had an Englishtextbook which talked about Milton’s‘Paradise Lost’ or ‘Paradise Regained’, orShakespeare’s ‘Othello’ or ‘Macbeth’ orWordsworth’s poetry about nature inEngland, or a Telegu textbook which talkedabout Kalidasa’s ‘Meghasandesham’,Bommera Potanna’s ‘Bhagvtam’…. …. Wedo no share the content of either; we do notfind our lives reflected in their narratives”

(Kancha Ilaiah 1996 : 15)

“Through his initiatives, Lord Macaulay wasto re-craft a new intellectual order for Indiawhich threatened the dominance of theBrahmins and questioned the relevance ofthe Varna/caste order. This was to giveDalits a large breathing space … Shouldwe know our past the way we like to, orwe know the past as it existed? Or shouldthere be any distinction between HistoryWriting and Story Telling? Those whocondemn Lord Macaulay for imposing a‘wrong’ education on India do never tell us


what kind of education system whichMacaulay fought and eventually destroyed”.

(Chandra Bhan Prasad 2006 : 99and115)

“While giving calls of ‘Save Marathi’, thequestion I am faced with is ‘which’ ‘Marathi’is to be ‘saved’? The Marathi renderedlifeless by the imprisonment of the oral inthe standardised written Word? The Marathiwith its singular aim of ‘fixing meaning’which loses rhythm, intonation, emotion,Rasa? The Marathi that generates inferioritycomplex in those speaking ‘aani- paani’11?The Marathi that forms centres of powerthrough processes of standardisation oflanguage? ……. Or the Marathi sans theWord that keeps the bahujanknowledgeable?

(Pragnya Daya Pawar 2004 : 45)

…………I dream of an englishfull of the words of my languagean english in small lettersan english that shall tire a white man’stonguean english where small children practicewith smooth roundpebbles in their mouth to the spell the rightzhaan english where a pregnant woman issimply stomach-child-ladyan english where the magic of black eyesand brown bodiesreplaces the glamour of eyes in dishwaterblue shades andthe airbrush romance of pink white cherryblossom skins……………………an english that doesn’t belittle brown orblack men and womenan english of tasting with five fingers………

(Meena Kandaswamy 2007 : 21)12

Kumud Pawade’s story of herSanskrit, Kancha Ilaiah’s comment onthe sameness of the English and Telegutextbook, Chandra Bhan Prasad’scounter commemoration of Macaulay,

Pragnya Daya Pawar’s interrogation ofthe power of the printed word over thespoken word and Meena Kandaswamy’sdream of a global English in small lettersoffer immense possibilities for wedgingopen the ‘language question’.

Kumud Pawade, a dalit feministintellectual in her testimonio ‘ThoughtfulOutburst’ (1981), reflects on her journeyinto Sanskrit, teasing out in the processthe complex character of the ‘languagequestion’ in our academia. KumudPawade foregrounds memories of herschool teacher Gokhale Guruji, aprototypical Brahman dressed in a dhoti,full shirt, a black cap and the vermilionmark on his forehead; who she expectedwould refuse to teach her Sanskrit.However expected responses standinterrogated as he not only taught herbut also became a major influence in herlife. People in her own community oftendiscouraged her from pursuing a Mastersdegree in Sanskrit arguing that successat matriculation need notembolden herto this extent. At college the peons as alsothe higher-up officials usuallycommented on how ‘they’ were takingstrides because of government moneyand how this had made them too big fortheir boots. At the university, the headof the department, a scholar of fame tookgreat pleasure in taunting her. Shewould find herself comparing this manapparently modern in his ways toGokhale Guruji.

However, on successfully completingher Masters digree in Sanskrit achievinga place in the merit list, her dreams ofteaching Sanskrit received a rudeshock as she could overhear thelaughter and ridicule in the interviewroom about people like her being


government-sponsored Brahmans. Thosepassing these comments, she recallswere not all brahmans, many of themwere from the bahujan samaj whothought of themselves as brahman-haters and even traced their lineage toMahatma Phule and yet the idea of aMahar girl who was a part of this bahujansamaj teaching Sanskrit made themrestless. After two years of meritoriousperformance at the Masters level,unemployment and her marriage toMotiram Pawade, a Kunbi Maratha, shefinally got an appointment as anassistant lecturer in a governmentcollege and in later years went on tobecome a professor in her alma mater.However, a thought continues to troubleher – it was ‘Kumud Pawade’ and not‘Kumud Somkuvar’ who got the job.Pawade’s critical work of memory unfoldsthe complex gender and caste parametersin the ‘language question’ and lays bearthe dynamics of a dalit woman acquiringan authorised tongue. Importantly sheunderlines the operation of language asa marker of subordination and exclusionin our academia and thus theimpossibility of viewing the ‘languagequestion’ as a matter of communicationseparable from power relationships andcultural and symbolic effects oflanguage.

Ilaiah comments on the sameness ofKalidasa and Shakespeare, despite theformer appearing in the Telegu textbookand latter in English. He draws attentionto the difference between brahmanicalTelegu and the bahujan renderingslocating the difference in the latteremerging from production basedcommunication. He argues “thecommunists and nationalists spoke and

wrote in the language of the purohit. Theirculture was basically sanskritised; wewere not part of that culture. For good orill, no one talked about us. They neverrealised that our language is alsolanguage, that is understood by on andall in our communities…….” (p. 14). Ilaiahfurther underlines the sameness of theEnglish and Telegu books in being ‘alien’to the bahujan; their only differencebeing that one was written with twenty-six letters the other with fifty-six. Ilaiah’sreflections problematise the secularvernacularist position, underlining thecomplete domination of Hindu scripturesand sanskritic cultures in vernaculareducation. Any easy equation betweenEnglish as alien and Telegu as ‘ourlanguage’ – yielding ‘our categories’ ofanalysis stands interrogated. Further,Ilaiah suggests that the question ofculture mediates between the axis ofequality and the academia and the‘language’ in which education takesplace is an epistemological issue morethan a matter of mere instruction.

Prasad’s celebration of Macaulay’sbirthday on 25th October 2006 andinstallation of a ‘Dalit Goddess of English’to underscore the turn away fromtradition has been brushed aside oftenas an attention seeking gimmick. Thiscounter commemoration of Macaulayhas significance for destabilising thehegemonic memory of Macaulay as the‘villain’ who declared that a single shelfof Shakespeare was worth more than allthe Sanskrit and Arabic literature of theEast. Prasad re-reads ‘Minutes onEducation’ to underline Macaulay’sargument about the British having to givescholarships to children to study inSanskrit and Arabic, even when they


were ready to pay for English education.This re-reading disrupts the ongoingprocesses of collective remembrance oflanguage and education in colonialIndia. Prasad’s act of countercommemoration renders Macaulay’sargument as not directed against thevernaculars; but against the outmodedliterature of the Vedas and Upanishads,and thus an important moment in thehistory of Dalit access to education. It isimportant to note Prasad’s comments ondiscovering the top secrets of thelanguage politics of Macaulay in hisexplorations into the tensions betweenhistory writing and story telling;thereby suggesting that an engagementwith the ‘language question’ is alsoessentially an engagement with‘reinventing the archive’ – the verymethods of knowledge.

Pragnya Daya Pawar (2004) talksback to those giving calls in Maharashtrato ‘save Marathi’; asking them thepertinent question ‘which Marathi?’ andteases out the collusion of state andelites in framing the ‘language question’.Interrogating the processes ofstandardisation of the language, shepoints out to the homogenisation ofmeaning constituted by the processes ofstandardisation. She draws attention tothe efforts of the Maharashtra state toempower Marathi as a language forscience and technology which freeze andde-root the diversity of words into thesingular ‘Word’. Standardisation on onehand brutalises/marginalises/fails thedalit bahujan who bring into the systemthe ‘non-standardised’ languagepractices. On the other hand, moreviolently, it wipes away the epistemicvalue of all oral forms of knowing of the

bahujan. She recalls that the dictum ofthe liberal humanists ‘society willimprove when its people gain wisdomfrom education’ was first called intocrisis in India by Jotiba Phule. That abahujan struggling against all forms ofcultural colonisation, should have beenthe first to call this liberal agenda intoquestion – she observes ‘is logical andnot coincidental’. The ‘languagequestion’ thus opened up, traces thepolitics of internal fragmentation andhierarchisation of the vernacular in post-colonial Indian states and sees theseprocesses as inseparable from those thatmonitor the differential epistemic statusof different knowledges – particularly ofthe printed and the oral.

Meena Kandaswamy in‘Mulligatawny Dreams’ dreams of an‘english’ full of words selected from herlanguage, an ‘english’ that challengesboth the purity of standardisedvernaculars and the hegemony of English.It is an ‘english’ in small letters, alanguage that resists imperialist racismand casteism of both English and thevernacular. Such hybrid formations oflanguage are seen as enriching Englishby opening it up to appreciate brownbodies, black eyes and eating with fivefingers. English as the language ofmodernisation, is disrupted suggestingthat in the present conjuncture spreadof English has gone beyond the worldwideelite thus opening up possibilities ofchallenging the hegemony of imperialistEnglish with many resisting ‘englishes’.Further, ‘the dreams of english’ point tothe limitations of framing the languagequestion in terms of proficiency inEnglish language, leaving little space forplayful radical innovations in pedagogy.


It is not coincidental, that dalitimaginations engage with the powerrelations that are glossed over in debateson ‘language question’ discussed earlierand thus wedge open and interrogate notonly the Right-Wing and state agendasof the ‘language question’ but also thatof the liberal-humanists. We can see thatthe liberal humanist fear of identity, ofdecline in standards comes from acommitment to a particular idea ofdemocracy. It is not as if those whocomplain of decline in standards areopposed to including ‘all others’ in theirsystem of knowledges – be it theuniversity or the cognitive structures ofthe discipline. Within this idea of ademocratic university, the masses willhave to wait until they receive a degreeof formal training (learn to ‘speak like us’)to comprehend requirements of a pluraland democratic university. However,since the 1990s, those consideredincapable of comprehending democraticrequirements have come to the fore todefend democracy, even as it pertains tothe knowledge of democracy, while theimagined champions of democracy beganmoving away from processes that informit13. ‘All others’ are entering theuniversity with new vocabularies andmoral economy, and as the dalitimaginations on language suggest – areinterrogating the assumed hierarchy ofdifferent knowledges, archives andmethods of knowledge. For criticalresearchers and teachers, fear of identityand masses can no longer be an optionas the radical instability of the manylanguages of the subaltern citizens ofmass democracy calls for careful‘listening’. If we as teachers are toparticipate in the ‘new times’, exercises

in re-imagining the content and methodsof knowledge becomes inseparable fromthose in reinventing pedagogicalpractices. In the next section, I arguefor reinventing pedagogies throughPhule-Ambedkarite-Feminist (PAF)perspectives; asking why theseperspectives came to be excluded indebates on education in post-colonialIndia.

Phule-Ambedkarite-FeministPedagogies — Location and Exclusion

Having neither the expertise nor theintention to draw a set of guidelines forPAF pedagogies, what I seek to do in thissection is to historically map the‘difference’ of Phule-Ambedkariteperspectives on the project of educationand the probable reasons for theexclusion of these perspectives fromimaginations of ‘alternative’ perspectiveson learning and teaching. If followingPaulo Freiere14 we see critical pedagogyas contesting the logic and practices ofthe ‘banking method’ for a moredialogical and transformative project ofeducation, then PAF pedagogies, simplyput, may be seen historically asconstituting one school of criticalpedagogy. Historically, we can read in thecolonialist and nationalist discourses onIndian society, a battle over the functionand nature of knowledge. While thecolonialist project represented India asthe spirit of Hindu civilisation andtherefore distinct and disjunct from theWest; the regime of classification andcategorisation of ‘Indian tradition’created norms for colonial ruleenhancing the status of brahmans asindigenous intellectuals. While, colonial


knowledges were structured on binariesthat distinguished India from the West,Orient from the Occident; thenationalists imagined alternateknowledges by reversing the claims ofsuperiority of the West, locating thesuperiority in the Vedas. Thus, thoughthe colonialists and nationalistscontested the function of knowledge incolonial India, for both, the nature ofknowledge of India was essentially Hinduand brahmanical. After the Second WorldWar, social science discourse refashionedthe binaries of Orient/Occident throughthe tradition/modernity thesis orindigenous approaches; both of whichglossing over the structural inequalitiesin Indian society normalised the idea ofknowledge and the educational projectof/in India as Hindu and brahmanical15.

Phule and Ambedkar in differentways, by weaving together theemancipatory non-Vedic materialisttraditions (Lokayata, Buddha, Kabir) andnew western ideas (Thomas Paine, JohnDewey, Karl Marx for instance) hadchallenged the binaries of Westernmodernity/Indian tradition, privatecaste-gender/public nation and soughtto refashion modernity 16 and thereby itsproject of education. Phule andAmbedkar in several writings andspeeches but more particularly theformer in ‘Gulamgiri’ (1873), and thelatter in ‘Annihilation of Caste’ (1936),‘The Riddles on Hinduism’ (Compiled andpublished in 1987) and ‘The Buddha andHis Dhamma’ (1957) undertake a rationalengagement with core analyticalcategories emerging from Hindumetaphysics which had been normalisedas ‘Indian culture and science’17.

Throughout the text of ‘Gulamgiri’,Phule stresses that Hindu religion isindefensible mainly because it violatesthe rights and dignity of human beings.He turns the ‘false books’ of the brahmanson their head by reinterpreting the‘Dashavataara’ of Vishnu to rewrite ahistory of the struggles of the shudrasand anti-shudras. He moves swiftlybetween the power and knowledge nexusin everyday cultural practices, mythsand history. In his ‘Memorial Addressedto the Education Commission (1882)’ fora more inclusive policy on education andin his popular compositions like theshort ballad on ‘Brahman Teachers inthe Education Department (1869)’, Phuledemonstrates how state policy anddominant pedagogical practices areintrinsically interlinked. He comments atlength on the differential treatment tochildren of different castes and thecollusion of interests of the Bombaygovernment school inspectors andteachers. He calls for more plurality inthe appointment of teachers and theneed to appoint those committed toteaching as a truth-seeking exercise.Ambedkar in ‘Annihilation of Caste’(1936) argues against the absoluteknowledge and holism idealised bybrahmanical Hinduism and critiques thepeculiar understanding of nature and itslaws (karma) in the Shastric texts. BothPhule and Ambedkar underline thepreference for truth enhancing valuesand methods through an integration ofcritical rationality of modern science andthe skepticism and self reflection ofancient non-Vedic materialists and theBuddha. It is clear both in and throughtheir works that they see organisation of


knowledge as complexly related to theinterlocking connections of differentidentities. This leads them to valuesituated knowledge but such that theydo not collapse all experience intoknowledge but do highlight how certainexperiences (oppression based on caste,gender) do lead people to certain kindsof knowledges.

Phule in the first modern MarathiPlay Tritya Ratna draws complexlinkages between religious-cultural andeducational authority and re-imagineseducation therefore as the Tritya Ratna(third eye) that has the possibilities toenable the oppressed to understand andtransforms the relation between powerand knowledge. Ambedkar in a speechin Nagpur in 1942 at the All IndiaDepressed Classes Conference, advisesthe gathering to ‘Educate-Agitate-Organise’ (a motto that became centralto the Ambedkarite movement andcommunity) arguing that this was centralto the battle for freedom. Phule’sconscious adoption of the dialogical formof communication and Ambedkar’sinsistence in the Bombay University ActAmendment Bill (1927) to move beyondthe examination-oriented patterns oflearning and teaching underline theirconviction on the centrality of dialoguein the project of education. Ambedkar,debating the Bombay University ActAmendment Bill, highlights the linkagesbetween issues otherwise thought to bedisjoint – namely understaffing, dictationof notes and the lack of adequaterepresentation of backward castes onadministrative bodies such as thesenate. Countering arguments regardingexamination-centric education as asafeguard for promotion of standards; he

underscores how this exam-centric modein fact reproduces caste inequalities inthe university. He underlines thesignificance of combining efforts toincrease access to education forvulnerable sections with those toreconceptualise administrative andcurricular practices of higher education.

Both Phule and Ambedkar, as maybe apparent from the discussion above,seek a rational engagement with thepedagogy of culture to see how powerworks through the production,distribution, and consumption ofknowledge within particular contextsand re-imagine a culture of pedagogybased on truth-seeking. The ‘difference’of Phule-Ambedkarite pedagogicalperspectives lies in a double articulationthat conceives education then not onlyin terms of cultures of learning andteaching but also dissenting against thatwhich is learnt and taught by dominantcultural practices. This entailsconstituting teachers and students asmodern truth-seekers and agents ofsocial transformation who seek to become‘a light unto themselves’. The methodsare those that seek to integrate theprinciples of prajna (criticalunderstanding) with karuna (empatheticlove) and samata (equality). Thisdemocratisation of method of knowledgemarks the difference of Phule-Ambedkarite perspectives from methodsbased on binaries of reason/emotion,public/private, assumption of neutralobjectivity/celebration of experience thatinform much of our teaching andresearch. One sees significantintersections with Black feministpedagogies that directly link pedagogywith political commitment in envisioning


education as the practice of freedom andthereby seek to challenge the assumeddivide between mind/body, public/private and reason and emotion18. Whythen have social scientists in search ofalternative pedagogies rarely turned toPhule, Shahu or Ambedkar? Why did thesearch for alternatives usually end withGandhi, Aurobindo and Nehru? Howmight this ‘Dalit Phobia’19 or exclusionin the academia and its cognitivestructures be explained?

Baburao Bagul, the revolutionarydalit writer has explained the exclusionof this discourse in the formation ofknowledges in post-colonial India interms of the intelligentsia turning thenational movement, into a form ofhistorical, mythological movement andancestor worship thus reducing the othermovements to a secondary status20.The nationalist labelling of the dalitdiscourse as anti-national, ideologicallyparticularistic, specific to certain castesor as emergent from the British policy ofdivide and rule resonated in thepractices of higher education in post-colonial India. In the 1970s the ideologyand practices of the Dalit Panthers anddalit literature including thecompositions of the mud-house culturalactivists – the shahirs (composers ofballads) foregrounded the experience ofcaste to challenge the feudalbackwardness of Hinduism normalisedin educational practices21. Thischallenge was co-opted in the academiathrough frames that included dalits indisciplinary knowledges while keepingintact the core of disciplinaryknowledges. Since the 1990s, asdiscussed earlier, tensions betweendifferent forms of modernities in Indian

society are being played out and a newscholarship is making convincingarguments about appeal to caste notbeing casteism and of claims unmarkedby caste made by the dominant torepresent and classify the modern asbeing situated, local and partial.

Since the 1990s, this ‘secularupsurge of caste’ at the national levelinterfaced with local dalit movementsand international contexts like the U.N.Conference against Racism is shapingvaried trajectories of dalit studies indifferent regions in India22. PAFpedagogies are enabled by thisconjuncture and the assertion of dalitfeminism which have opened uppossibilities of new dialogue betweenPhule-Ambedkarite and feministperspectives. PAF pedagogicalperspectives are critically different fromthe two much discussed projects inhigher education of the same decade, viz.,value education and autonomy. They aredifferent in that they contest the logic ofprojects based on essentialist apriori setof morals or on neo-liberal rhetoric ofchoice that comes without freedom. Thepractice of PAF pedagogies thus seek todevelop cultures of dissent throughanalyses of the various categories ofoppression underlying the structuresand organisation of knowledge, butwithout reducing them to a mere additivemantra of caste, class and genderdifferences and inequalities. The practiceof PAF obviously needs more than asimple transplantation of the guidelinesthrough which PAF perspectives work toour situations. In the next section, I shalltry to grapple with some of the issues thatemerge in the practice of PAF pedagogiesin our academia.


Phule-Ambedkarite FeministPedagogies — Issues in Practice

PAF pedagogies, as argued earlier viewthe pedagogical as a cultural practicethat cannot be separated from thecontexts of articulation. This requiresthen analyses of the ways in which casteand gender organise knowledge in oureducational setting, not as someunchanging essence but rather asinterlocking connections of differentidentities and the articulations betweenthem. Therefore differences of caste,class and gender do not becomereadymade answers to which allpedagogic practices may be reduced butthe history of their intersections,formation within particular historicalevents and spaces are the problems thatpropel the pedagogical practices. Thiswould require us to be historicallygrounded in the contributions of theoppressed to creating a democratic world,in general, and the anti-caste feministstruggles, in particular, and to thinkthrough not just the classroom but alsothe academy. The academy as a part ofthe larger socio-political arena bothdomesticates and manages differencesand inequalities and enables strugglesagainst domination. If education, asdiscussed earlier is the space betweenthe pedagogy of cultural practices andculture of pedagogy, our practices haveto be located in specific historicalconjuncture and institutional contextswhich both enable and constraint thearticulation23. One may make a modestbeginning by delineating crucial featuresof our present and developing methodsto ground historically and theoreticallythe organisation of relations of power and

knowledge including the expectationsand demands made on us as teachersand on relations with colleagues andstudents.

The present conjuncture is markedby intense scrutiny and attack on highereducation constituted by conflicting andcrisscrossing demands of severaldiscourses – more specifically those ofpost-Mandal mass democracy, state withtoken acceptance of social differences,reactionary brahmanical elitism seekingto impose canonical notions of ‘ commonHindu culture’ and privatisation,economic and technological rationa-lisation of higher education. On ourcampuses we see this unfold through theeveryday events like changing socialcomposition of students and facultymembers, instrumental rationalisationand Hinduisation of curricula in thename of vocationalisation andindigenisation, opening up of centres/cells for study of socially excluded groupswhich remain at the margins of theinstitutions, shortage of hostel facilitiesfor students, privatisation of messfacilities, greater pressures to combinework and studies, increased surveillanceby authorities to regulate student politicsand an increasingly intolerantmeritocracy that expresses itself througha rhetoric of choice and freedom withoutany reference to power and inequality.

The struggles of the feminists, dalit-bahujans, tribals and religious minoritiesin the 1980s and 90s have enabled tosome extent formerly silenced groups toreassert and reclaim experiences andknowledge in the educational setting.This identity politics has covered complexand diverse terrains of theoreticalpractices and not all positions move


unproblematically from resistance tobroader politics of democratic struggles.Yet it would be simplistic, as discussedearlier to dismiss all claims to identitiesas separatist, reactionary anddetrimental to academic standards. Thecampuses at present are a site of violentand hidden breakouts, skirmishes andinjuries over forms and ownership ofcultural capital. Many faculty members,administrators and students who seethis as a decline of standards and spiritof ‘real debate’ are turning to privatecolleges and universities. Some othersstay back but withdraw from theeveryday of academic bodies andclassrooms for the ‘new cultures’ theyargue have scant regard for ‘civility’24.What does this conjuncture produce interms of positions and practices for thepedagogical, in general, and for PAFpedagogical practices, in particular?Drawing upon Ambedkar’s notion ofhistory as being crucial to the recoveryof hope in future; the presenteducational setting becomes anopportunity for drawing up a moralimagination beyond the existingconfigurations of power.

Many of us who see education, ingeneral, and the classroom, inparticular, as a site of struggle do oftendiscuss several of the issues that havebeen raised in this lecture so far. Yet, inpractice the challenge seems to be tomove beyond personal blaming or/andfeelings of guilt and to design and developpedagogies as a political project. Thechallenge is to develop a method ofreflexive analysis, employing self-questioning as an analytical andpolitical process – to see how experiencesare socially constructed. To review how

a ‘normal/good’ teacher, student andclassroom are socially and politicallyconstructed and thereby interrogate ourdifferent and contradictory locationswithin the social relations of teachingand learning. Thus understanding andtransforming the social relations oflearning is a struggle that is bothpersonal and political. What we do nothave as a resource for such an exerciseand need to put together is a sustainedproject to collect, document and analysethe diverse life stories and everydayexperiences of teachers in differentcontexts. This will allow ‘biographising’of the social structures and processes ofeducation and ‘structuralising’ ofbiography of those engaged in teaching25.

The search for new subject positionsas teachers and students is constrainedby the given educational settingsand therefore cannot be entirelystraightforward. Even as we search fornew subject positions, we may still desireapproval within the given terms, estimatea cost-benefit analysis of takingpedagogical risks or sometimes realisethat interests are served better byremaining within the dominantdiscourse. In the relative absence ofcritical pedagogies as an issue fordepartmental or college staff meetings,many of us turn to making notes fromthe lives of great teachers, scan theburgeoning literature on feministpedagogies or make observations aboutthe pedagogical atmosphere in renownedcolleges and universities in order tounderstand the possibilities andlimitations of our own teaching practices.Often, one is disappointed, for efforts andexperiences of others seem so farremoved from what is happening in our


classrooms. The first response to this gapin experiences often is to gloss over theunease with justifications related tomaterial settings of the educationalsettings differently equipped facilities,difference in number of similarlyinterested colleagues, difference in thelevels of intervention by academic bodies.While these material settings do matter,these are a part of the problem – of thepolitical project of ‘unsettling therelations’26 in the university and wecannot as if postpone question ofpedagogies until the material setting isset right. The tensions between what onethinks is good teaching and whatstudents expect from us; desire to bepopular/is accepted/to be madepermanent and to challenge dominantpedagogical practices is as much a partof the material setting.

Both as teachers and students weenter the institutional space of educationas persons with a set of experiencesrelated to social location and informedby set of discourses of education.Practices of academic training andknowledge production generally ignorethese social relations of the teacher andstudents and create an illusion of acommon academic ground. This has atleast two immediate and seriousimplications for our educationalsetting – actual relations of power areglossed over and social differences getarticulated in ways that reducedifference to a singular identity. Considerfor instance the case of a dalit colleague,an engaged teacher of Political Sciencewho despite his on-going research intoAmbedkarite thought finds himself optingto teach courses other than Ambedkarthought. As he explains – he is uneasy

with the tensions between what he calls‘reservation’ of certain courses for facultyfrom the reserved categories and thepressures to prove that these facultymembers have the more ‘universal’ and‘theoretical’ knowledge that teachers ofthat discipline are supposed to possess.The actual relations of power are glossedover as the difference; the social locationof this teacher becomes not a lensthrough which the normative/assumeduniversal of the discipline has to beinterrogated but rather a ground to makesuspect his commitment to ‘universal’.

As feminists teaching courses ongender, participating in the organisationof academic life we have often contestedsimilar assumptions about womenteachers and criticised the rulingpractices of our institutions whichexclude women – from the theoretical andthe universal. As ‘upper caste’, middleclass, women teachers, while namingruling practices which regulate oureducational settings; we may often namegender but evade interrogating ownpower and privileges (caste, class, region)through practices of non-naming (‘we’often claim that we do not even talkabout caste, it is ‘they’ who talk about itall the time). The ways relations of powerand knowledge are organised it’s quitepossible to live these relations withoutreflecting on the power of non-namingand ways in which academic success andfailure are produced. As feministteachers we cannot rest with themultiplication of seminars, workshops,modules and courses on women/genderin our academia. We need to interrogatethis ‘success of gender’ in the academyand to ask if these are driven merely bystate policies and/or market imperatives.


Furthermore, we need to give up thecomfort of working with the homogenouscategory ‘woman’; for though the liberalhumanist subject of feminism standschallenged the feminist imagination inthe classroom continues to assume themodel of unitary student and feministteacher27. Consider for instance theaccount by Jenny – writing as a researchscholar from a Backward Caste,analysing her complicated relationshipto women’s studies – “Today I know thatit is not enough to open up research tofeminist frameworks. If feminist researchcannot open itself up to the problems ofcaste and religion in a casteist-patriarchal society like India, it willforever close the doors of research to somany women who are molded by theexperience of gender and castereligion.”28 This account disrupts anysimplistic understanding of alternatespaces like women’s studies; once againdrawing attention to the ways in whichpower and knowledge come to beorganised even within alternate spacesin the academy. From the significance ofunderstanding contexts and differencesin our relationship to the academy ingeneral, in the next section, I move to themore specific but related questions aboutthe relationship between teachers andstudents.

Interrogating Teacher as God orSaviour — Pedagogy, Authority andCannon

In the present conjuncture how is therelationship between the teacher andthe taught performed? How does theintersection of generational and ‘other’differences between them disrupt thisrelationship? We may as practitioners of

PAF pedagogies reject the Hindu principleof teacher as ‘god embodied’ (Gurusakshat par brahma) but then do engagedpedagogies such as PAF instal teachersas the new ‘saviours’ of the students?Since the classroom seems to be the bestplace to start to discuss these issues, Iwould like to put for your considerationhere two autobiographical notes ondisruptions from the classroom29 whichI believe are situations commonlyencountered by teachers. The first refersto the shock, anger, disgust and painthat one recognises in the body languageof a student who has just been handedher test paper with the marks or grades.The student often lets some time elapsebefore contesting the evaluation,probably checking the marks, grades ofothers in the class comparing andcontrasting, thereby estimating the level ofinjustice (imagined and real), done to her.

Two students and not by co-incidence, one from a Nomadiccommunity in Maharashtra and anothera tribal student from Manipur, musteredenough courage to encounter me andasked in different ways if their lower gradehad anything to do with the less spacethey had given in their answer to Phule-Ambedkarite critiques of ‘mainstream’perspectives on caste. As a teacher, I hadat that point at least three options –respond in terms of some absolutes (it’snot really good, you have not covered itall, your expression could have beenbetter) thereby exercising my authorityas final judge of the standards.Legitimise my authority as an evaluatorby making transparent the parametersof my evaluation. Most difficult of alloptions seems to be the third option thatof calling into question my judicial


authority as a teacher-evaluator bytranslating the student’s contestation ofgrade into an opportunity for dialogue.Dialogue here is not suggestive of astrategy of appeasement (of increasingthe marks) – but of ‘listening’ to thecontestation and reflecting upon andreviewing in this context the veryparameters of evaluation and possiblytransforming them. Obviously thesestudents were raising questions thatmoved within and outside the classroom,for one they were raising questions aboutthe possibilities of an evaluationremaining ‘fair’ in the context of theteachers avowed commitment to a Phule-Ambedkarite politics and about their ownalienation from a curriculum that hardlyengaged with ‘their’ histories andexperiences.

The second autobiographicalnarrative relates to the comments of atribal girl student from one of the mostunderdeveloped regions in Maharashtrawho had opted for three of my courses inconsecutive semesters and who I saw asbringing considerable enthusiasm andintensity into the classes. However, at theend of the Masters Programme, she toldme, to my dismay, that the classroomexperiences had been profound buttroubling because of the immense lossof ‘certitude of definitions’ that she hadexperienced. That sometimes I seemed toher (and probably to many others) like aperson who does not know the basics ofthe discipline (for instance when I replyto a query with another query ratherthan give a definition/definitive answer).For the student, the unlearning andproblematising of much that she hadgrasped through undergraduatetextbooks and excelled in, was rendered

into a state of confusion. As Phule-Ambedkarite feminist teacherscontesting the cannons, one has oftencome up against similar criticism fromcolleagues who argue that students getconfused in ‘our’ classes because weintroduce critical debates before studentshave mastered the cannons of thediscipline.

These cases of students contestingevaluation and efforts at building criticalthinking in the classroom raise questionsabout the relations between pedagogy,authority, cannons and transformation.The second narrative allows us to askawkward questions – do we as teachersof particular disciplines haveresponsibility and accountability to thecannon – so to say initiate the studentsinto the discipline? When is the ‘righttime’ at which the critique can be as ifintroduced? In other words are we sayingthat the initiates in sociology must knowG.S. Ghurye, Louis Dumont, M.N.Srinivas on caste before engaging withthe critical perspectives of Phule, Periyarand Ambedkar and Andre Beteille andDipankar Gupta before reading morecontemporary dalit-bahujan-feministwriters on caste? Does such a move notgloss over the ways in which through thedesign of courses, assignments, list ofprescribed and ‘supplementary’readings, selection and elimination oftopics as legitimate for classroomdiscussion; knowledge comes to becategorised and organised intolegitimate/canonical and illegitimate/non-canonical. At the level of practicesof teaching it means attributing value tothe canonical per se and not to the labourof interpretation. Am I then suggestingthat the Phule-Ambedkarite feminist


teachers do away with the canon? Farfrom it, the canon to be deauthoricisedand demystified must be seenrelationally; so that the canonical andthe non-canonical emerge inoppositional confrontation at thehistorical level.

The first narrative pushes us toquestion the canon built on theconviction of the radical teacher – doesshe too build a cannon to render ‘hertruth’ as natural and beyond theconflictual politics of interpretation?There is a desire for a stable ‘saviour’ideology and easily identifiable home30,or fixed truth; but as Jenny’s accountdiscussed earlier more than bears out,a Phule-Ambedkarite feminist teachermust guard against the exclusions andoppressions which such a desire wouldentail. The problem, therefore, is not onlyabout teaching the canon butcanonicising whatever we teach and thechallenge is to make the learning processalways uncertain and contingent. Oftenthe most difficult question for progressivepedagogies like PAF pedagogies is toretain passion and partnership of theoppressed and yet breakthrough thecanonical compulsions that exist at theheart of all pedagogy.31

While the relations of powerorganised by the curriculum and theapproaches to the curriculum have beendiscussed to some extent, those relatedto the organisation of college-universityclassroom as a physical and intellectualspace have been relatively unaddressed.Discussing pedagogies requires that wediscuss the ways in which power isenmeshed in the discourses andpractices of the more mundane everydayof the classroom. The classroom is a

relatively autonomous space which canboth empower the teacher and renderher vulnerable. The everyday of thisclassroom is routinely managed throughthe regime of time-tables and rulespublished in the handbooks. But on thefield so to say – the real questions are –How do we manage the conflictualimperatives of quiet and talk,responsibility and control, risk andsafety? Often these conflictingimperatives mean that classroomlearning comes to be achieved throughissue of threat (threat to cut marks, freezeon classes) competition and point scoring(setting groups or individuals againsteach other to get them to be responsible)and status consciousness (sanctions forthose who talk and interact within givenparameters and achieve learning withinapproved terms). Intentionally orunintentionally our strategies of gettingthe immediate done may often conflictwith strategies of PAF that seek toencourage collaboration and fosterdemocratic and social justice values. Arethere models of progressive pedagogythat may guide us to move beyond thesebrahmanical-patriarchal practices ofdiscipline and control in the classroom?In the next section, I will address someof the issues emerging from thisquestion.

Circuitous Relations betweenEducate-Organise-Agitate —The Risky Paths of Tritya Ratna

Generally speaking, teachers who believethat learning is linked to social change,struggle over identities and meanings,may practice variants and combinationsof three possible models of progressivepedagogical practice32. The first model is


the one in which the PAF teacherbelieves that she understands the truth/the real relations of power and impartsit to the students. The second modelbelieves in a dialogical mode and makingthe silenced speak. While in the third thefocus shifts on developing skills – so thatstudents are enabled to understand andintervene in their own history. It ispossible that different combinationsemerge from these models, for commonto all three are a set of similarassumptions. The first model believesthat the teacher can and does know thetruth – the real interests of differentgroups brought together in the classroomand has to just impart the truth to them,the second overlooks the real materialand social conditions which maydisenable some from speaking and othersfrom ‘listening to silences’, and the thirdassumes that the teacher knows andcan impart the ‘universal skills’. Theseassumptions become problematic, for asPAF pedagogues, we agree that studentsare neither cultural dopes that have tobe brought to predetermined positionsbut this is not to say that the dominantinstitutions do not seek to dupe them.There is then a loss of certainty for theteacher, she does not have a readymademantra to save the world nor can this bereplaced with a set of relativistcelebration of different voices andexperiences

This kind of a rendering of the PAFpedagogical model which rejectsconvincing predefined subjects to adoptthe teacher’s truth; draws upon not aunilateral but circuitous understandingof the Phule-Ambedkarite principle of‘Educate, Organise and Agitate’.Education, organising struggles over

recognition and redistribution identitiesand social transformation related in acircuitous path; are constitutive of eachother and as such the possibilities andconstraints on agency as it intersectswith social formation cannot bepredefined. If we look again at MuktaSalve’s essay with which we began, it isclear that education becomes TrityaRatna in Jotiba and Savitribai Phule’sschool because what was demanded fromstudents was not conformity to someimage of political liberation but of gainingunderstanding of their own involvementin the world and its future. This makesthe task of the PAF pedagogues slipperyand hazardous – since the focus is oncontextual practice, one of multiplyingconnections between what may seemapparently disjoint things.

This returns us once again to thequestion of authority in the pedagogicalprocess – to ask if the critical pedagoguepracticing such a model needs to makea difference between abandoning allclaims to authority and offering newforms and positions. The teacher stillremains responsible for production ofknowledge in the classroom but isrequired to traverse risky grounds thatinterrogate the binaries of knowingteacher/ignorant students, public/private and rational/emotional. Sherecognises that often the students areuninterested in the classroom notbecause they do not want to work orbecause of the difficulties of jargon ortheory but they do not see reason.Probably the questions being asked andanswered are not ‘theirs’. This realisationcannot be followed up with a simpledictum that from now on students willdefine the questions. The challenge is to


discover the questions on the terrain ofeveryday lives and popular culturalpractices.

Such a model throws open toquestion then a simple model ofauthority – one that poses an oppositionbetween mind and body as also authorityand affection. Black feminists33 haveunderlined the ways in which the bodyis erased in the process of learning.Entering the classroom is as if aboutgiving up to the mind and making thebody absent. It is assumed that denial ofpassion and Eros as if is a preconditionfor learning to take place. They remindus that Eros is the moving force thatpropels life from a state of potentiality toactuality and therefore central to theenergy of the classroom. It is often arguedthat there is no place for the affective inthe classroom because this may affecteffective control or neutral evaluation ofstudents. And yet all of us know therehave always been teacher’s favourites –there have been and are affective ties thatare exclusive and privatised. The Eklavyanarrative is a reminder of the violentconsequences of selective, exclusiveaffective ties between students andteachers.

The pedagogical power in criticalpractices cannot be wished away bygiving up claims to authority andfollowing Black feminists like Hooks34

persuasion of students may be seen asan option. In a diverse classroom, Hooksargues there will always be students whoare afraid to assert themselves as criticalthinkers. Counter to several feministclaims that the silenced come to voice inatmosphere of safety and congeniality,she prescribes a ‘confrontational’ styleof dealing with this. This can be very

demanding, painful, frightening andnever makes the teacher ‘instantlypopular’ or the classes ‘fun’ to be in.Hooks problematises the rather easyopposition between risk and safety, affectand authority by putting at centreprocesses of democratic persuasion ascrucial to the goal of enabling allstudents and not just the assertive fewin the classroom.

How do we understand the multipleand contradictory positions that we playout in the classroom? It has been pointedout35 that there are tensions between thethree competing selves of the teacher –the educative, the ideological/moral-ethical and personal. How may we‘discover’ these tensions, the gapsbetween what we think we do and whatwe actually do? Student evaluations ofteachers with all their limitations can bean eye-opener. Going over recordings ofclass discussions can sometimes be averitable discovery! Recordings ofclassroom proceedings, ways in whichwe as teachers moderate a discussion,interrupt it or let certain questions passcan point to the tensions between themultiple and contradictory positions weoccupy and our dilemmas. For instance,a PAF pedagogue introducing a powerfultexts like Ilaiah’s ‘Why I am not a Hindu’has to address on one hand theuncomfortable silences or resistance ofstudents (articulated through passingnotes or nudging that seems to suggesthere she goes again on her trip) who mayfeel interpellated in the identity of theoppressor. On the other hand, thepersistence of silence of the subalternstudents who, one imagines wouldexperience instant identification with thetext and find voice also needs attention.


The hesitance in naming and reclaimingidentity in public; the tears shed inprivate conversations, the unease withemotionally charged classroom poseseveral dilemmas.

I am in no way arguing for reflexiveexplorations by teachers on eitherstudent evaluations or classroomrecordings as ways to bring ‘balance’ inpositions – for balance as we know hasbecame a dirty word ever since hindutvasought to denigrate all engaged left andfeminist thinking as imbalanced. Rather,the effort is to reflect on the manyintended and unintended omissionsbetween the conceptual and materialterrain of PAF pedagogies as producedpartly by attempts to create a democraticspace within an undemocratic academyand society but also by our owninvestments in particular subjectpositions.

Critical pedagogies do not inthemselves constitute a method, andmicro level pedagogical implications ofPAF which are crucial to the everydaywork of the classroom need to bediscussed and developed throughdialogues in and across classrooms. Weneed to dialogue more on our efforts inthe everyday of the classroom to developdifferent tools, methods, strategies tocombine social critique with skills ofdoing critical work. In the concludingsection, I would like to share some noteson implementing PAF and collectiveefforts to develop tools and methods.

Pappu can Dance ‘….’ (?)Possibilities and Limitations ofPedagogical Experiments36

In the present of our academia, anyeffort to develop new courses,pedagogical tools and methods have to

as if prove their ‘applicability’ and‘employability’ value. Many of us seekingto develop new courses ininterdisciplinary fields, such as women’sstudies, dalit studies and culture studiesencounter these demands to prove‘entrepreneurial’ value on one hand buton the other are faced with the seriousongoing intellectual debates on therelevance of practices of these fields inthe academy. Courses in women’sstudies and dalit studies which are oftenseen as fields ‘naturally’ linking theoryand practice, knowledge and power mayin practice face the risk either of creating‘alternate cannons’ or emptying politicalcontent in ‘applying’ theory to the field.While those in cultural studies, morespecifically the study popular culture,face another kind of risk, that of not beentaken seriously for they are not easilyrecognised as a site of the political37.In this section, I shall limit the exchangeof notes on experiments in developingpedagogical tools to a course on‘Popular Culture and Modernity in India’.

In the concluding section, I detailsome of the experiences of teaching acourse on ‘Popular Culture andModernity in India’ least because I oranyone else involved imagine it to be anarrative of success. This detailing is byway of opening a dialogue with fellowcritical pedagogues on the nuts and boltsof developing pedagogical methods andtools for our present. This course on‘Popular Culture and Modernity in India’was floated over two semesters inclassrooms that were socially verydiverse and where the co-learnerssometimes shared very little in commonby way of nationality, region, languageand also in terms of their investment in,


desire and pleasures of what they sawas constituting and constituted by thepopular (the range included motorcycleclubs, annual village fairs, SharukhKhan films, old Hindi film songs, the ‘new’Marathi cassette cultures, culturalpractices of movements and collectiveactors, particular newspaper columns,blogs, ‘days’ celebrated on campuses andso on).

The course began with threereadings – one by Bell Hooksinterrogating the binaries that operatein the cultures of teaching and the otherby Samata Biswas38 on caste and cultureas it unfolds on the seemingly mundanesite of the notice board in the students’mess and selections from Phule’s‘Gulamgiri’. These readings made way forseveral discussions on interrogating thebinaries of history and memory andcultures of teaching and the teaching ofculture in the academy and hadimplications for the conduct of thecourse. The course it was mutuallyagreed would be constituted throughintegrating dialogue, participation,experience39 the important elements ofPAF pedagogies. At the level of practiceit meant being open to multipleviewpoints, learning to ‘listen’ so as tobetter understand what others aresaying than just stick to words they say,to suspend judgement to create anenvironment where participants couldreflect, communicate and interact.

More specifically the dynamics oflearning and teaching was sought to berethought and reinvented through aresearch-based approach to the course.This posed challenges for both thestudents and the teacher and in ourcase, the teaching assistants40 (Research

students and students who had recentlycompleted their Masters Programmes)became very important resources inenhancing dialogue and participationthrough a research-based approach. Theteaching assistants in this course didmuch more than the ‘prescribed’ role ofgetting together course, readings, andcorrecting tutorials and in the processfractured the assumed divide betweenteacher and student. They ‘translated’the teacher’s classroom discussions tothe students when required but in doingso pushed the teacher to become astudent by seeing how and why thestudents found them more accessible.They became research and writingconsultants for students who wereframing ‘researchable’ themes for thepaper and in the process could revisitand redraft their own on-going researchand writing.

The course sought to build inexperience, dialogue and participationthrough conscious selection of resourcesmaterials and therefore the questionsbrought to the classroom that came fromthe everyday/ordinary of students’ lives(tamasha, local museums, Hindi films,newspapers, documentaries, musicvideos, magazines, commemoration ofdays on campus), continuous group workand intra-group evaluation, anddeveloping writing and research as amethod of classroom learning. Groupwork and evaluation met withconsiderable resistance as groups weredrawn once by lots and another timethrough introducing a diversity quotient.There was pessimism and resistance toworking with given groups, severalstudents were very uneasy grading theirown and group members work and there


was much frustration, tears and angerover group processes. But what wasnovel and was that they were oftenviewing their own culture (youth/village/city) critically and it was the teacher whowas on their territory.

The group work sessions wereconceptualised, designed and conductedby the group members in the classroom;sometimes in the process driving thecontent of the course. Group work onlocal museums for instance propelled theway in which the course interrogated theassumptions of the nation/national inour everyday life. Some groups forinstance compared and contrasted thepolitics and aesthetics of the Gandhi andAmbedkar museums to interrogatereceived notions of history of the nation.Yet others drew attention to the tensionsbetween nation and region, the publicand private, tribal and Indian in thearrangement of artifacts at the RajaDinkar Kelkar Museum or to theinteresting museumisation of moderncity life in the most unexpected ofplaces – the toy railway museum. Groupwork on the contemporary culturalpractices of counter commemoration ofthe anti-caste movements propelleddiscussions on the significance ofpopular in the formation of counterpublics. Several individual papers on therecasting of caste and gender relationsin the local annual fairs propelleddiscussions on caste in the constitutionof the popular.

In the process of this group work,there were disruptions in dialogue andparticipation – between students andbetween teachers and students. Oftenconversations came to be controlled byexpectations of what each thinks the

other should say or in forcing studentssometimes to talk against their will. Theteacher, teaching assistants andstudents despite efforts were not alwayslistening and pre-judgement of ‘others’was continued through bodily gesturesthat discarded some issues whilevalidating others. However, sometimesdisruptions in dialogue were taken up asan opportunity to view the complexlinkages between practice and content –for instance impatience and tensionsbetween group members (emerging fromdifferences of language, investment indifferent genres of popular, access andease with using audio-visual equipment,ways of reading a text and discussing it)became a ground to reflect on the centraltheme of the course – namely ‘ourmodernity/ies’. Heated discussionssought to address how courses on‘Modernity in India’ could not push theexperience of the epistemic wound ofcolonialism, the messy patterns of Indianmodernity, the exciting instability offorces of mass democracy in ourclassroom to the backyard.

The course sought to shift the focusfrom students as consumers ofknowledge to producers of knowledge bydeveloping writing and research as amethod of learning. Reinventing theteaching-learning nexus throughresearch was also envisioned ascountering the logic of vulgarvocationalisation and applicability.Students were expected to submitregularly written responses to eventsand to develop independent andcollaborative student research projectsthrough the semester. Writing ofresponses to films watched or thecelebrations in the city of the nation on


15th August or a music video of Kings XIPunjab among others became sites fordeveloping critical thinking skills andsocial critique. Writing response pieces;the format for which was kept relativelyopen became a recursive process asstudents admitted that writing requiredthem to reflect, assess value andappropriateness of argument,reconstruct and rewrite.

Individual and collective researchprojects not only reinvented thepedagogic space but helped establishmutually rewarding links with academicsinside and outside the university andexternal community groups. One batchof students (2007-08) produced a film on‘Cell phone Cultures’; researched andproduced collaboratively. The processinvolved developing new intellectual,practical and technical skills as studentsresearched the biography of the product,it’s travels to different constituencies,SMS as cultural consumption, theperceived dangers and anxieties relatedto the product, celebrity scandals withcamera phones and so on. The filmfocused on how cell phones wereorganising and conducting students’ ownlives. The second batch of students(2008-09) wrote and published a book; acollection of researched articles inEnglish and Marathi on ‘Exploring thePopular: texts, identities and politics’.The papers though individual werediscussed right from their conception inthe classroom and in group exercisesdesigned both to think through thequestions critically and to writeacademically. To use words from theforeword to this book by UmaChakravarti, “these essays tell ussomething about why and how we make

meaning of life around us and they do sowith zest and enthusiasm.”41 The essaysnot only showcase student writings butalso document the intellectual processesby which the students came to their‘theme of research’. The students had inthe process of producing the bookengaged with tasks of calling forsubmissions, reviewing, editing,designing and publishing and werepleasantly shocked by the quality of theproduct.

The ‘social utility’ of the several groupprojects, film or the collection of essayslies in their capacity for inducingconjectural questioning. Many of theseare being integrated in a handbook forteachers in Marathi on popular cultureand modernity in India. However, therewas not much effort on our part to asksignificant questions about how theseskills of combining critical thinking withsocial critique, of writing academicpapers, making films, scripting mighttransfer to other contexts of collaborationor employment. Further, not allparticipants were satisfied with thefocus on writing and research as amethod of learning as some studentevaluations suggested this took awaytime from more interactive exercises inthe classroom. Some participants arguedthat ‘too much of democracy’ andinsistence on group work had resultedin loss of precious working time. Therewas a case of plagiarism, but the groupconcerned collectively agreed that the‘crime’ be made an object of analysis andthe concerned student wrote finally wrotea reflexive essay on his own journey frombeing an engaged student-activist witha celebrity status in a town college to ametropolitan university.


The pleasure and politics of thepopular came to be debated as severalstudents narrated ‘problems’ that familymembers and room-mates were havingbecause of their becoming criticallyengaged with popular culture. Theteacher, the teaching assistants andseveral students commented on howmany, otherwise ‘quiet types’, those whorarely spoke in class (those consideredPappus) were talking so much in classwhen it came to films music videos or thepleasures of the ‘Trax cultures’ (localtaxis that ply from the taluka place) ofrural Maharashtra. At one level, itappeared as if contrary to the popularHindi film song (‘Pappu Can’t Dance …’),investigations into the world of thepopular could make ‘Pappus’ dance. But,at another level – could they really? Foras students worked in English, Hindi andMarathi, in different settings, the unevenflow of knowledge and methodologies wasmore than apparent. The studentresearch projects made apparent howthe study of culture has emergeddifferently in different regions andlanguages and a question worth askingbut not risked in the classroom was –how might the course have looked ifcultural studies did not speak onlyEnglish but also spoke, for instanceTamil, Ahirani, Bundeli or Marathi42?In a socially diverse classroom thereare ‘many languages of studyingculture’ and specific understandingsof ‘popular’ are constituted differentlyand differentially through them. Ourcollective efforts at ‘dialogue’ throughresearch and writing as methods oflearning did, to some extent, disrupttraditional understanding of power and

knowledge but were constrained by thelimits set on ‘dialogue’ by powerfullanguages.

Lest we celebrate prematurely the‘success’ of dialogue of our PAFpedagogies; the words of BhujangMeshram, an engaged tribal poet whopassed away recently, are a reminder ofthe ways in which power is alreadyenmeshed in dialogue.

“The Teacher asked,‘Name any three tribal villages’,So I told.Slap me if I was wrongBut do tell me do closed doors open withouta push?I only told – Shelti, Varud, andKondpakhandi’.The teacher asked,‘For what are these villages famous?’I only told,Shelti for Holi,Varud for the woman – Gowarin Bai,And Kondpakhandi for the theft of cotton.The teacher roared and slapped with hishandsHe broke a couple of staffs of the Mehendibushes.Go get a reference from three peopleOr else no entry for you in this school – hesaid.That’s when I decided to get introducedto Birsa kaka, Tantya nana and AmbarSingh Maharaj!!”

(Bhujang Meshram,Mala Bhetlelya Kavita, 2007)

Meshram’s words historicallygrounded in the struggles of tribals overresources, identities and meanings area reminder that power is never reallyexternal to ‘dialogue, participation andexperience’ and that the task of makingeducation Tritya Ratna is indeed anarduous long march.


REFERENCES

1. English Translations of Mukta Salve and Tarabai Shinde’s writings were firstpublished in Susie Tharu and K. Lalita, Women Writing in India: 600 B.C. toPresent, (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1991). Vidyut Bhagwat, the regionaleditor of this section highlighting the politics of selection and erasure involvedin the building of archives discusses how Tarabai’s writing was ‘retrieved’ in1975 by S.G. Malshe and that there is no account found of later writings ofMukta Salve. Scholars like S. G. Mali and Hari Narake have countered thedoubts raised about the authorship of writings of Savitribai Phule with historicaldocuments; thus highlighting the erasure of intellection of women and womenparticularly of the non-Brahman and dalit castes from the processes of establishedarchiving.

2. See Senthil Kumar Solidarity Committee, ‘Caste, Higher Education and Senthil’sSuicide’ in Economic and Political Weekly: August 16, 2008, pp. 10-12, as alsoAnoop Kumar, ‘Casteism in Higher Education’ in Insight, Vol. 1, No. 1: Sept-Oct. 2007, pp. 8-10 and ‘Excerpts of Thorat Committee Report’ in Insight; op.cit.,p. 10.

3. See Anveshi Law Collective, ‘Caste and Metropolitan University’ in Economicand Political Weekly, March 23, 2002, pp. 1000-2 and also Sanjay Palshikar andArun Kumar Patnaik, ‘Violence in a University: Defending the Indefensible’ inEconomic and Political Weekly, April 20, 2002, pp. 1490-9.

4. I use writing back/talking back in the sense post-colonial and Black feministscholars employ the term; see for instance Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths andHelen Tiffin, The Empire Writes Back (London: Routledge, 1989) and Bell Hooks,Talking Back: thinking feminist. thinking black (Boston: South End Press, 1989).

5. See http://www.insightfoundation.org, M. Murli Krishna, Autobiography as aResource for Educational Theory: A Dalit Life Story, M.Phil. dissertation in EnglishLiterature, (Hyderabad: CIEFL, 2004); IAWS Newsletter, (Pune: Women’s StudiesCentre, December 2003); Nageshwar Rao Star, is a film made by Nikhila Henry,Shonreichon, Rajesh and Nageshwar Rao, a group of mass communicationstudents at HCU, Hyderabad; Out-Caste is an informal, public wall-journalstarted by the Dalit Studies class under the guidance of course instructor, Dr K.Satyanarayana. This is an open forum that engages with the caste question ina specifically Indian context see http://out-caste.blogspot.com/ 2008 02 25archive.html. See also Dilip Chavan, ‘Bharatiya Uchh Shikshanatil GunvatchaPrashana’, Vatsaru, Vol. 8, No. 4, June 16-30, 2008; the Sajag VidhyrathiShodharthi Gaat edited issue of Vatsaru, Vol. 8, No. 15, 1-15 December, 2008 andResearch Room Diaries, Pune Krantijyoti Savitribai Phule Women’s Studies Centre,University of Pune, November, 2008.

6. The Department of Sociology, University of Pune tried to address this questionby organising a two day national workshop in January 2008 for teachers andstudents on ‘Caste in the Curriculum’ : Documentary Films as PedagogicalTools. I am grateful to the speakers, film makers and participants in this workshopfor suggesting new ways of listening and addressing caste in the curriculum andthe classroom.


7. I am grateful to Sanjay Kumar Kamble for the conversations we had onreproduction of caste inequalities in education, particularly his insights on therenderings of the issue in Marathi Cinema which I hope to pursue in the nearfuture.

8. The debates on the ‘language question’ and the ‘fear of identity’ as they appearin the calls of sociology in crisis have been detailed in Sharmila Rege, ‘ExorcisingFear of Identity : Interrogating the ‘Language Question’ in Sociology andSociological Language’ in Sujata Patel (ed.) Critical Reflections on Sociology ofIndian Identity, Perspectives and Practices, (New Delhi, OUP, forthcoming). I amthankful to a number of colleagues for their insights from diverse positions andlocations on pedagogical practices; to Sujata Patel for continued conversationsand discussions on the history and politics of formation of sociology and itsimplications for the pedagogical; Kushal Deb, Shruti Tambe, Maitreyi Chaudhariand Satish Deshpande for periodic exchanges on the experiences of teachingand ‘translating’ sociology, Sadhana Natu and Vaishali Diwakar for sharingexperiences on the diverse and exciting worlds of undergraduate pedagogies inMaharashtra.

9. Words like ‘upper castes’, ‘lower castes’ are put into single inverted comma tomark a disagreement with and distance from the ideology in which such linguisticpractices emerge.

10. For accounts of this marginalisation, distortion and erasure in cognitivestructures of sociology, see Vivek Kumar, ‘Situating Dalits in Indian Sociology’,Sociological Bulletin, 54, 3 (2005), pp. 514-532 and Edward Rodrigues, DalitStruggle for Recognition within Indian Sociology’ in Maitrayee Chaudhari (ed.)The Practice of Sociology, (Hyderabad: Orient Longman, 2003), pp. 221-258; S.M.Dahiwale (ed.) Understanding Indian Society: The Non-Brahmanic Perspective(Jaipur: Rawat Publications, 2005) and Sharmila Rege, ‘Feminist Challenge toSociology: Disenchanting Sociology or ‘For Sociology’?’ in Sharmila Rege (ed.),Feminist Sociological Knowledge, (New Delhi: Sage, 2004).

11. Aani Paani – literally means ‘and water’ but as a phrase it refers to theBrahmanical colloquial reference to dalit rendering of Marathi which is considered‘impure’ and technically incorrect.

12. For details see Kumud Pawade, Antasphot (Aurangabad: Anand Prakashan,1981);Kancha Ilaiah, Why I am Not a Us? (New Delhi: Vitasta, 2006).

Hindu, A Sudra Critique of Hindutva Philosophy, Culture and Political Economy(Calcutta: Samya, 1996); Chandra Bhan Prasad, Dalit Phobia: Why do they HateUs? (New Delhi: Vitasta, 2006); Pragnya Daya Pawar, Kendra aani Parigh, Mumbai:Dimple Prakashan, 2004) and Meena Kandaswamy, Touch (Mumbai: PeacockBooks, 2006).

13. I am drawing this argument from Javeed Alam, 2004, Who Wants Democracy?Hyderabad: Orient Longman.

14. See Paulo Freire, Education for critical Consciousness, (New York:Continuum,1973).


15. I am drawing this argument from Bernard S. Cohn, ‘African Models and IndianHistories’, in An Anthropologist Among Historians and Other Essays (New Delhi,Oxford University Press, pp. 224-54); Sujata Patel, ‘Beyond Binaries : A Case forSelf Reflexive Sociologies’, Current Sociology, Vol. 54, 3 (2006), pp. 381-395 andSharmila Rege, Dalit Studies a Pedagogical Practice : Claiming More than a ‘LittlePlace in the Academia’ Malcolm Adiseshiah Memorial Lecture, Chennai: MIDS,2006.

16. For details see Gail Omvedt, Cultural Revolt in a Colonial Society: The Non-BrahmanMovement in Western India (1873 to 1930), (Bombay: Scientific Socialist EducationTrust, 1976); Rosalind O’Hanlon, Caste, Conflict and Ideology : Mahatma JotiraoPhule and Low Caste Protest in Nineteenth Century Western India (Cambridge,Cambridge University Press, 1985); Meera, Nanda, Breaking the Spell of Dharmaand Other Essays (New Delhi: Three Essays, 2002); Gopal Guru, ‘Dalits in Pursuitof Modernity’ in Romila Thapar (ed.) India: Another Millenium (New Delhi: Viking,2000) and Sharmila Rege, Writing caste/writing gender: narrating dalit women’stestimonios (New Delhi: Zubaan, 2006).

17. All references to the writings of Phule and Ambedkar are drawn from Y.D. Phadke(ed.) Mahatma Phule Samagraha Vagmay (Bombay; Maharashtra Rajya SahityaSanskruti Mandal, 1991) and volumes particularly volume 2, 4, and Vol. 11 ofVasant Moon (ed.) Babasaheb Ambedkar Writings and Speeches (Government ofMaharashtra, Education Department,1987) and Changdev Khairmode, DrBhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, Vols. 1-12, (Pune: Sugava Prakashan, 1992).

18. See for instance Bell Hooks op.cit., 1989.

19. CHANDRA BHAN PRASAD, Dalit Phobia —Why Do They Hate.

20. See BAGUL quoted in ARJUN DANGLE (ed.) Poisoned Bread: Translation from ModernMarathi Dalit Literature (Hyderabad: Orient Longman Limited, 1992).

21. For details see SHARMILA REGE, Caste, Identity and Public Sphere: MappingAmbedkarite Counter publics in Maharashtra (Kolkata: Samya, forthcoming).

22. For a nuanced and critical review of the local, regional and international contextsof emergence of dalit studies see K.Satyanarayana, ‘Dalit Studies as a NewPerspective in the Indian Academia’ in Arun Kumar and Sanjay Kumar (eds.)Dalit Studies in Higher Education: Vision and Challenges (Delhi: Deshkal, 2005),pp. 81-95.

23. For a cogent argument on this, see Lawrence Grossberg, ‘Introduction: Bringingit All Back Home – Pedagogy and Cultural Studies’ in Henry A. Giroux and PeterMcLaren (eds.), Between Borders — Pedagogy and the Politics of Cultural Studies,(New York: Routledge, 1994: 1-29).

24. For instance, a highly qualified Professor who left a renowned campus recentlyfor private consultancy commented that with too many ‘mofusil’ students inhis class he was worried that if he stayed longer he too would introduce himselfas “Myself so and So from So and So place” thereby making a dig at the vernacularstyles of personal introduction. Some other colleagues commented on how theywould have nothing to do with a board of studies that was largely manned bythe ‘Safari Brigade’; commenting on the Safari suit — a style of the early 1980snow considered passé by the elite but which has been reinvented as a modern


formal wear by male teachers and bureaucrats from dalit-bahujan classes. Thesartorial and other routine practices of our different and unequal modernitiesare begging for serious academic investigation.

25. See Lis Stanley, ‘An Autobiography in Sociology’ in Sociology (Vol. 27, No. 1,1993,pp. 41-55).

26. ‘Unsettling Relations’ is the title of an excellent collection of essays on theuniversity as site of feminist struggles. See Himani Bannerji, Linda Carty et.al.,Unsettling Relations — The University as a site of Feminist Struggles, (Boston:South End Press, 1992).

27. I am thankful to a number of colleagues for their insights on interrogating the‘success’ of women’s studies in the academy; to Vidyut Bhagwat for long standingconversations on fractures of limiting the practice of women’s studies to English,Uma Chakravarti, Mary John, Tejaswini Niranjana, Rekha Pappu and VandanaSonalkar for discussions in different contexts on pedagogies in women’s studies,Anagha Tambe, Swati Dyahadroy for continued exchange of notes on the painsand pleasures of ‘teaching gender studies’ and Sugeeta, Sneha, Sanjay, Nirmala,Tina, Nagesh, Sangeeta, Deepa and Roopali for their weekly reflections fromdiverse social locations on processes of teaching and learning women’s studies.

28. See Jenny, ‘Opening Up to Research : A Personal Narrative’ in IAWS Newsletter,Women’s Studies Centre, University of Pune, December 2003.

29. I am thankful to the several batches (from 1991 to the present) of Masters,M.Phil. and Ph.D. students at the Department of Sociology and since 1995 atthe Krantijyoti Savitribai Phule Women’s Studies Centre for the collective effortsin building and disrupting the pedagogical space. Their classroom interactions,‘traditional’ day celebrations, parties, note and letters of criticism andappreciation, in fact makes the very exercise of this lecture possible.

30. For a provocative and evocative account of ‘home’ See Biddy Martin and ChandaTalpade-Mohanty, ‘Feminist Politics: What’s Home Got to Do with it?’ in TeresaDe Lauretis (ed.) Feminist Studies/Critical Studies (Bloomington: IndianaUniversity Press, 1986).

31. This is a question R. Radhakrishnan pursues profoundly in his accounts ofcultural politics of parenting and pedagogies in the diaspora. See R.Radhakrishnan. Between Identity and Location: The Cultural Politics of Theory(Hyderabad: Orient Longman, 2007).

32. I draw upon and seek to rework the models of progressive pedagogies outlined byLawrence Grossberg, op.cit., 1994.

33. See Bell Hooks, ‘Eros, Eroticism, and the Pedagogical Process’, in Henry A.Giroux and Peter McLaren (eds.), Between Borders: Pedagogy and the Politics ofCultural Studies, (New York: Routledge, 1994:113-119).

34. For a nuanced discussion on confrontation as against safety in the classroom,see Hooks; op.cit., 1989.

35. See Carolyn McKinney, ‘A Balancing Act: ethical dilemmas of democratic teachingwithin critical pedagogy’ in Educational Action Research (Volume 13, No. 3, 2005:375-91).


36. This draws upon the hit Hindi film number ‘Pappu can’t dance…’ from the filmJaane Tu Ya Jaane Na. Pappu in the vernacular generally refers to those youngpeople considered to be ‘not so smart or happening’ by those who name what’sin and out. This section will look at moments in which it seems that “Pappus’can also dance – but do they?”

37. For a compelling argument on complex relation between these fields and theirpedagogical practices especially on the pedagogical challenges to feminism inthe cultural studies classroom, see Tejaswini Niranjana ‘Feminism and Culturalstudies in Asia’ in Interventions, Vol 9, No. 2, pp. 209-218.

38. See Samata Biswas, ‘Culture and Caste in CIEFL: The Classical DebateContinues’, in Insight, September10, 2005

39. For more on critical feminist pedagogies of dialogue, participation and experiencesee Esther Ngan-Ling Chow, Chadveck Fleck et al. ‘Exploring Critical FeministPedagogy: Infusing Dialogue, Participation and Experience in Teaching andLearning’ in ‘Teaching Sociology, Vol. 31, No. 3, July 2003, pp. 259-275.

40. I would like to thank for their insights, interventions, energy and affection –Anil Jaybhaye, Nagnath Shelke, Deepa Tak and Tina Aranha who assisted inteaching the Popular Culture course over the last two semesters.

41. Uma Chakravarti, ‘Foreword’, in M.A. Class of 2008 (ed.) Exploring the Popular:texts, identities and politics (Pune: KSP, Women’s Studies Centre, University ofPune, 2008).

42. I am rephrasing the title of Mariscal’s article – see Jorge Marsical ‘Can Culturalstudies Speak Spanish?’ in Toby Miller (ed.) A Companion to Cultural Studies(MA: Blackwell Publishers: 2006).

Participation and Consequences of Education... 37

Participation and Consequences ofEducation of Scheduled Castes in

Andhra PradeshP. ADINARAYANA REDDY* and E. MAHADEVA REDDY**

Abstract

The NCERT has designed a multi-centric study covering a number of states toidentify the participation and consequences of education of the Scheduled Castesby inviting selected experts in the field. The study was designed to cover selectedstates and one of the states selected for the study is Andhra Pradesh. The presentpaper is a part of the project deals mainly with the SC parents’ perceptions towardseducation of their children, progress of the literacy among Scheduled Castes inthe selected districts. The findings of the study includes progress of education ofthe Scheduled Castes and non-Scheduled Castes in the study area in terms ofenrolment, retention, transition, parental perception towards experiences providedby the schools, its accessibility, teacher efficiency etc. Further, it also identifies theprogress of literacy in the sample area, the literacy programmes that have beenimplemented, extent of registrations in the employment exchanges by the ScheduledCastes and non Scheduled Castes in the selected areas were also identified.

The Scheduled Castes are one of themarginalised groups in terms of socialand economic status and constitute16.19 per cent to the total population ofAndhra Pradesh. This section of thepopulation are considered asuntouchables and located in theoutskirts of the habitations. Most of themare illiterates or educated up to primary

*Director and **Research Scholar, Department of Adult and Continuing Education, S.V. University, Tirupati.

level lack of various essential skills anddepend mostly on manual labour for theirlivelihood. Of them, women were foundto be most affected section. Recognisingtheir plight, the Government has broughtout a number of legislations to safeguardtheir rights. In addition, they have beenprovided a number of welfare measuresto accelerate the pace of their socio-


economic development. Education isconsidered as one of the meansto promote the socio-economicdevelopment. Keeping this in view,education was given priority at all levelsby providing reservation at the entrylevels, supporting them financially toretain them in the system and also inthe employment. Further, a number ofwelfare programmes have been initiatedfor the households so as to allow theirchildren to pursue their education.Besides, priority was accorded for thissection in the non-formal stream ofeducation not only to promote theirliteracy levels but also to develop theircompetencies required for them to enterinto the world of work through vocationaltraining programmes.

All these measures significantlyincreased the enrolment of the SCchildren in the formal system ofeducation, but for one reason or theother, more than half of them werewithdrawn before reaching 5th standardand three-fourths of them were not ableto move beyond the high school (Bhatt,2005). In other words, it appears that thepeople enrolled in the formal systemeducation from these sections were notable to cope up within the system ofeducation due to the externalenvironment or due to lack of adjustmentand adaptability with the system leadingto their dropout. Hence, there is a needto probe deeply into the experiences ofthese people and their parental opinionstowards the educational system. In caseof adult education too, the promotions ofliteracy among these groups have to bestudied in terms of enrolment, successrate and transition from literacy to post

literacy and to continuing educationprogramme. The knowledge generatedout of these efforts will go a long way inhelping these groups to use the existingsystems by socialising themselves withthe other groups, bringing social changein the society for accepting their presenceand claim the ladder of social mobility.Hence, it is an imperative study theperceptions of the household heads,especially the parents who areresponsible for the education of theirchildren and the participation of thefamily members in the literacyprogrammes and the consequences oftheir participation.

Review of literatureKeeping the above in backdrop, anattempt has been made to review thestudies already conducted in this sphereto identify the lacunae and to identify thepriority area. The available studiesconducted in these areas of education ofscheduled castes were classified under4 subheads - I. Psychological Problems,Educational Problems, and EducationDevelopment and Miscellaneous studies.The studies relating to the adoption, self-image, self-concept, interpersonalrelationships, occupation aspirations,vocational needs of the scheduled casteshave been conducted by Singh (1981),Naidu (1981), Desai (1981), Gupta (1979),Mishra (1978), Rangari (1984), OmPrakash (1986), NCERT (1987), Agarkarand others (1986), Gaur (1989), YasodaGaur (1989), Kakkar (1990), RajaniGautham (1990), Archana Agarwal(1992), Lal (1995) etc. comes underpsychological problems. The studies onEducational Problems of Scheduled


Castes conducted byChandrasekhariah, K. (1969), Sharma(1974), Joshi (1976), Kripal (1978),D’Souza, Victors (1980), Goyal (1981),Pimpley (1981), Satyanarayana (1982),Singh (1982), Thyagarajan (1983),Seetharamu,(1986),Elangovan (1989)and Sachchidananda (1991) relatingto the problems encountered by thestudents, while pursuing their education,institutional problems in deliveringeducation are grouped under thebroad theme viz., educational problemsof the scheduled castes etc. A few studiesof Lal, Sheo Kumar and Nahar, UmedRaj, (1978), Nautiyal (1979), Govt. ofIndia (1981), Swaminathan, (1982),University Grants Commission (1985),Prameela Bai (1986), Showeb (1986),Ram (1987), Bhargava and Mittal (1988),Gupta (1988), etc. are grouped underEducational Development amongScheduled Castes. The studiesconducted by Forester (1975), Sudame(1983), Yadav (1983), Mathur (1984),Yadav (1984) and Sabnis and Mahurkar(1985) are miscellaneous in nature butare connected to the SCs, hence theywere grouped.

Statement of the problem

Participation and Consequences ofEducation of Scheduled Castes in AndhraPradesh.

Operational Definitions

Education — For the purpose of thestudy, Education refers to the educationprovided in the schools, viz., primary,secondary and higher secondary in theformal stream of education and literacy

promotion activities undertaken underTotal Literacy Campaign, Post LiteracyProgramme, Continuing Education,Akshara Sankranthi and AksharaBharathi programmes.Participation — Participation refers tothe enrolment of the target at variouslevels of formal and non-formal streamof educationConsequences — It refers to net resultof the participation of the target in formaland non-formal stream of education. Tobe specific, it refers to the experiences,participation, dropout and success ratein case of formal education and theextent of attainment of literacy, transitionfrom literacy to post literacy and tocontinuing education in case of adulteducation.Scheduled Castes — The ScheduledCastes are those castes which have beenincorporated in the schedule as per therecommendations of the NationalCommission for SC & ST and ratified bythe Parliament. In case of AndhraPradesh, the SCs are broadly classifiedunder four major groups viz., Adi Andhra,Madiga, Mala and Rally with a numberof independent castes in each group.

Objectives of the study

Keeping in view of the above, the studyformulated the following objectives:

1. To examine and analyse thecurrent status of education inAndhra Pradesh with specialreference to Scheduled Castes.

2. To identify the perceptions of theparents towards education of thechildren and the support extendedby them.


3. To examine the awareness andextent of utilisation of the welfaremeasures available for ScheduledCastes and to find out the reasonsof the non-utilisation of suchfacilities.

4. To study the status of literacypromotion programmesimplemented and literacy in theState of Andhra Pradesh and extentof progress attained in literacy withspecial reference to ScheduledCastes.

5. To compare the Scheduled Casteand Non Scheduled Caste in termsof their participation at variouslevels of education in AndhraPradesh.

6. To study the trend of employmentseekers among Scheduled and NonScheduled Castes in the study area.

In the light of the above objectives,the investigator has formulated specificquestions to be answered.

Research Questions

The research questions of the study areas follow —

1. What is the educational status ofScheduled Castes vis-à-vis otherswith reference to enrolment,dropout and transition fromprimary to secondary level?

2. What are the facilities available inthe SC habitations for promotion ofeducation?

3. Whether basic facilities areavailable in the schools?

4. What are the perceptions of theparents towards the relevance ofeducation?

5. Whether the parents felt schoolenvironment and infrastructuralfacilities are conducive foreducation for their children?

6. What are the aspirations of theparents towards their children’seducation?

7. What is the opinion of the parentstowards the value of education?

8. Are there any differences betweenthe perceptions of the parents ofScheduled Castes and othersacross socio-economic groups aboutthe relevance of education?

9. Do the parents aware of thefacilities and incentives provided toScheduled Castes at different levelsof education?

10. What are various facilities availedby the Scheduled Castes and towhat extent?

11. What are the reasons for non-utilisation of the available facilities?

12. What is the literacy status amongthe Scheduled Castes vis-à-visothers with reference to enrolment,success and transition fromliteracy to post literacy andcontinuing education?

13. What is the extent of employmentseekers among the scheduledcastes with different educationalqualifications?

Scope of the study

The present study is designed to identifythe status of the education in theScheduled Castes in terms of primaryeducation and literacy programmes incomparison with non-scheduled castes.Further, it is also intended to study theperceptions of the Scheduled Castes


towards utility of education, facilitiesmade available and awareness of welfareprogrammes designed and implementedby the Government and extent of theirutilisation. In addition, it also analysesvarious literacy programmes in the lastdecade and extent of the attainment ofsuccess with special focus on scheduledcastes in the State of Andhra Pradesh.

Methodology

The paper is the part of the nationwidemulti-centric study conducted on behalfof the NCERT by the investigators during2006-07 in the state of Andhra Pradeshto study the participation andconsequences of the education of theScheduled Castes. The study has beenconducted with the financial support ofthe NCERT. Further, the investigatorhas participated in the 5-day workshoporganised by the NCERT at New Delhito design the study and to develop theframework for developing the tools. Theinvestigator has adopted themethodology as suggested in theworkshop in executing the project. Themethodology adopted is as follows—

1. Locale and Sample of the study

As the study was formulated to identifythe participation and consequences ofeducation in Scheduled Castes inAndhra Pradesh, the locale of the studyis the State of Andhra Pradesh. For thepurpose of collection of primary data, ofthree districts having highest ScheduledCaste Population, i.e., one district fromeach region was selected. In each district,2 mandals having highest and lowestScheduled Caste population wasselected. In the third stage of sample

selection, from each mandal 3 villageshaving highest, moderate and lowest SChouseholds were selected. In the fourthstage, all the households of SChabitations and equal households inmixed habitations covering not morethan 100 households from each mandalwere chosen. The sample unit of thepresent study is household. Among thehouseholds, the criteria of having school-going children or the adult memberattending the adult education centre wasadopted for choosing the household assample unit of the study. By adopting theabove criteria, the study has covered 600SC households and 100 non-SChouseholds. Out of them, 540 SC parentsand 100 non-SC parents were selectedas sample of the study. All the householdheads constituted the sub-sample of thestudy. On the whole, 18 villages, 540 SCand 100 non-SC parents constitute thesample of the study.

2. Tools used for the study

As the study is intended to identify theparticipation and consequences ofeducation in the Scheduled Castes, theinformation is required to be collectedfrom the areas of primary educationand literacy in the state of AndhraPradesh — both from primary andsecondary sources. The data onsecondary information was collected fromthe records maintained at various levelsof educational administration. Theprimary data has been collected from thehousehold heads parents to study abouttheir opinion towards the various aspectsof education. In order to collect the same,a tool is required. Among all the possible


tools the schedule was found to be thebest option as it not only helps togenerate required information throughpersonal interaction but can also elicitadditional clarifications. Hence, for thepurpose of the study, a schedule wasdesigned keeping in view of the objectivesof the study. The section I of the schedulewas designed to elicit the information onpersonal background information. Thesecond section is designed to elicit theinformation on the perceptions of theparents towards the education of theirchildren, their participation, aspirations,attitude towards value of education,relevance of education to the present daycontext etc. Besides, a village scheduleand school schedule was also devised tocollect the relevant information.

3. Administration of the tools and collection of the data

For the purpose of the present study, thedata is required both from secondary andprimary sources. The informationrelating to the performance of the formaleducation in terms of enrolment,dropouts, success rate, transition,facilities in the school, incentivesprovided for SC children, literacyprogrammes implemented in the Stateand study area in terms of enrolment,target, achievement, expenditureincurred in different programmes werecollected from the secondary sources. Inaddition to the above, the investigatorhas also collected the secondary datafrom the mandal, district and State leveloffices looking after the primaryeducation and adult educationprogrammes. Further, information wasalso collected about the registration ofthe Scheduled Castes with different

levels of education for employment fromemployment exchanges and StateDirectorate of Employment and Training.

The primary data was collected byadministering the schedule to theparents of the children studying informal education. The household headwas treated as the representative of thehousehold and for the purpose of thepresent study treated as sub sample toelicit the primary information onmultifarious aspects of education. Inaddition, the investigator has alsocollected the information pertaining tothe facilities available in the habitationsand schools for the promotion ofeducation.

4. Analysis of the data

The primary data thus collected wasfound to be more qualitative in natureand the data was not subjected to therigorous statistical analysis. However,simple statistical techniques likepercentages and means were used tointerpret and to draw the conclusions.

Findings of the study

The findings of the study were presentedin 9 sections, viz., the Population Profileof the Andhra Pradesh with specialreference to Scheduled Castes forms thesection I. Section II elucidates theEducational Scenario of the State andthe study area in terms of number ofschools functioning, number of teachers,enrolment, dropout rate and success rateat terminal points. The Section IIIappraises the Status of Literacy inAndhra Pradesh with special referenceto Scheduled Castes. Further, LiteracyPromotion Programmes implemented inthe State and the study area in terms of


enrolment, success rate and expenditureincurred etc. were also encapsulated. Theprofile of the scheduled castes waspresented in the section IV. Section Vpresents profile of the household heads.The characteristics of the sample werepresented in section VI. The parentsperception towards various aspects ofeducation such as relevance ofeducation, assistance rendered by themto their children, their participation inthe school activities, their aspirationstowards their wards education,regularity of their wards, functioning ofthe schools, their attitudes towards valueof education, knowledge about theincentives provided and utilisation by theSC children etc. are the accentuated insection VII. Section VIII indicates thefacilities available in the habitations andin the schools for promotion of education.The findings from all the sections are asfollow:

Andhra Pradesh has a totalpopulation of 7, 62, 10,007 (2001 Census)with an area of 2.75,069 sq. kms whichaccounts for 7.37 per cent of thecountry’s population and 8.4 per cent ofthe area of the country. As per the 2001Census, there are 123.40 lakhs ofScheduled castes population in the stateand accounts for 16.10 per cent of thetotal population of Andhra Pradesh.

The growth rate of population duringthe decade 1991-2001 is 12.86 per centin the state as against 21.34 per cent inthe country. The decadal growth rateshows a declining trend from 24.20 percent between 1981 and 1991 to 13.88 percent between 1991 and 2001. Thedensity of the population has increasedfrom 242 per sq km in 1991 to 275 per

sq km in 2001. The districts with highdensity of population are West Godavari(493), Krishna (485) and Rangareddy(468). The urban district of Hyderabadhas the highest density (18432) ofpopulation while Adilabad district hasthe least density (154) of population.

The literacy rate of the state is 60.47per cent as per 2001 Census and thegender-wise literacy rate is 70.32 per centin males and in females, it is 50.43 percent. The literacy percentage of rural is50.50 per cent, which is 15.82 per centlower than the urban literacy rate. Incase of male, it is 83.19 per cent in urbanareas and it is 65.35 per cent in ruralmen. In case of women, it is 43.50 percent in rural which is 25.24 per centlower than the urban women.

The population of the ChittoorDistrict is 37,45,875. Out of it, 18.75 percent belongs to scheduled castes. In thegeneral population, 50.44 per cent aremen and 49.56 per cent are women. Incase of scheduled castes, 50.32 per centare males and 49.68 per cent are females.The female population of scheduledcastes is slightly more in comparisonwith the general population. Out of thetotal scheduled caste population, 78.35per cent is living in rural areas. In therural population, 50.32 per cent arewomen. In case of the urban population,again males (50.75%) have outnumberedthe females (49.25%). In case ofKarimnagar District, the total populationconstitutes 34,91,822. Out of it, 18.62 percent belongs to scheduled castes. In thegeneral population, 50.06 per cent ofthem are men and 49.56 per cent arewomen. In case of scheduled castes50.10 per cent of them are men and


49.90 per cent are women. The ruralpopulation of the District constitutes80.56 per cent to the total population.On the other hand, urban scheduledcaste population of the Districtconstitutes 19.44 per cent. In the ruralscheduled caste population, the womenout numbered the men with 50.15 percent, i.e., the women population of therural scheduled castes is 14,10,731,whereas men population (14,02,279) ofthe District comprises 49.08 per cent.The trend of the gender differences of thedistrict shows that it is women-pronedistrict. The total population of thePrakasam district comprises 30,59,423.Out of them, 50.74 per cent are men and49.26 per cent are women. Out of thegeneral population, scheduled castesconstitute 21.29 per cent and 50.73 percent are men and women constitutes49.27 per cent. The rural population ofthe district constitutes 84.72 per centand the urban population is 15.28 percent only. In the rural population, 50.78per cent of them are men and 49.22 percent of them are women. In case ofurban area 50.46 per cent of them aremen and 49.54 per cent are women.Among the scheduled castes, 91.77 percent are based in rural areas and 8.23per cent of them are located in urbanareas. Out of the rural, 50.80 per cent ofthem are men and 49.20 per cent arewomen. In case of urban SC population,49.95 per cent are men and 50.05 percent are women.

At the state level, the scheduledcastes population comprises 16.19 percent. In case of districts selected for thestudy, Prakasam District has highestscheduled castes population to the totalpopulation, i.e., 21.29 per cent followed

by Chittoor (18.75%) and Karimnagar(12.44%). In terms of gender variations,Karimnagar has highest females withingeneral and as well as scheduled castespopulation followed by Chittoor andPrakasam districts. In case of state as awhole, proportion of women fromscheduled castes are more in number incomparison with the general females.

The sex ratio of the scheduled castespopulation in the study area shows thatthe Karimnagar District has highest sexratio with 998 women for 1000 men whichare higher than the state level of 978.The Chittoor occupies second position insex ratio with 982 which is also higherthan the state level. In case of Prakasamdistrict, it is 971, which is lower than thestate sex ratio. In case of rural areas,again the Karimnagar district hashighest women population with 1006,which is higher than the state level sexratio of the rural population, i.e., 983. Theratios for Chittoor and Prakasamdistricts is 986 and 969 respectively. TheChittoor has higher sex ratio than thestate level whereas in case of Prakasamit is lower than the state level. In case ofurban population at the state level, thesex ratio is 965. In case of study area,the Chittoor and Prakasam districts havethe ratio 970 and 982, which is higherthan the state average. However, in caseof Karimnagar, it is 964 which is lowerthan the state level.

A comparative picture of the literacyrates among the general population andSC population shows that there is avariation, i.e., 60.47 per cent and 53.52per cent respectively. However, amongthe general population, there is a widevariation between the men and womeni.e., more than 20 per cent. Similar trend


resembles even in case of SC population.Among both the groups there are moreliterate persons in the men than thewomen. In case of study area i.e., inChittoor District, literacy percentageamong general population is 66.77 percent, and it is 59.99 per cent amongScheduled castes. The gender differenceis 21.84 per cent in case of generalpopulation and it is 21.87 per cent inSCs. The gender variation is almostsimilar in both the groups. The literacypercentage in Prakasam district is 54.9per cent and it is 46.47 per cent amongScheduled Castes. The gender variationin literacy among general population is24.34 per cent, and it is 22.42 per centin the SCs. In case of Karimnagar, thedifference in literacy rates between totalpopulation and SC population is 4.48 percent only. The gender difference ingeneral population is 24.27 per cent andit is 24.84 per cent in case of ScheduledCastes. On the whole, the literacy ratein men in comparison with women ishigher in case of the state as well asdistricts of the study area. Further, theliteracy rate in women was found to verylow in Prakasam district.

The numbers of schools establishedduring 2000-2001 is 76,091 and thenumber of schools has gone up to 96,277by 2007, i.e., there was an increase of26.53 per cent. During this period, theincrease in primary schools, is found tobe only 11.20 per cent the number ofsecondary schools has increased by81.79 per cent. On the other hand, theincreases in high schools are found tobe 57.58 per cent.

The number of teachers working inthe primary, upper primary, high school

and higher secondary schools hasproportionately increased in the lastseven years. In case of primaryeducation, the strength of the teachershas increased from 1, 33,546 to 1,67,723.In other words, there is an increase of25.59 per cent in the last 7 years. Thenumber of teachers working at upperprimary schools is also increased from20.73 to 25.65 per cent. On the otherhand, the teachers working at highschool level has increased in absolutenumber but decreased in terms ofpercentage to the total population of theteachers.

The enrolment at pre-primary leveleducation has increased from 2.44 percent to 5.12 per cent in course of sevenyear i.e., from 2000-01 to 2006-07However, the enrolment at Primary level(I – V) has gradually decreased between2000-01 and 2006-07. The reason forthe decrease in enrolment is due to thereduced population in the age group of6–10 years. The enrolment in UpperPrimary (VI–VII) and Secondary Stages(VIII–X) has increased steadily between2000-01 and 2006-07 due to theexpansion of the high school educationand increase in retention of children inthe high school education. The successrate was found to be ranged between53.26 and 79.25 per cent in all thestudents. On the other hand, thesuccess rate in the scheduled castes isfound to be 57.73 to 75.93 per cent. Incase of the success rate between 1ststandard and 5th standard among all thestudents, it was found to be rangedbetween 76.54 per cent and 99.19 percent and in scheduled castes, it isbetween 88.59 per cent and 102.38 per cent.


There are 1,75,15,658 studentsparticipating at various levels ofeducation in Andhra Pradesh. Of them,55.20 per cent are males and 44.80 percent are females. The institution-wiseparticipation shows that majority of thegeneral population and Scheduled Castestudents are at the school level, i.e.,89.91 and 91.38 per cent respectively.Out of the school-going population, again54.48 and 45.52 per cent of them areboys and girls in the general population.In case of Scheduled Caste students, itis 53.39 and 44.61 per cent in boys andgirls respectively. The participation atcollege level, between generalpopulations is 7.44 per cent whereas incase of Scheduled Castes it is only 5.27per cent. The participation of malestudents at college level, among generaland Scheduled Castes is 9.21 and 6.82per cent respectively. However, in caseof females, their participation is 5.25 ingeneral population and 3.34 per cent inScheduled Castes. In case of the studyarea, the participation rates in theScheduled Castes at the school level aremore than 90 per cent. To be specific,the participation is more in case ofKarimnagar (94.18%), followed byPrakasam (93.25%) and Chittoor(91.82%). Akin trend is being seen incase of general population. Theparticipation at the college level in thestudy area in the general populationshows that it is 6.99 per cent in Chittoor,followed by Prakasam (6.82%) andKarimnagar (6.44%). In case ofScheduled Castes, the participationrates at the college level are more in caseof Prakasam (5.10%), followed byChittoor (4.93%) and Karimnagar(4.63%).

The enrolment of all children andscheduled castes in different classes isstarting from pre-primary to 7th class inthe study area of Chittoor, Prakasam andKarimnagar shows that it graduallyreduces from Class 1st to Class 7thindicating that there are dropouts atvarious stages and low re-enrolment ofthe discontinued children. The trend isresemired in all districts.

The trend of the dropout rate in theschool aged children studying 1ststandard to 7th standard in the studyarea, i.e., Chittoor, Prakasam andKarimnagar districts shows that 1ststandard to 5th standard, the meandropout rate of the three districts, i.e.,Chittoor, Prakasam and Karimnagar is14.20, 31.32, 27,19 per cent respectively.However, the dropout rate in case ofscheduled caste, it is 16.21 per cent inChittoor and in Prakasam andKarimnagar and it is 36.01 and 35.78 percent respectively. The dropout-rate inboth the groups was found to be low inChittoor district and high in Prakasamdistrict. Similar trend is also seen in caseof Class I to Class VII. Among the sexgroups, the dropout rates are found tobe more in comparison with the boys inall the groups. The dropout-rate inPrakasam district is found to be morefollowed by Karimnagar and Chittoor.

The state has undertaken TotalLiteracy Campaigns in all the districtsand enrolled 128.44 lakhs illiterates andout of them 80.45 lakhs have completedthe primer III. The overall achievementagainst the target was found to be 55.76per cent increased. In the Post-LiteracyProgrammes, 52.46 lakh neo-literateshave completed PL1 primer. Out of 23districts, 21 districts have entered into


the phase of Continuing EducationProgramme with a sanctioned strengthof 2,227 Nodal Continuing EducationCentres and 17797 ContinuingEducation Centres. Out of them, 2,105Nodal Continuing Education Centresand 17,282 Continuing EducationCentres are in operation. The ContinuingEducation Centres were able to cater tothe needs of 82, 58,940 beneficiaries. Outof them, 38,88,379 are men and43,70,561 are women. In caste point ofview, 12,43,464 belong to ScheduledCastes and 3,70,516 Scheduled Casteswere using these centres. As a part ofthe mopping up of the Total LiteracyCampaign for eradication of residualilliteracy, a special drive has been takenup by the State Government in the nameof the Akshara-Sankranthi programmein four phases 2000-01 to 2003-04.Under this programme, 139.37 lakhilliterates were enrolled and 78.95 lakhswere made literate. Later, AksharaBharathi programme was initiated and11.05 lakhs persons were made literateagainst the enrolment of 16.58 lakhs inthe first phase. The second phase of theprogramme was launched in March 2006with an enrolment of 6.44 lakhs. Inaddition to the above two programmes,the Government of India has sanctioneda Project on Residual Illiteracy (PRI) for10 low literacy districts, viz. Srikakulam,Vijayanagaram, Kurnool, Mahboobnagar,Medak, Nizamabad, Adilabad,Karimnagar, Khammam and Anantapurof the State to cover 21.81 lakhilliterates. The first phase of PRIprogramme has enrolled 16.83 lakhsilliterates and was able to literate 11.08lakhs. The second phase was launchedon 15th March 2006 with an enrolment

of 5.93 lakh illiterates. The overallachievement under different schemesshows that the state was able of cover80.45 lakh under TLC/moppingprogramme, 90 lakhs under otherschemes and 1.02 lakhs under residualCE phase. On the whole it has covered191.44 lakh illiterates.

The Karimnagar district hasimplemented all the literacy programmesinitiated by the State Government andenrolled 19.29 lakh and 14.57 lakhs ofthem were made literates. Of the totalSCs, 4.52 lakhs of them were enrolled inliteracy programmes and 3.38 lakhs weremade literate. In order to implement theabove programmes an amount of Rs. 6.5crores has been spent.

The Prakasam district has enrolled11.83 lakhs and out of them, 69 per centhave attained the literacy. In case ofSCs, the attainment rate is 56.23 per centonly. On the whole, the district has spentRs 5.67 crores for literating 8.17 lakhs.

In case of Chittoor district, it hasactively participated in all theprogrammes and enrolled 17.32 lakhsilliterates and attained literacy in 14.42lakhs. In case of Scheduled Castes ithas enrolled 4.08 lakhs and literated3.84 lakhs.

The profile of the Scheduled Castesof Andhra Pradesh shows that theyconstitute 16.19 per cent to the totalpopulation and 82.50 per cent of themare dwelling in rural areas. Nelloredistrict has the highest SC populationand Vishakhapatnam has lowestpopulation. The sex ratio in SCs is 981per 1000, which is higher than thegeneral population i.e., 978. Nizamabadhas highest sex ratio (1046) andAnantapur the least (956). The literacy


rate in the SC population is 53.50 percent. Their work participation is 50.5 percent which is higher than the statepopulation (45.8%). Majority of them aremain workers (79.2%), and among them68.3 per cent involved in agriculture.Majority of them are Hindus. The workparticipation in the SC school-goingchildren is 2 per cent. In case of out ofschool children, majority of them aremain and marginal workers and workparticipation is more in case of 15-19years.

Profile of the sample householdsshows that majority of them are headedby men with low income groupsdepending on labour for their livelihood.Majority of the families belong to nuclearfamilies with 2-4 children. Livingstandards show that majority of thembelong to medium standard of livingwithout any land. The household incomeshows that they have income up toRs 20,000/-. They were exposed totelevision and benefited from thedevelopmental programmes. Majority ofthem were not aware of the adulteducation and non-formal educationprogrammes. Their participation insocial organisations is limited to self-helpgroups.

The characteristics of the sample ofthe parents selected show that majorityof them are in the age group of 31-40years’ labourers and belong to nuclearfamilies. Level of education shows thatthey belong to low educated group with2-4 members in the family along with 2-3 children. Majority of them have givenin the majority priority for the educationof their children as it improves theirstatus. Majority of children were found

to be regular to the schools, cover abovehalf kilometre to attend the school anddoes not have any problems in attendingthe schools. Parents are assisting theirchildren in their studies and teacher isthe alternative support for those whocouldn’t support their childreneducation. Half of the parents are usingthe services of their children in domesticwork. They feel that the children arestudying at home especially in eveningabout 1 to 2 hours. Children interactwith the parents and inform about theschool activities. The extra curricularactivities were found to be useful to thechildren and felt that the teachers areextending their support to the educationof their children. Majority of the teacherswere found to be effective and inefficiencyamong the teachers is due to theirirregularity. The students were able tocomplete the home work in time. Parentsare found to be participating in theactivities of the school and are aware ofthe parents-teachers meetings andsuggested that teacher’s regularity to theschool improves the educativeenvironment of the school. Parents aresatisfied about the physical facilitiesavailable in the schools; aware andutilized the facilities provide to theirchildren and have high aspirationsabout the education of their children,have positive attitude towards value ofeducation and functioning of the school.Majority of them have been exposed tothe urban areas and interacted with thedevelopmental programme functionariesfrequently. Similar trend is also seen incase of Non-SC parents.

Employment seekers with schooleducation among SCs have steeply


increased from 37.44 per cent to 49.20per cent over a period of five years andduring the same period, the registrationof non-SC has decreased from 62.56 to50.80 per cent. In case of SCs with SSCand less qualification, there was amarginal increase and there was adecrease from 52.50 per cent to 48.90 percent during the Non-SC registration. Incase of intermediate qualifications, therewas a decrease in case of SCs in Chittoordistrict and increase in case ofKarimnagar and Prakasam districts.Similar trend being seen in case of Non-Scheduled Castes. In case of graduatesand technical education graduates, theregistrations have gone up significantlyin case of SC graduation. In case oftechnical graduation, the registrationhave gone up in case of Chittoor andPrakasam districts and there is adecrease in Karimnagar district,contrary to the above in case of non-SCsthe registrations have gone down in caseof Chittoor and Prakasam districts andincreased in Karimnagar district.

ConclusionsThe participation of the scheduledcastes, both in the formal and non-formal stream of education was found tobe encouraging. The opinion of theparents towards the education systemand their perception about theusefulness of education to their childrenare found to be the consequence of theirparticipation in the education. Theadministrators and policy-makersshould take the prevailing situation fortheir advantage and increase theparticipation of the Scheduled Castes inthe educational system so as tomainstream them in the society enablethem to claim the ladder of socialmobility. The perception of the non-scheduled castes towards theparticipation of the scheduled castes ineducation is also found to beencouraging. This reflects the changedscenario of the society. Hence, effectiveadministrative, academic and welfaremeasures will bring radical changes insocio-educational scenario of the country.

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Teaching of Social ScienceA Situated Cognition Perspective

SANDEEP KUMAR*

Abstract

This paper aimed to provide an understanding about the teaching of social studieswith reference of situated cognition. It starts with the understanding of meaning,nature and scope of social studies. Paper also talks about the basic objectives ofteaching of social studies. It also include the understanding of situated cognition,its nature, scope and pedagogical implications. Following these there is an attemptto present the relationship between situated cognition and teaching of social studiesor why we need situated cognition to teach social studies. The presenter of thispaper has presented some educational implications with the examples from differentclasses.

Introduction

Long after history, geography, civics,economics and sociology were introducedas independent subjects, social studieswas offered as a study includingessential elements of all these socialsciences. The social studies areunderstood to be those whose subjectmatter relates directly to the organisationand development of human society andto man as a member of social groups.(Commission of reorganisation ofsecondary education of associations,United State of America). What we studyin social studies is the life of man in someparticular place at some particular time.

*Lecturer, Department of Education, CIE, University of Delhi.

Therefore, we use every possible ‘subject’to help us understand his problems andhow he dealt or deals with them…..Man’sstruggle with environment yesterday andtoday, man’s use or misuse of his powersand resources, his development, theessential unity of civilisation these arethe main themes of social studies. (Socialstudies committee of schools board,Victoria).

Social studies is a field of study whichdeals with man, his relations with othermen and his environment. Its content isdrawn from several social sciences butis not determined by the discipline of anyone of these. Rather the content andorganisation of social studies derive

Teaching of Social Science... 53

directly from the purposes for which it istaught. Those purposes include anunderstanding of human relationships,knowledge of the environment,dedication to the basic principles andvalues of the society in which it is taught,and a commitment to participate in theprocesses through which that society ismaintained and improved. These are themost important characteristics of thesocial studies point of view.

As an inter-disciplinary course itdraws its contents selectively fromseveral other branches of knowledge andhuman experience. The scope of thesocial studies is continuously growing,as the social process and problems arechanging from time to time. Its contentmust be revised periodically. The field ofsocial studies covers the study ofcommunities at all level — local, regional,national and international, focusing onman and his social environment.

Social studies provides situation inwhich school children may use relatedlearning in a functional and naturalsetting for the application and use ofknowledge and basic skill in solvinghuman problem. Thus, it may be usedas means of integrating various schoolactivities and experiences.

The breadth, comprehensiveness,variety and extension of learningexperiences, provided through theteaching of social studies, make its scopeas wide as the world and as long as thehistory of man on this earth.

Social studies include the study ofthose social sciences and humanities,which can be applied for a practicalunderstanding of human relationships.These are history, geography, economics,civics, sociology, literature, religion and

psychology, social studies view thesesocial sciences as a compact whole in theprocess of synthesising these subjectsinto a new field, blending them together,making it a compact and coordinatedwhole. Social studies make a manhuman. It describes the entire range ofhuman history from the earliest timedown to the latest moment and the widestreaches of contemporary society.

Social sciences and natural sciencesare inter-related. Recent advances in thefields of physical sciences, industry andtechnology have revolutionised social lifein all parts of the world. These haveextended man’s vision from family toneighbourhood, from neighbourhood totown, from town to region, from region tonation and even beyond expanding thearea of human relationship from local,regional and national level tointernational level. Therefore thefunctional study of natural and physicalsciences like physics, chemistry, botany,zoology and physiology etc., is animportant part of social studiesprogrammed. For example, whilechemistry helps to eradicate variousdiseases, history helps chemistry inproviding past human experiencesdealing with those diseases.

Thus, social studies provide a widerange of materials. In the words ofOhicholson and Wright, “its scope isreally very wide and its theme is thepresent social life of man, the worldover.” But social studies is not a limitlessand fathomless ocean. It provides onlyan overall integrated outline of essentialcommon knowledge so as to draw onlythe functional knowledge from varioussubjects avoiding the material which hasno bearing on social context. Its subject


matter consists only of very simple andreorganised items of information andexperience from various fields having apractical value in the daily lives ofchildren.

On the basis of the aboveunderstanding we can draw severalobjectives of teaching of social studies—

● Enabling children to understandthe society in which they live.

● Introducing children to the valuesenshrined in the Constitution ofIndia such as justice, liberty,equality and fraternity and theunity and integrity of the nation,and the building of a socialist,secular, and democratic society.

● Enabling children to grow up asactive, responsible, and reflectivemembers of society.

● Enabling children to learn howsociety is structured, managed, andgoverned and also about the forcesseeking to transform and redirectsociety in various ways.

● Enabling children to learn torespect differences of opinion,lifestyle and cultural practices.

● Engaging children to undertakeactivities that will help them developsocial and life skills and make themunderstand that these skills areimportant for social interaction.

● Encouraging children to questionand examine received ideas,institution, and practices.

● Encouraging the reading habit byproviding children with enjoyableand interesting reading material.

School is an important part of theprocess of socialising the child. At allstages of school education, the content,

language, and images should becomprehensible, gender sensitive andcritical of social hierarchies andinequalities of all kinds.

Something about situated cognition

Before we start to discuss about situatedcognition we must think that we can takelearning as a dimension of teaching. Tounderstand the various concepts wemust have a look on different schools ofthought about what they think aboutlearning —

Behaviourism “Learning is change inbehaviour due toexperiences.”

Cognitivism “Learning is acquisitionof knowledge,comprehension, skill,etc……..”

Constructivism “Learning is a process ofknowledge construction(Piaget)”

Social “Learning is a socialConstructivism process of knowledge

construction (Vygotsky)”

Situated cognition is a new movementin cognitive psychology which derivesfrom pragmatism, Gibson ecologicalpsychology, ethno methodology, theoriesof Vygotsky (activity theory) and thewritings of Heidegger. However, the keyimpetus of its development was workdone in the last 1980s in educationalpsychology empirical work on howchildren and young people learnedshowed that traditional cognitive ‘rulebound’ approaches were inadequate todescribe how learning actually take placein the real world. Instead, it wassuggested that learning was ‘situated’,that is, it always took place in a specific


context. This is similar to the view of‘situated activity’ proposed by LucySuchman social context proposed byGiuseppe Mantovani and ‘situatedlearning’ proposed by Jean Lave andEtienne Wenger.

Situated cognition emphasisesstudies of human behaviour that have‘ecological validity’ that is which takeplace in real situation. In moretraditional laboratory studies of howpeople behave in the work place, realworld complication such as personalinterruptions, office politics, schedulingconstraints, private agendas and so forthare generally ignored, even though theynecessarily change the nature of theactivity. Situated cognition attempts tointegrate these complexities into itsanalytic framework. “The theory ofsituated cognition…….claims that veryhuman thought is adapted to theenvironment, that is situated, becausewhat people perceive , how they conceiveof their activity, and what they physicallydo develop together”( Clancey, 1997, pp.1-2). Furthermore, that people perceive,think and do develop in thefundamentally social contexts; the unitof analysis in situated cognition is socio-cultural setting and the activities of thepeople within it rather than individualmental functioning. Knowledge as livedpractices must be understood in itsrelation to the social aspect as well asthe individual aspect.

Situated cognition approach comesfrom studies in informal situation ratherthan formal situation. By studyingcognition in real life it tries to come upwith a theory for education wherechildren acquire various skills naturallyas a child grows in a community tacitly

acquiring the norms, beliefs and skillsof the community. Situated cognitionstarts from everyday practices to comeup with the theory. Thus situatedcognition view is often defined as‘enculturation’ or adoption of the norms,behaviour, skill, beliefs, language, andattitudes of a particular community.The community might be mathema-ticians or gang members or readers orteachers or students any group thathas a particular ways of thinking anddoing.

Situated cognition is placed under‘social constructivism’, which assumes‘knowledge’ to be social construction asopposed to ‘knowledge’ being seen aspersonal construction. The terms‘situated cognition’, ‘situated learning’,‘situated action’, or ‘situativity” denotean array of related perspectives, fallingunder the broad umbrella of ‘socio-cultural constructivism’.

Situated cognition approaches areessentially based on the assumption thatknowledge is inherently bound to thecontext i.e., knowledge is situated.Knowledge cannot be separated from thecontext; in fact it is embedded in thecontext. By assuming ‘knowledge’ assituated and context bound, ‘learning’according to this approach is also seenas inseparably situated and contextbound as exemplified in the mentionedscenarios.

The cultural context, the co-constitutive nature of individual —action-environment and multipleknowledge communities have all becomeelements of situated cognition theory.Wenger (1998) succinctly summarisedthe basic premises of situated cognitiontheory as follow —


1) We are social beings. Far from beingtrivially true, this fact is a centralaspect of learning.

2) Knowledge is a matter of competencewith respect to valued enterprises,such as singing in tune, discoveringscientific facts, fixing machines,writing poetry, being convivial, growingup as a boy or a girl and so forth.

3) Knowledge is a matter of participatingin the pursuit of such enterprises, thatis, of active engagement in the world.

4) Meaning—our ability to experience theworld and our engagement with it asmeaningful—is ultimately whatlearning is to produce.

With respect to a specific knowledgecommunity, or community of practice,Wenger defined three interactingdimensions — mutual engagement, ajoint enterprise, and a shared repertoire.That is “people are engaged in actionswhose meaning they negotiate with oneanother.” The actions are in service of amutually negotiated goal which definesthe enterprise in which they are engagedand which “creates among participants’relations of mutual accountability”.Finally over time, the activity of theindividuals engaged in the enterprisegives rise to specific practices, symbols,and artifacts that are shared by allmembers of the community.

To understand the situated cognition in better way, we can have a look on this table—

Framework Principles

The role of context Everyday cognition — people reason in actively based uponexperience within specific contexts; use a variety of methods tosolve problemAuthenticity — coherent, meaningful and purposeful activity thatrepresent the ordinary practices.Transfer — situated learning environment are more likely to transferto real life problem solving.

The role of content Knowledge as tool — students acquire knowledge as well as a senseof when and how to use it.Content diversity and transfer— concepts need to be representedvia various content; necessity to apply knowledge in various settingdiscriminate similarities and differences among setting.Cognitive apprenticeship to provide the opportunities for thelearners to internalise learning and develop self monitoring andself correcting skill

The role of Facilitation methods — situated learning environments attemptsfacilitation to help students to improve their cognitive abilities,

Self monitoring and self correcting skill, encourage active learningand provide opportunities to internalise information facilitation isless directive, more continuous and highly interactive—

ModelingScaffolding (coaching, guiding etc.)CollaboratingFadingUsing cognitive tools and resources


Many concepts have emerged insituation cognition research, whichhelps, in understanding knowledge,cognition and learning in naturalsettings. Communities of practice,legitimate peripheral participation,authentic activities, and cognitiveapprenticeship are few of them. Theseare also some of the conceptsrepresentative of situated cognitionapproach.

Communities of practice is aunifying concept emerging from situatedlearning research—the idea thatlearning is constituted through thesharing of purposeful, patterned activity(Lave and Wenger, 1989). In essence,communities of practice are groups ofpeople who share similar goals andinterests. For example communities ofscientists, community of workers,community of farmers, community ofteachers, etc. In pursuit of their goalsand interests, they employ commonpractices, work with the same tools andexpress themselves in a commonlanguage. When one starts participatingin the activity of the community he/shestarts learning about the cognitiveapprenticeship methods try toacculturate students into authenticpractices through activity and socialinteraction. Cognitive apprenticeshipattempts to promote learning within thenexus of activity, tool and culture.Learning both outside and inside school,

advances through collaborative socialinteraction and the social constructionof knowledge. Rsnick has pointed outthat throughout most of their lives peoplelearn and work collaboratively, notindividually, as they are asked to do inmany schools. Lampets’s andSchoenfeld’s work, Scardamalia.Bereiter, and Steinbach’s teaching ofwriting, and Palincsar and Brown’s workwith reciprocal teaching of reading allemploy some form of social interaction,social construction of knowledge, andcollaboration. The notion of cognitiveapprenticeship is elated to situatedcognition theory and simulates orcapitalises on real world activities(Berryman and Bailey, 1992; Brown,1989). Practices of the community andfollowing their norms, values and beliefs,we become member of that particularcommunity. Legitimate peripheralparticipation is also related to thecommunities of practices. Legitimateperipheral participation should beunderstood as defining ways of belongingto a community of practice and someonewho is not a legitimate participant wouldnot be allowed access to the resources ofthe practice.

Authentic work practices orauthentic activities are based on dailylife practices or activities in whichlearners engage. Such activities have agreater resemblance to activities inwhich core members of a community

The role of Problems and issues— in order to be useful in prompting higherassessment thinking skills testing needs to shift from domain referenced

evaluation to assessment;Emphasis need to be on the abilities to diagnose cognitive growthrather than achievement.


actually engage. For example, authenticsocial science teaching learningenvironments would allow students topractice social science as scientists workon research projects in real life. Workingon projects with genuine purpose orcause will constitute social sciencelearning according to situated cognition.

Now we are in a position to identifythe principles of situated cognition.Principles of situated cognition are—

● Knowledge needs to presented andlearned in an authentic context, i.e.,settings and applications thatwould normally involve thatknowledge

● Learning requires social interactionand collaboration

● Knowledge is socially embedded.

The principles of situated learningcan be applied to designing effectivelearning environments. The mostappropriate instructional method will beone that incorporates both—

(a) Realistic presentation of theknowledge, procedures and skillsand

(b) Opportunities for students to applythe knowledge and practice theprocedures and skills in a realisticcontext.

Why situated cognition to teachsocial studies

Social studies need to be revitalised inorder to help the learner acquireknowledge and skill in interactiveenvironment. It has often been noticedthat there is an increasing gap betweenthe promises made in the curriculumand what is happening at the level of the

child’s perception. It is important thatthe process of learning should promotethe spirit of inquiry and creativity amongchildren and teachers.

NCF-2005 says the teacher is animportant medium of transacting thecurriculum and simplifying as anopportunity for teachers and students tolearn together, thus developing ademocratic culture within institutions.In order to make the process of learningparticipatory, there is a need to shift fromthe mere imparting of information toinvolvement in debate and discussion.This approach to learning will keep bothlearners and teachers alive to socialrealities.

Concept should be clarified to thestudents through the lived experiencesof individuals and communities. Forexample, the concept of social equalitycan be understood better through citingthe lived experiences of communities thatmake up the social and cultural milieuof the child. It has also often beenobserved that cultural, social, and classdifferences generate their own biases,prejudices, and attitudes in classroomcontexts. The approach to teaching,therefore need to be open-ended.Teachers should discuss differentdimensions of social reality in the class,and work towards creating increasingself-awareness both amongst themselvesas well as among the learners.

The focus group also discussed theadverse effects that the minimalprovision of infrastructure and poorlyqualified para teachers have on thelearning on the discipline. The linkagesbetween adequate infrastructure andthe teaching of social studies is not oftencommented upon because instruction in


the subject requires no obvious spacelike the way in which a laboratory isrequired for the teaching of science.However, the effective teaching of socialstudies is crucially linked to the efficientfunctioning of the school library and ofteachers who are trained to use theresources that the library providestowards the creation of challengingprojects and activities. This shift awayfrom rote learning to comprehensionthrough the implementation of projectscan only take place if the teacher is ableto assess the child’s understandingthrough other means rather than justthe completion of the project. A morenuanced assessment of whether thechild is learning through project workmight help mitigate the presentmanufacturing of these projects in themarket as ready-made objects thatparents can buy. It will also help tomodify the prevailing belief that increasedmarks on project work translates into‘easy marks’ to be gained with the leasteffort.

So we have many reasons in supportof situated cognition, which are givenbelow—

● Because it starts with cognition indaily life of a layperson in naturalsettings and produce a theory of‘every day learning’. On the otherhand many other theoriesstarts with some preconceivedassumption. For example Infor-mation processing theory thatstarts with this assumption – howexperts solve the problems and howthey study cognition in contrivedsituation.

● Situated cognition comes frominformal situation rather thanformal situation.

● It starts with everyday practices,which is called enculturation.

● Situated cognition not promotes thestudents to conceive only.

● According to situated cognitionwhat we learn in a community thatoccurs in specific context andculture. This notion of situatedcognition is against the traditionalclassroom learning activity thatbelieves that nature of knowledgeis abstract and it can be presentedin de-contextualised form.

● In general school practices we seethat they belief, that we can teachthe subjects according to thetextbooks. The basic assumptionbehind it is, knowledge is abstractand de-contextualised andknowledge can be transferred fromteacher to students by textbooksand because of this assumptionthey use more abstract methodologyto teach e.g. reading from textbookand lecture method. This approachis completely against the situatedcognition.

● There is another notion that sayssocial studies is not a usefulsubject. But according to situatedcognition social studies develops thecultural and analytical ability.

Situated cognition and NCERT socialscience textbooks

NCERT new textbooks are based onNCF-2005. National CurriculumFramework emphasising learning in


authentic situations and have strongbelieve that learning can take place incontext. We can easily find lots ofexamples from these textbooks thoseprovide opportunities to students to learnand understand the concepts inauthentic situation or in context.Chapter ‘on equality’ of class seventhprovides opportunities to students todevelop critical thinking andunderstanding by coating real lifeincidents and raising thought-provokingquestion about the equality andrationality of equality in existing societysuch as Omprakash situation inJoothan. These kinds of scenario helpstudents to be more sensitive aboutcertain sensitive issues such as caste,class, gender etc.

Same book in different lesson called‘growing up as boys and girls’ talks aboutdifferent activities which makes studentsaware and sensitive about current issueslike gender inequality. Such as — makea drawing of street or a park in yourneighbourhood show the different kindof activities young boys and girls may beengaged in. You could do this workindividually or in groups. Working ingroups is also being emphasised by thesenew textbooks and that is appreciable.

The chapter “Democracy inContemporary World” consists very goodlearning activities based on situatedcognition perspective. Such formation ofdifferent groups in the class to collectdifferent type of information (news,clippings, articles, photographs etc.)about struggle for democracy in anycountry those currently are notdemocratic. Focusing of the followingquestion — what makes the government

non-democratic. Another chapter “Whatis democracy? Why is democracy?” insame book has some more situatedcognition-based activities. One of themis – follow editorial page of any newspaperfor one month and collect editorialarticles and letters on the page that haveanything to do with democracy. Thesekinds of activities are based onapplication rather than retention andteachers role become as a guide, monitoror facilitator.

Some activities are purely based onstudents daily life such as – talk to someelderly person in your family orneighbourhood and collect informationabout — the trees in his/her neighbour-hood when she/he was your age, how didthey make their selves comfortableduring hot summers and cold winters(Chapter — Our Environment, ClassSeventh). How your neighbourhood landis being used. Collect information anddiscuss how your community beingeffected by it (Chapter — NaturalResources, Class VIII).

So, NCERT new textbooks primarygoal is to develop the students’ cognitionand cultivate awareness. These booksalso focus to develop skills and abilitiesto promote problem-solving, higher orderthinking skills and deep understandingof the concepts. Activities available inthese books provide opportunities forapprenticeship, guided participationlearning with increasing complexity oftask, skills and knowledge construction.For deeper and better understanding ofsituated cognition in teaching of socialscience, in next segment of the paper we willtry to understand implications of situatedcognition in social science teaching.


Situated Cognition and teaching ofsocial science — Implications

Situated learning environment attemptsto help students to improve theircognitive abilities, encourages learningthrough active participation, facilitationis less directive, more continuous andhighly interactive. Communities ofpractices, apprenticeship, authenticactivities, real world environment etc.,are some of them that are incorporatedinto situated cognition approach. Theimportant aspects of situated cognitionapproach are presented below. This pointwill be helpful in designing a situatedclassroom.

● Application rather than retentionbecomes the mark of a successfulinstructional encounter in thesituated cognition framework.

Example — Traffic light — If we want tomake students capable to understandthe traffic rules, we can held a visit tothe traffic signal park, where they canunderstand the concept of traffic light byactive participation.

Passing the bill in Assembly — if wewant to aware the student to understandthe procedure of passing the bill inassembly, we can create the sameenvironment in classroom as we see inassembly or we can held a visit toassembly session

● The goal and objectives of theactivity are resultant of the studentand teacher negotiation.

Example — if we want to provideopportunities to the students of fifth classabout the lesson “find the place onearth”, we can provide a globe to thestudents to read. Interestingly they will

ask about the various shapes (states)those are available on the globe and thenteacher can help them to understandthis concept.

● The teacher functions as guides,monitors, coaches, tutors andfacilitators.

Example — teacher can organise adebate on some topic such as “whydemocracy, Indian Constitution” etc.

● Activities, opportunities, tools andenvironment are afforded topromote meta-cognition, self-analysis, reflection and awareness.

Example— if we want to teach about therules, how to walk on the road, we cantake them to the road, where they findeveryone is walking on his/her left sideof the road, they will do self analysis andunderstand that to avoid the accident weshould walk on the left side of the road.

● The learning situation,environment, skills, tasks andcontent are lifelike, relevantrealistic, authentic and correspondto the natural complexities of thereal world.

Example — if we want to teach the socialcustoms we can assign them toparticipate in the common customs ofvarious communities living in theirlocality.

● Primary sources of information areused in order to ensure authenticityand real world complexity.

Example — we can make capablestudents to understand the working ofthe many social institutionns such asBank, Hospitals etc. by visiting them.


● The knowledge is constructedthrough social negotiation,collaboration and experience.

Example — we can have discussion onany topic or we can take them to villagesto show how Gram Panchayat works?

● The learner’s previous knowledgeconstruction, beliefs and attitudesare considered in the knowledgeconstruction process.

Example — we can make studentcapable to understand the importanceof the celebration of the various festivalsor how money bill pass (but before thisstudents must know how to pass theordinary bill)

● Problem solving higher orderthinking skills and deepunderstanding are emphasised.

Example — we can assign the work toprepare the scrap book on any topicsuch as pollution, unemployment etc.

● Learners are provided with theopportunity for apprenticeship,guided participation learning inwhich there is an increasingcomplexity of tasks, skills andknowledge acquisition.

Example — if we want to teach theprocess of election, we can createrealistic environment in the classroomitself, so that student can learn howelection take place and what is theprocedure of election?

Other implications of situated cognition

There are many implications ofsituated cognition for teaching. These

can make teaching more and moreeffective, realistic and enhanced. Theseare given below—● It supports learning from the

demand side rather than the supplyside.

● The designer moves from theorganisation of content andsequences of the creation ofenvironment to induce, and thenfacilitate understanding.

● Require different roles for teacher:from a knowledge transmitter to acoach or facilitator of studentunderstanding.

● Requires a fundamental change intest traditions, focus on theindividual’s cognitive progress andtransfer of knowledge (testing thecognitive progress)

● Emphasis high order thinking skill.● Provides complex ill-defined and

authentic tasks● Attempts to cultivate awareness

(needed skill in the meta-cognitivemonitory of process toward asolution and the reasoning expertsexperience in real world problemsolving)

● Induces inferential reasoning,monitoring and regulation ofproblem solving and utilization ofmeta-cognition skills.

● Focus on growth primarily instudent cognition.

● Has a primary goal to allow studentsand teachers to experience theeffects of view knowledge on theirperception and understanding andunderstanding of the environment.


REFERENCES

AGGARWAL, J.C. 2002. Teaching of Political Science and Civics, New Delhi: Vikas PublishingHouse, Pvt. Ltd.

BAVEJA, BHARATI. 2005. Constructivism, Unpublished, CIE, University of Delhi, Delhi.______________. 2005. Situated Cognition, Unpublished, University of Delhi, Delhi.BINING and BINING. 1990. Teaching of Social Science, New York, McGraw Hill Book

Company ICN.BROWN JOHN SEELY, COLLINS ALLAN and DUGUID PAUL. 1989. Situated Cognition and the

Culture of Learning, Education Researchers, Vol. 18, No.1.COLLINS, A. and BROWN, J.S. 1991. Cognitive Apprenticeship:Making Thinking Visible,

American Educator.DANIELS, HARRY (ed.). 2001. Vygotsky and Pedagogy, Routledge Falmer, 29 West, 35th

Street, New York, NY 10001._____________. (ed. II). 2005. An Introduction to Vygotsky, Routledge, 27, Church

Road, Hove, East Susses BN3, FA.DIRISCOLL, MARCY. 2000. Situated Cognition in Psychology of Learning of Instruction.LAVE, J. 1988. Cognition in Practice: Mind, Mathematics and Culture in everyday life,

Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.MOLL, L.C. (ed). 1993. Vygotsky and Education Instructional Implication and applications

of Socio-historical Psychology. USA, Cambridge University Press.National Curriculam Framework-2005, NCERT, Sri Aurbindo Marg ,New Delh110016.PATNEY, WINK (ed.). 2000. Vision of Vygotsky, Allyn and Bacon, 75 Arlington St. Boston,

MA 02116.Re-sensitizing Education – Situating Learning in Context, Baveja, Bharati (Delhi

University, Department of Education).Situated Cognition and Learning Environment: Roles, Structures and Implication for

Design, Hannafin, Michael.Situated Cognition, Beveja, Bharati (Delhi University, Department of Education).Staffe and Gale (ed.), 1995. Constructivism in Education, New Jersey, Lawrence,

Eriblaum associations.Studies on Cognition—The Paradigm Shift, Baveja, Bharati (Delhi University,

Department of Education).GUPTA, R. 2003. Teaching of Social Science, Ansari Road, Daryagunj, New Delhi 110002.


Translating Social Constructivism intoEnglish Language Teaching

Some Experiences*

A.K. PALIWAL**

Abstract

This paper is based on the author’s own experiences generated through the actualclassroom situations involving constructivist approach to English Language Teaching(ELT).The author of the paper holds the view that language is both a cognitiveconstructivist and social constructivist process and product. It is cognitiveconstructivist in the sense that learners construct their own language and itsgrammar. It is social constructivist in that it is only in, for and through society thatlanguage is used. No human language may evolve, function, operate, develop andbe dynamic without social interaction. Language encompasses all forms ofconstructivism. However, its framework is largely social which helps the learnersin acquiring/learning the rudimentary language skills (LSRW), grammatical /linguistic and communicative competence. This paper discusses some socialconstructivist activities and tasks to make the main point clear.

Introduction

Let me make it clear at the very outsetthat this paper is based on my ownexperiences generated through theactual classroom situations involvingconstructivist approach to EnglishLanguage Teaching (ELT).

Constructivism has recently emergedas a powerful force to be reckoned with

*This paper was presented in a national seminar on ‘Constructivism’ in March 2008 held at RIE, Bhopal, NCERT.**Assistant Professor, Vidya Bhawan, IASE,Udaipur, Rajasthan.

especially in the context of schooleducation across the globe. Unlike thebehavioural approach to education,constructivism believes in helping thechild acquire new knowledge,information, skills, etc., and constructmeaning through exploration, experience,engaging, exploiting varied contexts withthe assistance of convergent, divergent,reflective, critical and creative thinking

Translating Social Constructivism into English Language Teaching... 65

on the basis of previous knowledge,experience and skills.

‘Social Constructivism’

Vygostsky’s social constructivismstresses the value of culture and thesocial context for cognitive development.He discusses the ‘zone of proximaldevelopment’. For Vygotsky, the cultureprovides the child with the cognitive toolsrequired for development. The term‘social constructivism’ is used in thispaper in a purely linguistic sense andobviously it is slightly different fromVygostsky’s ‘social constructivism’. Forthe author of the paper, social constructi-vism is constructing knowledge,information, and relationship, a networkof linguistic properties throughconversation, dialogue, discourse,discussion and all those social inputswhich believe in dualism and/orpluralism. Notwithstanding somedifferences of opinions, it is both a theoryof learning and approach to teaching-learning.

The author of the paper holds the viewthat language is both a cognitiveconstructivist and social constructivistof process and product. It is cognitiveconstructivist in the sense that learnersconstruct their own language and itsgrammar. It is social constructivist inthat it is only in, for and through societythat language is used. No humanlanguage may evolve, function, operate,develop and be dynamic without socialinteraction. It is also a radicalconstructivist in nature. Languageencompasses all forms of constructivism.However, its framework is largely social.

The author’s basic assumption inthis regard is that social constructivism

helps the learners in acquiring/learningthe rudimentary language skills (LSRW),grammatical/linguistic and communi-cative competence.

The above mentioned basicassumption is based on the following twoaccepted and other testable sub-assumptions:

Assumption one

Learners generally acquire/learn alanguage through social interactions ina meaningful social setting.

The vast and abundant literature onthe mother tongue (MT) or homelanguage (HL) acquisition researches hasenlightened us on this issue. It informsus that children acquire their MT andHL in the company of their family andsocial relations.

This hypothesis has been acceptedby way of a large number of fundamentalresearches with empirical evidence atvarious points of time in varied linguisticcontexts. It has been proved umpteentimes beyond doubt that it is not possibleto acquire a human language without‘social interaction’. Language and societygo together and they cannot beseparated for individual existence withthe mutual support for each other.

Assumption two

Learners generally construct words,phrases, clauses, sentences, dialogues,conversations and discourse in socialsettings.

This hypothesis too has beenaccepted by a large number of researchesin linguistics and applied linguistics. Asproved correct, children listen to thelanguage spoken/used around them and


they learn it through observation,imitation, experiencing, doing, etc. Infact, they ‘discover’ the inherentgrammar on the basis of which they start‘constructing’ words, phrases, clauses,sentences, and discourse. (For the adult,these constructions may be the old onesbut for the learners they are afresh andof course novel).

They generally learn to construct,deconstruct, reconstruct not onlyphonological, morphological, lexical,structural, syntactic and grammaticalproperties but also semantic world in avariety of enormously rich social settings,through meaningful social interactions.However, it may be quickly added herethat mistakes, errors, and their natural,spontaneous rectification, eradicationare part of the language learning which,is essentially a constructive process.

Assumption three

Learners generally acquire / learncommunication skills through socialinteractions such as dialogues,conversations, role play, discussions,simulations, etc., in meaningful socialsettings.

Assumption four

Learners generally construct thefundamental linguistic properties suchas vowel, diphthong and consonantsounds, accent, stress, juncture, pause,rhythm, lexis, structures, syntax,semantic values by way of the following:

(a) Previous experience (through LSRW)(b) Role play(c) Simulation

(d) Conversation(e) Dialogue(f) Brainstorm (involving reflective,

critical, creative, divergent,convergent thinking)

(g) ‘Tasks’, ‘speech acts’, etc.

Assumption five

Learners generally construct thefundamental linguistic properties andskills through the following:

(a) Engaging(b) Experiencing(c) Enquiry(d) Knowledge discovery(e) Exploitation of the oral/written texts(f) Exploration(g) Elaboration

Assumption six

Learners generally construct their own‘grammar’ for linguistic development andsocial communication.

They have an innate ability toconstruct their own grammar. NoamChomsky’s theory of ‘languageacquisition device’ (LAD) is a strongargument in this context. Learners havea natural ability to communicatewhatever they have decided tocommunicate with whatever linguisticproperties and resources they have. Theymay not know ‘metalanguage’ but theydo learn the language used by the‘society’ they live in. They learn thegrammar of listening by listening, thegrammar of speaking by speaking, thegrammar of reading by reading and thegrammar of writing by writing (JaneWillis).


Assumption seven

Learners generally construct ‘grammar’and ‘sense’ for appropriateness, fluencyand genuine communication.

It is only through ‘social interactions’,‘speech acts’ that children pick up therules other than the rules of grammarand these rules are the rules of socialbehaviour, the rules of linguisticappropriateness, fluency andcommunication. They also learn what isappropriate and what is inappropriate tosay in particular social settings atvarious points of time. They do learn toobserve the rules of social relationshipsto be established and/or maintained andsocial themes to be discussed.

Assumption eight

Learners generally construct newknowledge and / or skills through thefollowing sequence:

(a) Exposure to the language(b) Elicitation of ideas(c) Restructuring of ideas

● Clarification of ideas● Exposure of ideas● Construction of new ideas● Evaluation of ideas

(d) Application of ideas(e) Review of change in ideas

Let it be mentioned here that theabove mentioned constructivistpedagogic framework is based on JohnSagy constructivist ideas.

A. Some Pedagogic Experiences

The above mentioned eight assumptions(hypotheses?) were informally tested thedetails of which are as follows:

Being a teacher educator, the authorof this paper conducted a number ofclasses in the actual school situationsat different points of time during the lastfive years. He himself conducted someclasses with a view to finding outwhether or not school students could‘construct’ various linguistic propertiesin English as a second language. TheB.Ed. students under his supervisionduring teaching practice phase were alsooriented towards the ‘new’ pedagogictechniques devised by him and they weresuitably motivated to try out the ‘new’techniques in novel situations for greaterreliability, acceptability and for morerefinement, modification. The lessonswere conducted in the ‘constructivistframework’ to the extent possible.

The author has been fully aware ofthe efficacy of the tools prepared, of thepotentiality of the devices employed, thedelimitations of the sample, conclusionsdrawn and generalisations reached.Therefore, he does not make any claimfor sweeping generalisations.Nonetheless, he wishes to share hissuccessful and encouraging experiencesin the constructivist classrooms whichare described and elaborated in thefollowing section of the paper for greaterdiscussions and if possible fordissemination of the ‘idea of translatingsocial constructivism into teachingEnglish, as a second language in India.

B. The Observations and Feedback

The general framework of the lesson plandesigned, adopted and adapted forteaching English as a second languageis as follows:


(a) Orientation and Exposure(b) Elicitation(c) Construction (language elements,

skills and ideas)IV. Application

The specific details of the above-mentioned points are as follows;

1. Orientation and Exposure

As a first step the teacher decides tobreak the ice in the class by way ofdiscussing something very generalrelated to their life such as :

1. How did they spend the previousevening/ Sunday/holiday, etc?

2. Elicitation

● Brainstorm

(i) What do they expect of the topicwritten on the blackboard?

(The teacher writes a theme word onthe blackboard. For example, s/he,writes”FOREST’ on the board. Thestudents are asked to suggest somewords related to the theme. They maysuggest words like: jungle, woods, trees,plants, wild animals, birds, darkness,dense, hunting, deforestation, cut down,furniture, pollution, medicines, etc.) (ii) What words, structures, do they

think, would occur in the text theyare going to read on the theme/topic/text chosen?

(iii) What ideas would the author of thetext present and how?

(iv) What new things, do they think theywould learn through the text/lesson?

The tasks like the ones discussedabove generally help the learners in:

(a) Thinking(b) Recalling(c) Imagining(d) Producing ideas(e) Listening(f) Speaking(g) Reading(h) Writing (i) Communicating (j) Negotiating, etc.

The other’ tasks ‘which help inrealising the above mentioned objectivesare as follows:

(1) Word games(2) Crossword puzzles(3) Riddles(4) Picture dictation(5) Picture composition(6) Role play(7) Simulation, etc.

● Role play

The teacher assigns some interestingand known roles to the class and askssome pairs of the students to act outthe roles involved in the text or rolessuch as;

(1) The shopkeeper and the customer(2) The doctor and the patient(3) The teacher and the student(4) The mother and the child(5) The bus conductor and the

passenger, etc.

The tasks like the ones mentionedabove generally help the learners indeveloping the skills of:

(1) Thinking(2) Improvising(3) Creating new contexts(4) Meaning making


(5) Negotiating(6) Starting and winding up a dialogue,

etc.

The learners revise, consolidate,reinforce and cement the previouslyacquired/learnt linguistic, communica-tive ‘experiences’ but also creates,construct new lexical, structural,ideational and semantic sets and thuscommunicative competence.

●●●●● Text based Tasks

The teacher takes up an authentic text(say, from a newspaper, a magazine, abrochure, an advertisement, etc.) andsets some specific tasks like the following;

(1) Read through the text.(2) Make a list of the new words

occurring in it.(3) Make a list of the new structures

occurring in it.(4) Make a list of the new grammatical

items occurring in it.(5) Make a list of the articles/verbs/

adverbs/adjectives/pronouns/connectives/prepositions occurringin it.

(6) Find antonyms/synonyms/onewords in the text.

(7) Look up the words in the dictionaryand find the meaning of the newwords, their pronunciation andgrammatical categories, etc.

(8) Work in pairs and check eachother’s work.

(9) Read the text and frame questions.(10) Use the new words/ structures in

new sentences.(11) Write out/act out a dialogue/

conversation between the twopeople discussing the theme of thetext.

(12) Write a summary of the text read,etc.

The tasks like these (which need notbe in the above sequence all the time),not only help the learners construct ideasbut also linguistic properties on their ownor with the assistance of the peers,groups. Meaningful interactions takeplace between the learners, the text andthe teacher.

These ‘tasks’ also help in ‘organising’learning experiences for construction ofknowledge and fostering creativity andconnecting knowledge to life outside ofschool (NCF 2005, NCERT). Throughthese types of tasks ( as mentionedearlier on) learners become more active,interactive, linguistically andcommunicatively empowered thanks tothe inherent culture of the socially rich-linguistic and communicative inputs.

In the whole business of ELT, theteacher plays a role of a facilitator,manager of activities, supervisor of the‘tasks’, participant, philosopher, guideand friend.

The texts are ‘explored’, ‘discovered’,‘exploited’, ‘enquired into’, engaged with,elicited, emitted, created, constructed,destructed, reconstructed for thepurpose of meaning-making by thelearners. Learner’s contribution helpsin arriving at the composite culture ofthe text-construction involving lexis,structures and sense. Authenticmaterials are ‘means’ to the ‘end’ (thatis, the construction of linguistic,communicative knowledge and skills forlinguistic and communicativecompetence to be translated into whatNoam Chomsky calls ‘communicativeperformance’.


C. Challenges and Possibilities

The experiences described in this paperhave been gathered in actual secondlanguage classroom situations in whichstudents encountered cognitivelychallenged tasks, explored linguisticpossibilities, experienced the languagelearning process and product byengaging themselves in meaningful

tasks. It is high time a full-fledgedresearch project equipped with a formaldesign in the Indian context wasconducted for more insights into theconstructivist approach to ELT. Thiswould help us spell out learners’ needsand their roles, to study teachers’perceptions, their roles, the roles of thetexts and the design of the constructivisttesting, etc.

REFERENCES

AGNIHOTRI, R.K. and A.L. KHANNA. 1917. Social-Psychological Perspective On SecondLanguage Learning: A Critique, In Singh, R.(ed), Grammar, Language and Society.New Delhi : Sage Publications

CHOMSKY, N.C. 1986. Knowledge of Language, New York : PragegerCRYSTAL, D. 1987. The Cambridge Encyclopedia Of Language, Cambridge:C U P.JOHN, SAGY. Constructivism and Learner-Centred Approach in Education, In EDUTRACKS,

Vol. 6. No. 5., Jan.2007.KRASHAN, S.D. 1992. Principles And Practice In Second Language Acquisition, Oxford:

Pengamon Press.NCF 2005, New Delhi : NCERT.PALIWAL, A.K. 2007. Teaching of English : Theory and Practice, Jaipur, Kalpana

Publications.––––––––––––. 2007. Learn English. Jaipur, Kalpana Publications.VYGOTSKY, L.S. 1978. Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Process,

Cambridge. M : Harvard University Press.WILLIS, JANE. 1989. Teaching English Through English, Longman.http://www. education.indiana.edu/-cep/courses/p 540/vygosc.html/.http://www.ced.appstate.edu/vybio.html/.

Curriculum Implementation in Rural Schools... 71

Curriculum Implementation in RuralSchools — Issues and Challenges

SANTOSH SHARMA*

Abstract

Learning achievement of rural children is low compared to urban children at allstages of school education. The NCF-2005 observes that while urban middleclass children are stressed from the need to perform extremely well, rural childrenare not sure about whether their preparation is adequate even to succeed in theexamination. Learning achievement of learners indicates the extent to whichcurricular objectives have been achieved and is significant indicator of quality ofeducation. Low learning achievement and failure to achieve curricular objectivesindicates that curriculum has not been implemented effectively. Curriculumimplementation is a complex process where a number of interacting factors influenceeach other. These factors include curriculum itself, teacher, pedagogy, resourcelearning material, instructional time, infrastructure and community support.Curriculum implementation requires proper planning monitoring and above allpolitical will. Curriculum is a crucial factor in successful implementation of thecurriculum. If curriculum is heavily loaded with bookish knowledge which isbeyond the comprehension level of learners, even the best teachers will be compelledto complete the syllabus by reading the textbooks or by writing questions andanswers on the blackboard. When curriculum does not provide space for students’thinking, activity and creativity, how can these objectives be achieved? Analysisof syllabi and textbooks of a number of states reveals that curriculum impartsbookish knowledge and textbooks are urban centric. These alienate rural childrenfrom their environment rather them attaching them to it. Language of the textbooksis not the language of the rural child’s communication. School and community aretwo different worlds for children. For effective implementation, curriculum needsto be relevant, flexible and related to life of children which meets the requirementof diverse learners.

*Professor and Head, Curriculum Group, NCERT, New Delhi.


Introduction

The NCF-2005 observes that while urbanmiddle class children are stressed fromthe need to perform extremely well, ruralchildren are not sure about whethertheir preparation is adequate even tosucceed in the examination. Learningachievement of rural children is lowcompared to urban children at all stagesof school education. The achievementsurveys conducted by NCERT show thatthe pass percentage of rural children islow compared to urban children at bothprimary and upper primary stage. Theseachievement surveys do not includeprivate schools and also KendriyaVidyalayas which are located mainly inurban areas and are known for highachievement and good performance inexaminations. If these high achievingschools are also included in achievementsurveys, the gap between achievementlevels of rural and urban students wouldbe much wider. This difference issignificantly high when pass percentageis taken as 60% and above marks. Thepass percentage (60% and above) is 42for rural children and 56 for urbanchildren at primary level (IV/V). Thispercentage is 36 for rural children and46 for urban children at upper primarystage. (An independent survey, EEI,2006-07). A research study conducted bySharma, S. (DPEP Calling March, 2000)on Achievement Levels of Urban andRural Children reveals that achievementlevels of rural primary school children,both boys and girls, are lower than urbanchildren. The study compares theachievement levels of children studyingin rural and urban schools of Ajmer(Rajasthan) and reports that the

achievement levels of the four groups,urban boys, urban girls, rural boys andrural girls are in the order:

Urban Girls > Urban Boys > RuralBoys > Rural Girls

That is, the achievement levels of bothboys and girls of rural schools are lowerthan the achievement levels of both boysand girls of urban schools. In ruralschools, nearly 50 per cent of studentscannot read, write or do basic arithmeticin spite of spending four or five years inschool (Chavan, 2006). Learningachievement of learners indicates theextent to which curricular objectiveshave been achieved and is significantindicator of quality of education. The lowlearning achievement and failure toachieve curricular objectives reflectedpoor curriculum implementation.

Curriculum implementation is acomplex process where a number ofinteracting factors influence each other.These factors include curriculum,teacher, pedagogy, resource learningmaterial, instructional time,infrastructure and community support.Curriculum implementation requiresproper planning, monitoring and aboveall political will.

Curriculum is a crucial factor insuccessful implementation of thecurriculum. If curriculum is heavilyloaded with bookish knowledge which isbeyond the comprehension level oflearners, even the best teachers will becompelled to complete the syllabus byreading the textbooks or by writingquestions and answers on theblackboard. When curriculum does notprovide space for students’ thinking,


activity and creativity, how can theseobjectives be achieved? Analysis ofsyllabi and textbooks of different statesreveals that curriculum imparts bookishknowledge and textbooks are urbancentric. These alienate rural childrenfrom their environment rather them

attaching them to it. Language of thetextbooks is not the language of the ruralchild’s communication. School andcommunity are two different worlds forchildren. Following illustrations fromtextbooks of Gujarat explain this:

Class VI, Science, Gujarat

Social Science, Class VI, Gujarat


Illustrations from textbooks ofdifferent states (Gujarat, Nagaland,Mizoram, Uttar Pradesh, Uttrakhand,NCERT, etc.) may help in understandinghow curricular content can facilitate orhamper the achievement of learningobjectives. Here, I would like to presentan analysis of ‘Environmental Studies’textbooks of different states, whereteachers have classified content into twocategories: (A) which may help inachieving the learning objectives of EVS,and (B) which may not help in achievingthe learning objectives of EVS. Thecurricular area of Environmental Studiesat primary stage aims at developingability of the students to make sense anddraw meaning out of their experienceswith social and natural environment.

A. Content/lessons which may helpin achieving the objectives of EVS

(i) EVS, Class III, NCERT

This illustration from Class III, EVStextbook of NCERT relates to experiencesof rural children and develops awarenessabout animals living on trees and inwater. Children explore how theseanimals meet their shelter, food and

water requirements. How plants andanimals depend on each other.

This illustration from Class III, EVStextbooks of NCERT helps children tounderstand how the letter that they dropin letter box reaches the addressee. Theillustration is not providing directinformation but asking children to thinkand get the correct sequence. This helpsin achieving the objective of developingunderstanding of communicationprocess through mail which mostchildren in rural India must haveexperienced.

(ii) Finding My Way (Class III, EVS,Nagaland)

All children need to understand theway from home to school and back. Theyshould be able to explain this way toothers with the help of a map. This mapdrawing and reading becomes pre-requisite learning for further learningabout maps.


(iii) Map of classroom (Class III, EVS,Nagaland)

(iv) Locating places (Class IV, EVS,Nagaland)

Illustrations (iii) and (iv) aboverepresent maps of classroom and villagewhich help children in locating places.

B. Content/lessons which may nothelp in achieving the objectives ofEVS

(i) (Class III, EVS, U.P.)

The Nagaland EVS curriculum forClasses III and IV expects students to findway from home to their school, to draw amap of the classroom and to identify theirseats, to locate school, hospital, postoffice in the village map. On the otherhand, U.P. curriculum of Class III expectsstudents to locate India in Asia using aglobe and map. Experiences of teachersshow that the objectives of Nagalandcurriculum can be achieved whereas theobjective of U.P. curriculum cannot beachieved by 8 or 9 year old children. Forchildren of Class III, the concept of earthas a round ball and how this round ballwhen flattened becomes a complex mapof the world is difficult to comprehend.Even the scientists are still debatingabout the shape of earth. Locating North,South, East and West on globe; findingdifferent countries on map is beyondcomprehension of 8-9 year olds.

Content related to animal life whichmay help in achieving the learningobjectives of EVS in primary classes are:

A) (v) Animals and their shelter -(Class III, Nagaland)

This illustration relates toexperiences of rural children and askschildren to explore more about animalsand their shelters.


B. (ii) The content related to humansystems which may not beunderstood by students and there-fore does not help in achieving theobjectives. Children of 9-10 yearsage learn through experiences andmaking meaning out of theirexperiences. At this age, they canbe introduced to the method ofScience - experimentation andproviding plausible explanations.But understanding organicstructure in human system such asstructure of brain, heart, lungsrequires pre-requisite under-standing of cell, tissue, muscle,blood flow, etc. These complexstructures are beyond thecomprehension of students atprimary stage.

(Mizoram, Science, Class IV)

(iii) About plant life Mizoram Class IVsyllabus teaches process ofphotosynthesis which cannot beunderstood by 9 year olds. Theseare too abstract for children tounderstand.

(iv) About air Mizoram syllabus of ClassIV describes air pollution in termsof pollutants such as CO

2, SO

2, CO

It is clear from the illustrations thatthe objectives of Mizoram syllabuscannot be achieved by 9 year oldchildren. This has too many technicalterms and abstract concepts which arebeyond comprehension level of children.


Similarly, to develop theunderstanding of time in terms ofhistorical event and culture, NagalandClass IV curriculum includes contentsuch as

A) (vii) How man learnt to grow food(Class IV) - Nagaland

(viii) Festivals we celebrate - Class IV -Nagaland

B) (v) Whereas textbooks of Uttrakhand(2004-05) teach about our rulerssuch asChandragupt VikramadityaHarshvardhanRajendra CholaKrishndev RaiPrithviraj ChouhanAllauddin KhiljiShershah SuriAkbar, Rani DurgavatiRana Pratap, Chtrapati ShivajiGuru Govind Singh

(vi) Sant and PoetsTukaram, Sant Kabir, Sant Ravidas,Guru Nanak, Malik MohammadJayesi, Tulsidas, Surdas, Meerabai,Khwaja Muiuddin Chishtee.

The State of Uttrakhand has nowchanged their textbooks of elementaryclasses considering the fact that theobjectives of the earlier curriculum andthe content of the textbooks cannot beunderstood by 9 year old students andleads to rote learning.

Implementation of this kind ofcurriculum at B is difficult for both ruraland urban children. More rural childrenwill fail and dropout because many ofthem are first generation learners.Rural parents and studentsstart believing that this education is notfor them or they do not ‘fit’ into thissystem of education. Urban parents onthe other hand may raise theissues related to ‘difficult’ curriculumand ‘poor’ teaching and ask forimprovement rather than withdrawingchildren from schools.

Also curriculum is limited and labelsonly some forms of knowledge as‘curricular’ and others as ‘co-curricular’.


The curricular subjects includeMathematics, Science, Social Scienceand Language. Other forms of knowledgesuch as Health and Physical Education,Arts and Aesthetics are considered as‘co-curricular’ subjects. These ‘co-curricular subjects do not receiveattention in terms of school time andteachers. This way many areas ofknowledge which have potential fordevelopment of skill, aesthetics, creativityand team work get sidelined. TheNational Curriculum Framework, 2005recommends that Health and PhysicalEducation and Arts and Aestheticsshould be treated as curricular subjectsand should be given same importance asScience or Social Science. These shouldbe given due importance in terms of‘teacher preparation’ and allocation oftime in the school time table. Interactionwith teachers during SOPT training atSCERT, Gurgaon, Haryana, teachersfrom rural schools of Haryana, ‘drawing’teachers reported that they had notreceived any in-service training duringpast 25-26 years, whereas teachersteaching scholastic subjects receivetraining at frequent intervals. Drawingand Physical Education teachers areassigned most of the ‘non teaching’ workgiven to school by administration. Asuccess story from Bhesana village ofGujarat may help in understanding theimportance of Physical Education inschool curriculum. In Bhesana village,the traditional sport of Kabaddi hashelped to bring all girls to school. Thesport is now the reason for record change

in Bhesana, which has recorded the100% enrolment of girls. All 200 girls inthe age group 6-14 now go to school.Besides, bringing children to school andmotivating children for learning, Physicaland Health Education is important forallround development and growth ofchildren. Art education helps children toexpress themselves and to developaesthetic sensibilities.

Curricular options are limited atsecondary and senior secondary stagewhich impedes universalisation ofsecondary education in rural India. Ofthe total 5437 schools offering vocationaleducation at Higher Secondary stage,60% are in urban areas and only about40% are in rural areas. Of 241,917students enrolled in vocational stream,only 88,953 are in rural schools.Statewise data shows that in majorstates like Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu,Jharkhand and Karnataka, ruralstudents are practically deprived byvocational stream.


State Area No. of schools with Enrolment invocational stream vocational schools

Andhra Pradesh Rural 212 8, 870

Urban 195 13, 418

Total 407 22, 288

Chattisgarh Rural 31 916

Urban 62 1710

Total 93 2626

Haryana Rural 15 874

Urban 24 2572

Total 39 3446

Jharkhand Rural 6 580

Urban 29 2407

Total 35 2987

Karnataka Rural 167 4273

Urban 267 10,530

Total 434 14,803

Madhya Pradesh Rural 41 771

Urban 183 5075

Total 224 5846

Maharashtra Rural 353 19,591

Urban 361 22,591

Total 714 42,182

Rajasthan Rural 2 65

Urban 11 374

Total 13 439

Tamil Nadu Rural 461 14,776

Urban 1099 50,339

Total 1560 65,115

Uttar Pradesh Rural 185 5984

Urban 347 11,209

Total 532 17,193

Delhi Rural 10 187

Urban 226 6916

Total 236 7103

Statewise number of Higher Secondary schools with vocational stream andstudents’ enrolment in them (7th AISES)


For students living in cities, plentyof vocational options are available aftercompleting schooling, apart fromcontinuing to do University degreeprogrammes. In urban areas, there arecourses in Information Technologyenabling services such as BPOs,maintenance and repair of computerhardware, computer networking, fashiondesigning, training secretarial jobs etc.

Due to lack of vocational training andemployability, people migrating fromvillages to cities end up doing unskilledlaborers’ job and living in slums. Thereis need to create more job opportunitiesin rural areas by offering vocationalcourses. The vocational courses shouldnot be limited to agrobased courses. Inaddition to setting up agrobasedindustries in rural areas, there is needto provide courses enabling repair of boatengines, diesel mechanics, motorwinding and welding, auto parts,computers, forestry, etc. Diversity invocational courses is required to preparelearners for the world of work. MahatmaGandhi’s visualised workorientededucation would enable rural youths toearn their livelihood and empower themto decide their destiny. The curricularobjective of preparing the child for theworld of work can be realised byinstitutionalising work in schoolcurriculum. NCF-2005 suggests that theschool curriculum from pre-primary tosenior secondary stage should bereconstructed for realising thepedagogical potential of work as apedagogic medium in knowledgeacquisition, developing values andmultiple skill formation. For successfulimplementation of curriculum, the firsttask therefore is to develop relevant and

flexible curriculum which can beimplemented.

Another important factor incurriculum implementation is thecurriculum transaction where teacher ismost important and central. Even thebest curriculum would fail if teachers arenot competent to transit the curriculumeffectively. 7th AISES shows that 86,694fulltime teachers teaching in primaryrural schools have qualification belowsecondary whereas this number is30,320 for urban schools. The numbersof fulltime teachers with secondaryqualifications are 550,200 in ruralschools whereas this number is 151,461for urban schools. Of the total number,513,638 of para teachers, 475,859 (93%)are in rural schools. To design and selectappropriate learning experiences forchildren, teachers’ own knowledge ofcontent and pedagogy is essential.Teacher competence is an importantfactor, which determines the success orfailure of the curriculum. Teachers inrural areas have limited general andprofessional knowledge. The bestteachers make for cities, where they havebetter opportunities in terms ofpromotion, education of their childrenand housing, medical and other facilities.The urban oriented teachers scarcelyunderstand rural children and theircontext. During pre-service teachereducation also, school experiences areprovided mainly in urban schools.Teachers are ill-equipped to teach ruralchildren. They fail to use resources fromlocal rural context. Teachers do notrelate themselves to rural communityand therefore do not interact withcommunity. In rural education, teachersare the real bottleneck of the system.


The inefficient teaching methods areresponsible for failure to achieve theobjectives of curriculum. The mostcommon method used by teachers forcurriculum transaction is reading oftextbooks and writing the difficult wordson the blackboard. Teachers writequestions and readymade answers on theblackboard which students copy andmemorise to pass the examination.Experiential learning methods aregenerally not used and child’s innateabilities to learn through experience, toobserve, to question and to find solutionsto the problems are not developed.Classroom teaching is a monologue whereteacher speaks and students listen;many a time students do not understandteacher’s urban and standardisedlanguage. Lessons are a mechanicalrepetition of text. Teachers try to completesyllabus by reading the textbooks. Theonly equipment is blackboard and chalk.Students get no opportunity to expressthemselves, to give their opinions or ofreflecting on what they have learnt. Ruralchildren are ridiculed by their teachersfor using their rural language/accent,their manners and culture. Sometimes‘urban middle-class’ teachers are totallyunfit for rural schools. The teacher’s firsttask is to familiarise himself/herself withhis/her school; but she/he must alsoknow and understand the world outsidethe school. Teacher’s first concernshould be to understand rural learner,his/her environment and rural life.Teacher has to become a part of villagecommunity and then only renewal willbe possible. Teacher should be able todraw on the community using the factsof its existence as material for histeaching. There is need to remould

teachers and to accommodate rurallearner and rural context. Providingrural schools with professionally qualifiedteachers is an essential pre-requisite forimplementation of curriculum.

Pedagogy based on sound theoreticalprinciples is required for successfulimplementation of the curriculum. Pre-service training of teachers also needsto be remoulded and in-service teachertraining programmes must also relate tothe school experiences of the ruralteachers. Opportunities must be providedto teachers to continue to learn and toimprove their teaching skills. Teachersand students together should explore thelocal area and regime to discover theteaching-learning elements geography,economics, industry and agriculture.Collaborating learning, team projects andpreparing resource material for teaching-learning need to be encouraged in schoolsfor meaningful learning. Rote learningmethods need to be discouraged. Schoolmust contribute to development of villagelife and must participate indevelopmental plans of villages. Theenvironment itself (climate, geology,nature of soil, vegetation), crafts, tradi-tional and modern patterns of agriculture,customs, languages, traditions etc., mustform part of school life.

Rigid evaluation system imposed onteachers by educational administratorshampers implementation of curriculum.In most of the states a large number oftests are conducted to evaluate students’learning achievement. The schedule oftesting and syllabus to be covered isgenerally decided at the ‘state’ level.Rural teachers from U.P. reported (RuralTeachers’ Meet held at RIE, Ajmer inNovember 2007) that schools open in


July and by August/September they havetaught only one/two chapters butbecause of examination pressures theycover the syllabus (prescribed for test)without properly teaching. The questionof giving autonomy to schools andteachers in matters of pupil assessmentneeds to be addressed.

Lack of academic support toteachers also contributes to poorperformance of teachers. Linkagesbetween schools and universities orother institutions of higher learning areweak or absent. Opportunities andmeans to discuss their difficulties relatedto curricular areas with experts are notavailable to teachers. BRCs and CRCsneither have adequate academic staffnor any learning resource material. Themonthly meetings held at BRC and CRClevel discuss only the administrativematters. Teachers work in isolation andthey do not have anybody with whomthey can share their academicexperiences and difficulties.

Resource learning materials arealso not available in rural schools.Schools lack basic facilities of library,labs, computers and other teaching aidsrequired for effective learning. Ruralteachers from Uttrakhand informed thateven the book shop is available at adistance of 20 to 25 kilometers from theschool. 7th AISES shows that only about7000 schools in rural areas have

adequate Physics, Chemistry and Biologylabs whereas this number is about12000 for the urban areas. At secondarystage 5717 in rural schools haveadequate Science laboratories whereasthis number is 10770 for urban schools.

Instructional time is very importantfor effective implementation of thecurriculum. Rural teachers spendconsiderable instructional time in worksother than teaching. These includepreparing list for electoral purposes,administering polio drugs and otherservices. In schools where there is oneteacher, if this teacher is deputed forsuch works, the school does not functionat all.

Lack of basic infrastructuralfacilities is another factor whichimpedes the successful implementationof curriculum. Each rural school needsto be provided basic infrastructuralfacilities, teachers, learning resourcematerials and learning conditionsequivalent to those available in KendriyaVidyalayas. Piecemeal reforms may nothelp in achieving the objectives ofcurriculum. There is need to overhaulthe rural education system consideringthe present and future needs.

Effective curriculum implementationrequires systemic changes includingreforms in curriculum, teacherpreparation, examinations andinfrastructure.

Acquisition of Concept of Conservation of Length... 83

Acquisition of Concept of Conservation ofLength in Elementary School Children

through Piagetian Teaching ModelREENA AGARWAL*

Abstract

The purpose of the present study was to examine the effect of training programmebased on Piaget’s theory on the elementary school children’s acquisition of theconcept of conservation of length. The experiment involved the use of pre-post-delayed post test design. 40 children were selected for the study out of which 24constituted the experimental group and 7 children were assigned to the controlgroup on the basis of their pre-test performance. Nine children were not includedin the experiment because they have successfully completed the length conservationtasks during the pre-test. Results indicated more than 40 per cent progressimmediately after the training but got raised to more than 50 per cent progress atthe second post-test. The major implication of the study is on the designing anddevelopment of appropriate teaching learning strategy for primary school children.

Introduction

In India, there has been a sizablequantitative improvement in educationsince independence. However, as far asqualitative improvement is concerned thesituation is a dismal one. The learningprogrammes and the teaching strategiesadopted by our school fail to bring outall round development of children.Concepts are taught to students intheoretical way and not byexperimentation.

*Reader, Department of Education, University of Lucknow.

Various efforts have been initiated toimprove the quality of education systemin India. The Education Commission(1964-66) stressed the need to pay agreater attention in bringing aboutqualitative change in the method ofteaching. The report recommended thatin the lower primary classes teachingshould be related to child’s environmentand at the higher primary stageemphasis should be laid on theacquisition of knowledge, the ability tothink logically, and draw conclusions


and to arrive at scientifically tenabledecisions. The method should bemodernised stressing on theinvestigatory approach and theunderstanding of basic principles.

The National Policy on Education(1986), which is an action-orienteddocument, laid special stress on thedevelopment of proper educationprogrammes for young children. Thereport made it clear that the new thrustin the elementary education shouldemphasise a substantial improvement inthe quality of education so as to enablechildren to develop themselves byexercising their own initiative, their ownpersonality, learning abilities andcommunicating capabilities. Variouseducational systems and programmessuggested over the years have focussedon active participation of children in theconstruction of knowledge but they werenot based on any sound empiricalfoundation. However, current view oncognitive development has been greatlyinfluenced by the pioneering work of theSwiss Psychologist Jean Piaget. Piaget isof the opinion that knowledge isconstructed by the child through itsactive transaction with the environment.Certainly the scientific knowledge aboutthe development of children’s cognitiveabilities—how children think and howthat thinking systematically maturesover time could be useful in makingdecisions about teaching strategy anddesigning of the curricula.

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to examinethe effect of training programme labelled

“From Elementary Number Conservationto the Conservation of Length’’ based onPiagetian approach on the primary schoolchildren’s acquisition of the concept ofconservation of length. More specifically,the investigator attempted to find answerto the following questions:

1. To what extent do selected trainingprogramme affect the primary scoolchildren’s concept of conservationof length?

2. Does any difference exist in conceptof conservation of length betweenchildren who have had participatedin training programme and thechildren who have not hadparticipated in such trainingprogramme.

3. What are the mechanisms oftransition involved in progress fromone stage to the next stage markingthe development of concept ofconservation of length.

Methodology

Design of the study: The experimentalprogramme involved the use of pre-post-delayed post-test design.

Sample: The subjects were 40 children(20 girls and 20 boys) randomly selectedfrom second grade of Rani LaxmibaiMemorial School, Indira Nagar, Lucknow.Their age ranged from 5:0 years to 7:4*years.General Design: The experimentconsisted of three phases: pretesting,training and two-stage posttesting. In thepretesting subjects were given theConservation of Number andConservation of Length. 31 subjects who

* the child is 7 years 4 months old


have successfully completed theelementary number conservationproblems and unsuccessful inconservation of length task wereselected for the expriment. 9 children ofages 5:0 yrs. to 7:3 yrs. were not includedin the experiment because theysuccessfully completed the conservationof length tasks during the pre-test. Outof 31 subjects , 24 ranging in age from5:5 yrs. to 7:4 yrs. constituted theexperimental group while 7 subjects ofages 5:1 yrs. to 7:1 yrs. were assigned tocontrol group.

Training programme: 24 subjects of theexperimental group took part in threetraining sessions administered twice aweek, each lasting 15 to 20 minutes.

The child was always asked to builda road “of the same length as” or “just aslong as” the model, or to build his road“so that there is no further to walk on itthan on the other”.

In all the situations of Session 1,matchsticks were used, those given tothe child being shorter than those usedin the model (exact proportion 5:7).

In the situation of complex closelayout (see Figure-1) the child had tobuild a straight road of the same lengthas the zigzag model road. The generallayout of this model was such that themost obvious solution was to make theend points coincide.

Furthermore, as the child’smatchsticks were shorter than those inthe model (four short matchsticks placedin his straight road “go just as far” asthe five long ones of the zigzag model),counting alone could not result in thecorrect answer although it could help thechild overcome the tendency to

concentrate on the end points. Thecorrect answer could be derived fromsituation (iii).

In the situation of separate layout(see Figure1), the road to be constructedwas not directly underneath the model.This layout did not suggest the ordinal(“going just as far”) criterion, butsuggested the numerical comparison.

Fig. 1: Lesson 1/Session 1


However, since the child’s matchstickswere not of the same length as those ofthe model road, they could not serve asunits as such. A rough visual estimatecould be made and the correct solutioncould be derived from the situation (iii).

In the situation of simple close layout(see Figure 1), both roads were straightwith their initial end points coinciding,the ordinal criterion gave the correctsolution immediately. Since the modelroad in situation of complex close lay-outwas made up of the same number ofmatchsticks as that in situation (iii), thelatter situation provided the answer forsituation of complex close lay-out if thechild had grasped the principle oftransitivity.

In all the situations of Session 2, themodel was always made up ofmatchsticks of various lengths (e.g.3,5,6,7 cm. long) and the child was givena collection which included fivematchsticks identical to those used bythe experimenter. This problem gave theidea of measurement and compensationto the child. All the three lay-outs (seeFigure 2) were used as in Lesson 1.

In the third session (see Figure 3),the model road consisted of a straightlength of wire, while the child hasmatchsticks of various lengths and hadto start his road further to the right thanthe model. To find the correct solution,some idea of measurement wasnecessary—one could either start at theindicated point which made the end ofone’s road coincide with the model andthen add a matchstick of the same lengthas the difference between the startingpoints of the two lines, or one could firstconstruct a road directly underneath thewire and then displace the whole

construction so as to comply with theimposed starting point. For this problemonly one layout was used.

Post-test: Conservation of Length taskswas administered immediately after thetraining session and again after fifteendays of the first administration.

Scoring: Subjects responses on pre-testand post-test (conservation of length)were scored into non-conservation,intermediate and conservation.

Non-conservation (NC): Childrenwho give all incorrect answers to all thesituations of conservation of length tasks

Fig. 2: Lesson 2/Session 2

▲

A

B X

Fig. 3 Lesson 3/Session 3


were categorised as non-conservers. Thechild sticks to his incorrect answer orelse changes his mind and says that oneroad is longer than the other. Beingreminded of their initial equal length hasno effect on this child.

Intermediate (Int): Children who giveeither type of responses:

● Faced with the same situation, thechildren changed their minds as towhether the two lengths are equalor not.

● Some children gave correct answerin only one of the situations.

● Some children influenced by whatthe experimenter says, for instance,answer correctly when the latterreminded them of the equality ofthe initial length, or else changetheir minds after giving a correctanswer.

● Some children who gave correctanswer were unable to give clearand complete reasons for them.

● In this category a distinction wasmade between Int-responses (i.e.those responses in which the childgives partially correct answers inboth the situations) and Int+responses (i.e. those responses inwhich the answer is completelycorrect for one of the situation andfor the other the answer is partiallycorrect).

Conservation (C): Children who gavecorrect answers i.e., judge equalquantities in each situation. The childis capable of giving compensation andreversibility arguments. Furthermorethese children stick to their correctanswers even when the experimentertries to make them change their minds.

Results: Data was analysed qualitativelyas well as quantitatively:

Qualitative analysis: Out of the eightchildren of Int stage, seven ( two of Int +and five of Int-) reached the C stageimmediately after the training andsustained it till the second post-test.However one child (14F, 7:3 yrs.) namedRoshni, remained at its initial level at thefirst post-test. This can be clearlyunderstood by her responses during thetraining sessions as follows:

During the training sessions in thefirst situation of lesson I, Roshaniputs five red matchsticks (each 5cm. long) for five green one (each7cm. long) and judges correctly ̂ ^vclM+d gjh cM+h gks xbZ gS** further puts two

more red matches and answer ̂ ^vcyky lM+d cM+h gks xbZ** D;ksfd blesa vf/drhfy;ka yxh gSaA** If contersuggestion is

applied ̂ ^gedks gjh lM+d cM+h yx jgh gS**D;ksfd gjh rhfy;ka cM+h gSa--- She answers”

^^gjh rhfy;ka cM+h gSa--- rks D;k--- ;g (gjh)rhfy;ka de Hkh gSaA** She shows herinability to make an equal road.In the second situation she puts sixred matchsticks and says ̂ ^yky lM+dcMh gS D;ksafd T;knk rhfy;ka yxk nh gSa--- lh/hlM+d bl (lM+d v) ds cjkcj ugh cu ldrh--- oSls gh fp=k cukuk iM+sxk** A She thenmakes Road B same way as themodel and for one green match sheputs the two red matchsticks andsays ̂ ^vc yky lM+d cM+h gS--- bu rhfy;ksa lscjkcj&cjkcj lM+d ugh cu ldrhA**In the third situation, Roshani putsfive red matchsticks for five green,then added two more matchsticks


making the end point coincided andreplies ̂ ^nksuksa lM+d cjkcj&cjkcj yEckbZ dhgSa** and on counter suggestion she

replies ^^yky rhfy;ka NksVh gSa--- gjh rhfy;kacM+h gSaA** When again come to first andsecond situation she showsinability and unable to drawconclusion from the third situationto correct her first and secondsituation.In the first situation of Lesson 2,she puts three yellow matchsticks(each 6 cm. long) from the imposedpoint for 7+3+3+6+6 cm. long roadand replies ̂ ^lM+ds cjkcj&cjkcj yEch gSaA**On countersuggestion she puts onemore yellow matchstick and replies^^vc ;g lM+d (c) yEch gks xbZA** In thesecond and third situation ofLesson 2, she uses the samematchsticks as in the model but thesituation (iii) does not make her tocorrect her first situation becauseher going beyond scheme is strong.

In the third lesson, Roshani tries tomake the road equal to 15 cm. long wirehaphazardly, without following anystrategy and unable to make equal roadto wire even after three mistakes.

Three children of non-conservationstage also reached to the final stage atthe first post-test and maintained theirperformance level till the second post-test, four children progressed partiallyreached Int-level, while nine childrenremained at non-conservation stage.

The four children who progressed toInt- level from non-conservation stagemade further progress between the twopost-tests. Two of them (15M and 13M)reached the final stage, and two Int- level

at the second post-test. Out of nine non-conservation children at the first posttesttwo children reached Int + level, one atInt- level and six children showed noprogress at all. The responses of a childnamed Naushad Ali (13M, 7:4 yrs.) whoreached the final stage are given below:

In the situation (i) of Lesson 1,Nausad puts five red matchsticksin a straight line (according to thenumber of matchstick) and says^^nksuksa cjkcj&cjkcj yEckbZ dh lM+d gSa & Åijokyh lM+d eqM+h gqbZ gS tcfd esjh lM+dlh/h gS** and on counter suggestion,

he whisper ^^vkSj rhfy;ka yxkus ls lM+d(c) cgqr cM+h gks tk;sxh** and suggeststo make the Road A straight, thenadds one red matchstick to road Baccepting the compromise solution,since the difference in length is nowless and the difference in numbernot too great. In the secondsituation Nausad puts four redmatchsticks for four green ^^nksuks acjkcj&cjkcj lM+ds gSa--- D;ksafd nksuksa esa pkj&pkj(rhfy;ka) gSa** and on countersuggestionhe puts one more red matchstickaccepting the compensationbetween the two matchsticks ^^gjhrhfy;ka cM+h gSa--- blfy;s vf/d yky rhfy;kayxkuh gksaxh** He responds to the thirdsituation as to the second situation.When again come to the firstsituation he does not accept sevenred matchstick for the five green bysaying ̂ ^lM+d cgqr cM+h gks tk;sxh**

In Lesson 2, Nausad isinfluenced by the level ofcoincidence ^^lM+d cgqr NksVh gS ysfduvkxs rhfy;ka yxkus ij ;g cM+h gks tk;sxhA**


On counter suggestion he spon-taneously finds the solution ofmaking the road start from thesame point as the model and thenshifting the whole construction tothe right. Nausad immediately solvethe problem of lesson 3, in a similarway as in Lesson 2. He puts three redmatchsticks for the 15 cm. long wire.

Finally, a child (14F, 7:3 yrs.) whogave initially Int-response did notprogress even between the two post-tests.

The results of a control group (seeFigure 5) who were not administered thetraining but were given the same pre-testand post-test were different from thoseof the experimental group. One child(16F, 6:1yrs.) regressed to non-conservation stage from Int-. at thepretest, this child gave partially correctresponses in both the situations e.g. inthe Situation (i) , she answered “both theroads are of equal length…. Becauseboth ends here (by pointing the end pointfrom finger). When asked whether bothwill walk equal or one has to farther walk,she said, “You have to walk fartherbecause you have to walk zigzag”. Oncountersuggestion, she maintained heranswer “Both the roads are of equallength because this road (Road A) hasbecome small/little….”.

Analysis of responses during thetraining: Lesson 1 elicited a variety ofresponses which indicated clearly thenature of the difficulties encountered bychildren and the conflicts arising in thechildren’s mind when they had tocompare their different solutions. Thedifferent types of solutions shown seemedto follow a developmental order;

● Most of the children started givingwith five red matches (each 5 cm.long) (because the model road ismade up of five green matches, each7 cm. long) but they differ in theirreasoning. In the first category,there were children who put fivematches in a straight line butexplained that B road (made up ofred matches) was longer than A(made up of green matches) becauseformer went beyond latter. But thesame time they did not remove thematch from road B, because therewere five matches used in the roadA. They felt a conflict between thenumber of matches and the level ofcoincidence.

● In the second category, there werechildren who gave responses likethe first category, but they did notcame to right conclusion after thethird situation was presented tothem ( e.g. 10F, 11F).

● Thirdly, there were children whomade up a compromise solution. ForSituation 1, they put five redmatches in a straight line anddeclared that both the roads wereof equal length because road A wascurved, e.g. 15 M, 13 M. Thissolution may be considered a stepforward since the difficulty of theoverpowering “going beyond”principle is overcome. However, it isfar from perfect, since the totallength is simply judged by thenumber of matches.

● Fourthly, some children put five redmatches and declared that evennow Road A is bigger. Most of thesechildren corrected their mistakes


after third situation was presented,e.g. 4M, 2F.

● Fifthly, some children realised theindependent length of green and redmatches from the very beginningand showed their inability to makea road equal to Road A becausetheir matches were shorter than thegreen matches, but after the thirdsituation they came to the rightconclusion, e.g. 12F.

● Sixthly, children who put seven redmatches in a straight line at oncebut declared that green road (modelroad) is shorted than red one(subjects’ road) but if experimentermade that (green road) straightboth would be of equal length e.g.6M, 14F.

● Lastly, the children who put sevenred matches in a straight lineimmediately and reasoned that for

five green, one should put seven redbecause green were longer and redwere shorter.

In lesson 2, a variety of responseswere given:

● The most primitive type of responsewas to make road B start at theimposed point, but stop incoincidence with the end point of A,e.g. 5F, 8F.

● At a slightly more advanced level,the children first produced theprimitive solution, but then judgedB too short and added another match.Having done this, they incorrectlyjudged that B was longer than A.They continued to waver betweenthe two solutions, e.g. 4M, 14F.

● At the next level, the childrenimmediately made their road gobeyond Road A. But since they had


to work with matches of variouslengths, they could not simply pickany match and place that at the endof their road B to make correctcompensation. They had to find oneof exactly the right length. Severalchildren chose their final match atrandom, arriving at an approximatesolution, e.g. 3M, 6M, 11M, 3F, 1F.

● At the most advanced level, variousmethods were used to produce acorrect solution, e.g. 15M (VasuKumar) put 6+6+6+7 cm. longmatchsticks from the imposed pointfor 7+3+3+6+6 cm. long road.

In lesson 3, a variety of responseswere furnished.

● Firstly, children who showedinability to make an equal roadfrom the imposed point, and ifexperimenter suggested to over-come the coincidence level, theyrejected the suggestion by sayingthat Road B would be longer e.g.10F (Shalu Tewari) put one morematch below.

● Secondly, children who overcomethe ‘going beyond’ situationhaphazardly to complete the road,e.g. 1F, 4M, 18M.

● Thirdly, children measured lengthbetween the left ends of the stickse.g. 5M (Dilshad) put three redmatchsticks.

● Lastly, children immediatelyput three red matchsticks fromthe imposed point withoutmeasuring.

Quantitative Analysis: Results ofqualitative analysis show thatintervention programme lead to progressin the acquisition of conservation oflength but it does not reveal whether theprogress made is significant. Thus, inorder to make a firm decision, it isnecessary to subject the results tostatistical analysis. Z values werecomputed for the experimental andcontrol groups separately on morestringent criteria of TTo = .75 andsubsequently slightly less buttheoretically justifiable criteria of

State I: State II: State III:Pre-test- Post-test 1 Pre-test- Post-test 2 Post-test 1- Post-test 2

TTo =.75 Experimental - 1.89* - 0.47 -2.17*Group - 4.60** - 4.60** -4.60**Control Group

TTo =..50 0.81Experimental Group (.40 = 1.80*) -2.03* -0.00**

Control Group -2.65** -2.65** -2.65**

Difference between 2.47** 2.47** 2.18**experimentaland control group

Table: Showing Z values of the proportion of progressed children of the experimen-tal and control groups and their comparison for the training programme labelled

‘From Elementary Number Conservation to the Conservation of Length’


TTo = .50. Z values for making acomparative assessment of the progressmade by the experimental and controlgroups were also computed.

When TTo = .75 was used as a cut offpoint for the experimental group theresults (see table) revealed negative andsignificant value (Z = -1.89, -2.17; p< .05)at the first and third state, and negativeand insignificant value ( Z= -0.47, p> .05)at the second state. For the control groupvalues turned out negative andinsignificant ( Z = -4.60 at all the threestates; p < .01). All in all no significantprogress for the experimental as well ascontrol group was indicated when morestringent cut off point TTo = .75 was used.

Using the TTo = .05 as cut off pointthe results (see table) revealed positiveand insignificant value ( Z = 0.81; p> .05)at state I, positive and significant value(Z = 2.03; p< .05) at state II, and nil i.e.,Z = 0.00 at state III for the experimentalgroup while for the control group, valueturned out negative and significant ( Z=-2.65; p<.01) at all the three states. Theresult on the whole indicated significantimpact on the experimental group, whilecontrol group showed no progress.

When progress for experimental andcontrol group compared and examined,the results turned out positive andsignificant (Z = 2.47, 2.47; p< .01, Z =2.18, p< .05) in favour of the experimentalgroup at all the three states respectivelyindicating thereby significant trainingimpact on the experimental group.

Discussion: The aim of the trainingprogramme labelled “ From ElementaryNumber Conservation to theConservation of Length” was to facilitatethe acquisition of conservation of length.

The programmes were designed to seethat when elementary numberconservation had been acquired,whether the system of operations bearingon a number of elements could beextended directly to the conservation oflength (because the number of elementswhen put together form a certain‘length’) or conservation of length doesalso show complex relationship. Resultsindicated that only more than 40 percent progress was observed immediatelyafter the training but got raised to morethan 50 per cent progress at the secondpost-test. Approximately, similar amountof progress was found by Inhelder et.al.(1974).

In the present study, childrenselected for training were those who hadqualified the number conservationproblem and were transitional orpreconserver for the length conversationproblem. Thus these children were at thestate of structural mixture and therefore,would likely be able to construct theconcrete operational structure for lengthconservation than those children whowere strictly at intuitive operational leveli.e., displayed no measured structuralmixture (Strauss and Langer, 1970;Langer and Strauss, 1972). Studies byBeilin (1965), Turiel (1969) and Inhelderand Sinclair (1969) also indicated thatchildren who displayed structuralmixture were more likely than those whodisplayed no measured structuralmixture to progressively transform theircognitive structures and thereby higherlevel of equilibrium.

Inhelder and Sinclair (1969)attempted to determine whether theacquisition of length (for which subject


was intuitive) could be facilitated byapplying numerical operation (for whichsubject was operational) to theevaluation of length. The post-test resultsshowed that 35 per cent of the subjectsmade no progress at all. Of the remaining65 per cent, slightly more than one-fourth was assessed to have applied theconcrete operational structures to bothnumber and length conservationproblems.

Number and measurement arebased on isomorphic operatorystructures: measurement is constructedfrom a synthesis of displacement andadditive partitioning and inclusion.However, the first measurement concept(length) is achieved later than that ofnumber (Inhelder et. al. 1974).

The results of children who had mademost the progress during the trainingsessions and at the post-tests providefurther evidence that these newacquisitions are not the result of a simplegeneralisation of previously acquiredknowledge to a new context, but of a truereconstruction on a new level. Thisreconstruction is analogous to thatresulting in a child’s grasp ofconservation of numerical equivalences,

In the acquisition process of thenotion of length the children becomeaware of conflicts. The reasoning basedon one-to-one correspondence schemesclashes with inferences drawn fromfrontier effects. When the childrenunderstand that correspondencejudgement need not contradict configuralfeatures, they start to attempt to solveother problems in similar way. Indeed,when subjects at this stage were askedto place matches end to end to form aroad of the same length as a model, a

whole range of attempts to coordinate thetwo different methods of lengthevaluation was observed. In fact, beforethey discovered that they needed morematchsticks in their road because theirswere smaller than those in the model andthat “going beyond” did not necessarilymean “being longer”, the children oftentried out a number of compromisesolutions, which were very instructive asregards the regulatory mechanisminvolve. Thus the training situations aredesigned to present the childsimultaneously with several possibleapproaches to a particular problem,which, at his cognitive level, areincompatible. The material itself is onlyof secondary importance, as is shown bythe fact that those children who were notintrigued by the contradictory results ofthe two methods of length evaluationmade little or no progress.

The major implications of this studyare on the designing and development ofappropriate teaching-learning strategyfor children. The findings suggest thatthe acquisition of concept of conservationof length can be facilitated by inducingcognitive conflict in children. It, therefore,appears that appropriate teaching-learning strategies can accelerate theacquisition of various conservationconcepts. Proper designed method basedon Piaget’s theory of cognitivedevelopment should find an importantplace in the teaching programme ofelementary schools. First of all, theteacher should bear in mind the centralrole that children play in their ownlearning and try to make learningexperiences as active as possible.Second, the teacher should adoptpedagogical strategies designed to make


children aware of conflicts andinconsistencies in their beliefs. Third,rather than suppressing the wrongnotions, the teacher must bring them outto forth restructure them and thenintegrate them with other notions.Because any attempt to skip anintermediate stage or to cue out thewrong notions is likely to result inhindering later learning. When earlierconcepts are shaky, they will not serveas foundation that generates high orderconcepts.

Since teaching strategy andcurriculum are dependent on theeducator’s awareness of the child’scapacity to deal with material, it isnecessary for the teacher to identify thechild’s level of cognitive structures. The

REFERENCES

BEILIN, H. 1965. Learning and Operational Convergence in Logical Thought. Journalof Experimental Child Psychology, 2, 317-339.

BEST, J.W. and J.V. KAHN. 1986. Research in Education. Fifth edition. New Delhi:Prentice-Hall of India.

BRAINERD, C.J. 1978. Piagel’s Theory of Intelligence, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.FLAVELL, J.H. 1963. The Developmental Psychology of Jean Piaget, New York : D. Van

Nostrand Company.GUILFORD, J.P. and B. FRUCHTER. 1981. Fundamental Statistics in Psychology and

Education. New york: McGraw Hill.INHELDER, B. and H. SINCLAIR. 1969. Learning Cognitive Structures. In P. Mussen,

J.Langer, and M. Covington (Eds.), Trends and Issues in Developmental Psychology,New York: Holt, pp. 2-21

INHELDER, B., SINCLAIR H. and BOVET, M. 1974. Learning and the Development of Cognition,Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

LANGER, J. and S. STRAUSS. 1972. Appearance, Reality and Identity. Cognition, 1,105-128.

National Policy on Education-1986, (May 1986), New Delhi: Government of IndiaPublication, Ministry of Human Resource Development.

matching of curriculum and teachingstrategy to the intellectual level of childis a tricky issue. It is easy to confuse thechild’s manifest level of cognitivecompetence with his “true”understanding. For example, justbecause the child uses the word“animal” correctly in everyday contextdoes not mean he knows or can defineconcept.

In Piagetion curriculum teaching isa two-step process of diagnosis followedby instruction in the concepts for whichthe child is ready. The long-termimplication of diagnostic prescription isthat teacher training programmes mustbe oriented to train teachers acquirediagnostic skills as well as pedagogicalskills.


PIAGET, J. 1950. The Psychology of Intelligence, London : Routledge and Kegan Paul.–––––––––. 1952. The Origins of Intelligence in Children. New York: International

University Press.Report of the Education Commission: Summary of Recommendations (1964-66) (May

1967), New Delhi: Publication Unit, NCERT.STRAUSS, S. and J. LANGER. 1970. Operational Thought Inducement . Child Development,

41, 163-175,SUMMERS, G.W., W.S. PETERS and C.P. ARMSTRONG. 1985. Basic Statistics in Business

and Economics. California: Wadsworth Publishing Company.TURIEL, E. 1969. Developmental Processes in the Child’s Moral Thinking. In P. Mussen,

J. Langer and M. Convington (Eds.) Trends and Issues in DevelopmentalPsychology. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

Helping to Learn Science 97

Helping to Learn ScienceA.B. SAXENA*

Abstract

The paper discusses in brief the characteristics of children’s ideas and how thesecould be dealt within the classroom, to make learning less stressful and moremeaningful. Implications for teacher education are also discussed. This articlealso tries to explain how teachers should present themselves while dealing withthe problems of students.

Introduction

The existence of alternative frameworksor conceptions has been well documented(e.g. Driver et. al. 1985, Halloun, andHestenes, 1985, Osborne and Freyberg,1985, Saxena, 1997). It has also beenreported that the existence of alternativeframeworks creates considerablehindrance in understanding theconcepts in depth and to apply them ina novel situation. Sometimes it is foundthat the children persist with two sets ofconceptions, one for academic purposeand the other that children considertheir own and use it in personalencounter (Solomon, 1983). Obviouslysuch a situation creates frustrationamong learners and also among teachers.

Characteristics of children’s ideas

The following are the main charac-teristics of children’s conceptions (Driverand Oldham, 1986, Driver, 1987).

*Professor and Principal, Regional Institute of Education, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh.

● Students do not come to classroomwith a blank-mind-slate but withideas about natural phenomena.These ideas influence perception,observations and inferences.

● The explanation of a phenomenaoffered by children may not be sameas scientific explanation.

● The language used by children isimprecise, have been found to besimilar across countries andcultures, but are not consistentacross different situations that aresimilar scientifically.

● Children’s ideas are stable and donot change despite ‘education’.

● Sometimes children makeinappropriate links with theprevious ideas and thereforeconstruct meanings that aredifferent from what is intended bythe teacher.

● Children’s ideas lack generality andare context-specific.


The traditional classroom teaching isbased upon ‘blank-mind-slate’ ortransmission model and positivist viewof learning. It assumes that —

● students come to the class withblank-mind-slate and anything canbe inscribed on it;

● the knowledge is with the teacher,is propagated by him/her and isreceived, interpreted andassimilated by the student in thesame form without any distortions;

● a good lecture, therefore, coupledwith some demonstrations, etc., isa sure method to improve theefficacy of teaching.

However, we know from experiencethat this model does not work and alarge number of students persistwith alternative frameworks despiteschooling over number of years(Osborne and Freyberg, 1985, McDermott,1984, Gilbert and Fensham, 1982). In factteachers have also been found to containalternative frameworks (Saxena 1990).

Common misconceptions foundamong students

● A body needs push continuously inorder to move with constant velocity.

● Current in a circuit gets consumed.● When a body is at rest, its acceleration

is also zero.● A part of lens would form incomplete

image.● River and Sun are considered as living

bodies.

Learning as conceptual change

It may be mentioned that there is aparallel between historical development

of scientific concepts and children’sideas. This similarity cannot be bychance and needs to be taken care whiledeveloping the teaching strategy. Itrequires strategy that lays emphasis onlearning as conceptual change. It has itsown requirements of epistemology andmethodology because science teaching isgenerally centred on declarativeknowledge and ignores proceduralknowledge. This needs to be corrected(Gil-Perez and Carrascosa-Alis, 1994).Much work has been done to identifyconditions that induce conceptualchange. In this context, it is relevant tostate model suggested by Posner et al.(1982).

It states that necessary conditionsfor conceptual change are following:

1. It is necessary to havedissatisfaction with the existingconceptions. One is not likely tochange the presently heldconceptions until he believes thatless radical will not work.

2. The new conception should beminimally understood. Theindividual must be able to grasphow experience can be restructuredby a new conception sufficiently toexplore the possibilities inherent in it.

3. The new conception must appearinitially plausible. Any newconception adopted must at leastappear to have the capacity to solvethe problems generated by itspredecessor conceptions, and to fitwith other knowledge, experienceand help. Otherwise it will notappear plausible choice.

4. A new conception should suggestthe possibility of a fruitful research


programme. It should have thepotential to be extended, to open upto new areas of inquiry, and to havetechnological and/or explanatorypower.

During the last couple of decadesmany attempts have been made to removealternative frameworks with varieddegree of success (e.g. McDermott, 1991,Rief, 1994, Saxena ,1992, Brown, 1992).Slowly, constructivism has emerged asa powerful approach to help meaningfullearning. Dewey is often cited asphilosophical founder of this approach.Piaget, Bruner and Ansubel have muchcontributed to its development. Bruner(1990) provides the following principlesof contructivist learning:

1. Instructions must be concernedwith the experiences and contextsthat make the student willing andable to learn.

2. Instruction must be structured sothat it can be easily grasped by thestudent (spiral organisation).

3. Instruction should be designed tofacilitate extrapolation and/or fillthe gaps (going beyond theinformation given).

The important features ofconstructivist model of learning could bestated as:

● Knowledge acquisition is aconstructive or generative processand each person’s knowledge ispersonal or idiosyncratic (Fisherand Lipson, 1986);

● Misconceptions may originate as aresult of students’ interactions/experiences with the real worldand/or because of his/her mis-

interpretations of the world of ideaspresented to him/her (Driver andEasley, 1978);

● Development of alternativeframeworks is from the samemechanism that leads to thedevelopment of scientific conception(Bet-sheva and Linn 1988);

● Due to their different conceptualecologies, different students can‘incorporate’ the same newexperiences/ideas differently intheir conceptual structures/frameworks (Jordaan, 1987);

● The process of concept formation isa continuous process of successiveapproximation and refinement(Fisher and Lipson, 1986);

● Students hold intuitive ideas thatare both identifiable and stable, andhave enough commonality to makeit worth in planning andinstructional strategies (Cloughand Driver, 1986).

Constructivism assumes thatknowledge is constructed by theindividual; he does not mirror what is toldor read but the meaning of theinformation made by an individualdepends upon intents, beliefs, emotionsand previously held ideas. Effort isrequired on the part of individual toconstruct meaning and therefore,learner is responsible for his/herlearning. Learning impliesreorganisation of prior conceptualscheme or cognitive map.

Development of curriculum

Constructivist approach for thedevelopment of curriculum laysemphasis on the questions which are of


interest to the students and the domainof experience that enable the learner toconstruct knowledge and developunderstanding. Curriculum is therefore,not a body of knowledge and skills but aprogramme of activities. It givesimportance to the students’ prior ideasand on learning process. One such modelhas been suggested by Driver andOldham. It includes five steps inconstructivist teaching. The steps are1. Orientation, 2. Elicitation of ideas,3. Restructuring of ideas consisting ofclarification and exchange, exposure toconflict situations, construction of newideas and evaluation, 4. Application ofideas, and 5. Review and change in ideas(Driver and Oldham, 1986).

Many teaching strategies have beenused to promote conceptual change. It issuggested that teaching for this purposemust include (Hewson and Hewson,1983):

1. Integration of new conception withthe already existing conception;

2. Differentiation between theexisting and the new conceptionparticularly in terms of implicationsin different situations;

3. Exchange between the old and thenew conception because they havea different implication that iscontradictory;

4. Conceptual bridging between theold and new conceptions through avariety of examples, experiences etc.

For effective conceptual change,various strategies have been used. Theseinclude use of alternative curriculum(e.g. Saxena, 1992 1993, Lee et al., 1993),use of analogy (Brown, 1992, Clement,

1987), providing laboratory experience,use of concept map (Moreira andDominguez, 1987). However, sometimesthese approaches are not consideredsufficient as they do not take into accountmotivational and contextual factors thatmay play an important role in actualsituation. These cognition-only modelsmay not be effective unless individual’sgoals, intentions, purposes, expectationsand needs are also taken into account.Therefore, there is the need to go beyondcold conceptual change (Cynthia, 1994).

The above mentioned ideas arelargely influenced by the theoriesproposed by Piaget. Vygotsky proposedalternative perspective which is knownas socio-cultural perspective. It isbelieved that human activities take placein cultural settings and cannot beunderstood ignoring it. The socialinteractions play an important role ininfluencing cognitive development.However, according to Vygotsky, thepurpose of social interaction is differentthan as envisaged by Piaget. For Piaget,it creates disequilibrium leading tocognitive development, whereas forVygotsky cognitive development isfacilitated by interaction with a personwho is more advanced, be it teacher,peers and others.

Teaching Methodologies that helpthe learners

The following could help the learners, ifincluded in class-room teaching:

● Encouraging the students to takeresponsibility for their learning byproviding space for autonomy,initiative and leadership.


● Encouraging students to elicit theirideas, elaborate them and test themin different situations.

● Designing situations that confrontthe students with their alternativeframeworks and provideopportunity for new thinking.

● Allowing wait time after posingquestions, challenging students’hypothesis without discouragingtheir response, providingopportunity to reflect upon theirexperiences and to make testablepredictions.

● Using interactive physical materialto allow students to collect data,make observations and drawconclusions.

● Using specific strategies to removemisconceptions such as use ofconcept map, anchoring andbridging analogy, context specificinstructional material, computerassisted learning.

● Drawing from Vygotsky using thestrategies such as peer tutoring,peer collaboration, cooperativelearning (Damon and Erinphelps1989, Tao et al., 1999, Tao, 1999)and scaffolding to help the learnerswith difficulties.

Implications for teacher education

The teacher education programmesrequire inclusion of the following toprepare more effective and sympatheticto the learners:

● Including conceptual, proceduraland attitudinal aspects to increaseefficiency to use constructivistapproach.

● Use of activity method should notbe limited to physical manipulationof objects but should includemental manipulation of ideas.

● Students are permitted to discussand argue with teachers and peersto test their thinking and getfeedback. Communication withothers sometimes helps to changethe thinking.

● Training in use of assisted learningin the zone of proximal development,collaborative learning andscaffolding as per requirement.Once learning is complete theassistance could be removed.

● Ability to tailor teaching strategyaccording to students’ response.

● Providing opportunity to thelearners to find and frame problems,pursue solution by means of theirability and thinking style whichencourages the construction ofknowledge and negotiation ofmeanings.

● Training in different methods ofidentification of alternativeframeworks such as paper andpencil test, semi-structuredinterview, clinical interview, use ofconcept map and analysis ofstudents’ response.

● Exposure to the teachers to thechildren’s ideas so as to appreciateits importance and commonality.

The teacher training could includethe following activities:

— Preparation and use of paperpencil test to identifymisconceptions and learningdifficulties;


— Making of concept map andits use for 1. providing theoutline of lesson/unit/chapter,2. judging the richnessof understanding and 3.identification of misconception.

— Organising learner friendlyteaching environment which

provides flexibility and opennesswithout leading to anarchy;

— Hands-on experience in pla-nning and conducting activitiesfor classroom situations;

— Practice in pursuing pro-cedural knowledge in differentsituations.

REFERENCES

BET-SHEVA, EYTON and M.C. LINN. 1988. Learning and instruction: An examination forresearch perspectives in science education, Review of Educational Research, 58(3), 251-301.

BROWN, D.E. 1992. Using examples and analogies to remediate misconception inphysics: Factors influencing conceptual change, Journal of Research in ScienceTeaching, 29 (1) 17-34.

BRUNER. 1990. Acts of meaning, Cambridge, MA Harvard University Press.CLEMENT, J. 1987. Overcoming students’ misconceptions in physics, The role of

anchoring intuition and analogical validity, in J.D.Novak, Proceedings of SecondInternational Seminar: Misconceptions and Educational Strategies in Science andMathematics, Vol. III 84-96, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York.

CLOUGH, E.E. and R. DRIVER. 1986. A study of consisting in the use of students’conceptual frameworks across different tasks contexts, Science Education, 70 (4),473-96.

CYNTHIA, R. HIND, et al. 1994. The role of instructional variable in conceptual changin high school physics topics, Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 31 (9). 933-46.

DAMON, WILLIAM and ERINPHELPS. 1989. Critical distinction among three approaches topeer education, International Journal of Educationl Research, (13) 9-19.

DRIVER, ROSALIND. 1987. Restructuring the Science Curriculum: Some importantimplications of studies on learning for curriculum development, Innovations inScience and Technology Education, Ed. David Layton: Vol. II, p. 59-84 ParisUNESCO.

DRIVER, R. and J. EASLEY. 1978. Pupils’ paradigms: a review of literature related toconcept development in adolescent science students, Studies in Science Education,Vol. 5, 61-84.

DRIVER, ROSALIND and VALERIE OLDHAM. 1986. A constructivist approach to curriculumdevelopment in science, Studies in Science Education (13) 105-122.

DRIVER, R. et al. (eds.). 1985. Children’s ideas in Science, Milton Keynes: OpenUniversity Press.

FISHER, K.M. AND J.I. LIPSON. 1986. Twenty questions about student error, Journal ofResearch in Science Teaching, 23 (9), 783-803.


GILBERT, J.K. and P.J. FENSHAM. 1982. Children’s Science and its consequences forteaching, Science Education, 66 (4), 623-33.

GIL-PEREZ, DANIEL and JAIME CARRASCOSA-ALIS. 1994. Bringing Pupil’s learning closer toa scientific construction of knowledge: A permanent feature in innovations inscience teaching, Science Education, 78 (3), 301-315.

HALLOUN, I.A. and D. HESTENES. 1985. Common sense concepts about motion AmericanJournal of Physics, 53 (11), 1056-65.

HEWSON, M. and P.W. HEWSON. 1983. Effect of instruction using students priorknowledge and conceptual change, strategies on science learning, Journal ofResearch in Science Teaching, 20 (8), 731-43.

JORDAAN, A.A. 1987. Aspects of understanding and teaching of the Laws of Science.In J.D. Novak (ed.) Proceedings of the Second International Seminar: Misconceptionsand Educational Strategies in Science and Mathematics, Vol. III, 258-67, CornellUniversity, Ithaca, NY.

LEE, OKHNEE, et al. 1993. Changing middle school students’ conceptions of matterand molecules, Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 30 (3), 249-70.

MCDERMOTT, L.C. 1984. Research on conceptual understanding in mechanics, PhysicsToday 37, 24-32.

–––––––––––––––. 1991. Millikan Lecture 1990: what we teach, and what is learnedclosing the gap, The Americal Journal of Physics 59 (4), 301-34.

MOREIRA, M.A. and M. DOMINGUEZ. 1987. Misconceptions in electricity among collegestudents, Ciencia e Catura 109, 55-61.

OSBORNE, R. and P. FREYBERG. 1985. Learning in Science: Implications of Children’sScience, Aukland: Heinemann.

POSNER, G.J. et al. 1982. Accommodation of a scientific conception: Toward a theoryof conceptual change, quoted in E.L. Smith et al. 1992. Teaching strategiesassociated with conceptual change learning in science, Journal of Research inScience Teaching 27 (1), 111-26.

RIEF, FREDERICK. 1995. Millikan lecture 1994: Understanding and teaching importantscientific thought process, The American Journal of Physics, 63 (1), 17-32.

SAXENA, A.B. 1990. A constructivist approach to physics teacher education, Mediaand Technology for Human Resource Development, 2 (3), 153-159.

–––––––––––. 1992. An attempt to remove misconceptions related to electricity,International Journal of Science Education, 14 (2), 157-62.

–––––––––––. 1993. Dealing with misconceptions in physics, Media and Technologyfor Human Resource Development, 5 (3), 243-247.

–––––––––––. 1997. Alternative frameworks and Science Education, Indian EducationalReview, 32 (1), 1997.

–––––––––––. 1994. Understanding Learning Physics, Radha Publications, New Delhi.SOLOMON J. 1983. Many contradictory and obstinately persistent: A study of children’s

out of school ideas about energy, School Science Review 6 23, 225-33.TAO, PING-KEE. 1999. Peer collaboration in solving qualitative physics problems: The

role of collaborative talk, Research in Science Education 29 (3), 365-83.–––––––––––. 1999. Conceptual change in science through collaborative learning at

the computer, International Journal of Science Education, 21 (1), 39-57.


Resilience in Promotion of Schools asLearning Organisations

Reflections on Karnataka Experience

RASHMI DIWAN*

Abstract

Present scenarios of school education in India portrays school as a rigid system ofteaching-learning where teaching processes dominate over learning. Children voicesdo not have any place in the classroom. Teachers do not reflect themselves as life-long learner. Deliberating on this crucial aspect of Indian Education system thisarticle makes a plea before all the stakeholders to transform the schools fromteaching organisation to learning organisation. The paper strongly recommendsthat in today’s world, each school must become a learning organisation.The paperstrongly recommends that in today’s world, each school must become a learningorganisation. Looking at the possibility of transforming schools into learningorganisations, the two practices namely, the H.D Kote and Kalikayatna inKarnataka reflects on the success with which schools have been providing richlearning experiences in all its activities right from curriculum transaction to teachertraining. Highlighting the quintessential characteristic of schools as organisationsthat learn, the paper suggests some workable propositions by which schools inspiteof functioning in bureaucratic framework can become learning organisations.

Introduction

School as a learning organisation is thecenter where students and teachers bothhave enormous opportunities to learneveryday. While teachers interact witheach other and with children, theycontinually are learning different aspectsof teaching skills, taming the problematic

*Associate Professor, National University of Educational Planning and Administration, Sri Aurobindo Marg,New Delhi.

children and managing difficultsituations in the classrooms. Herechildren also right from the beginning aresensitised to new concepts and practiceand drilling in counting, alphabets,social environment and moral educationand beyond curricular and co-curricularboundaries. And at the same time notonly do children learn from books and

Resilience in Promotion of Schools as Learning Organisations... 105

teachers and other exercises improvisedby the teachers as facilitators, they alsoget ample opportunity to learn from eachother. In many of the instances, childrenstudying in schools provide opportunityto teachers to learn from them.

Understanding LearningOrganisations : Implications forEducation Sector

The concept can be traced back with theworks of Argyris and Schon (1981),Revans (1982), Pedler (1987) and Senge(1990) on learning organisations inbusiness organisations. There is nouniform definition of learningorganisation. In the Indian context,Malhotra in 1996 defined a learningorganisation as an ‘organisation with aningrained philosophy for anticipatingreacting and responding to change,complexity and uncertainty’. Mostdefinitions are valid to some degree butpossibly the closest to the essence is fromJoop Swieringa and Andre’ Wierdsmawho explain learning organisations arenot only capable of learning, but also oflearning to learn. In other words, theyare not only able to become competentbut also to remain competent (Swieringaand Wierdsma, 1992). The basic premiseon which institutions were recognised aslearning organisations accrued from thestatement by Peter Lassey ( 1998), “Iforganisations are to gain a competitiveadvantage in a changing world they needto have the ability to adapt constantly tonew circumstances and challenges” andthat the “Organisations can and havecapacity to develop a culture wherelearning is encouraged”. The research tillthen emphasised on the need to developthe capacity of whole organisation to

learn, rather than focusing on thelearning of isolated individuals. It sooncame to be realised that the conceptcould also be skillfully applied ineducation enterprise as well. The worksof Everard and Morris, 1990; West-Burnham, 1992; Yinger and Hendricks-Lee, 1993; Southworth, 1994; Sammonset al, 1995; Leithwood and Sharratt,1998; Clark, 1996; and Lumby, 1997further expanded the idea of learningorganisation to education andintroduced the concept as a ‘LearningSchool’ or a developing school. It wasrepeatedly advocated that the concept oflearning organisation is relevant toeducational institutions becausechanging times demand new means tomanage change on an unprecedentedscale. It infact, promotes the idea ofcontext-specific research into school andcollege effectiveness, need based teacherdevelopment, organisation of promptlearning among individuals for thebenefit of educational institutions etc.The notion of schools as learningcommunities can be understood as ameans of enhancing the quality ofteaching and learning.

Learning organisation in the mostsimplistic terminology in the educationsector can be one with the features asfollows:

● a flexible organisation that learnsand encourages learning

● promotes exchange of information● creates well-informed personnel

who are willing to learn further● accept and adapt to new ideas● changes through a shared vision● contributes whole-heartedly in the

entire transforming effort


This entails rejuvenation oftraditional culture of schools that arebased on positional hierarchy. In thismilieu, conventional style of functioningwill be replaced by a welcoming cultureon learning and skills of individuals. Thiswill apply specially on our grassrootspractitioners who actually have to beempowered to take up challengesemerging from field realities to which ourpolicy and decision makers are ignorant.

The Indian government schools aredeeply fastened by centralised controlsystem. As a researcher, experience overthe years has made us realise thatalthough our schools function withinbureaucratic rules and regulations, canenjoy the freedom to take decisions attheir own levels about how and whatchanges need to be introduced. Ofcourseit requires commitment and initiative atthe part of teachers and the Schoolheads. Richard Elmore and colleaguesdiscovered that even when teachers arewilling to learn new methods, they oftenapplied them in a superficial orinconsistent way, offering theappearance but not the substance of realchange (Larry Lashway, 1997). Althoughthis is an inspiring vision, schools maybe far from achieving it. Teacherisolation, lack of time, and the complexityof teaching present significant barriersto sustained organisational learning.

This does not mean that all schoolstill now were not learning. Allorganisations train their staff, developnew concepts and methods of working tocope with changing situations but manyof them move towards new situationsslowly and painfully. “In reality allorganisations do learn”. But with adifference — and this difference is the

SUCCESS factor. Peter Lassey (1998)while stating the capacity oforganisations to develop culture wherelearning is encouraged explains that“Learning Organisations have thecapacity to reconstruct themselvesrather than be dependent upon externalpressures; learning organisations areable to exert a level of control on theirenvironment rather than be slaves to it”.The successful organisations have beenseen as forward looking institutionsshowing progressive trends faster interms of preparedness for managingchange than many of the conventionalinstitutions. In fact, institutions thathave embraced change and developmentas the most important factor haveassured better success as they haveexpanded their capacity to allow learningto take place, to reconstruct them ratherthan be dependent upon externalpressures, and have been successful inexerting a level of control on theirenvironment rather than be slaves to it.Simple changes to the way theorganisation operates can make a hugedifference to the culture andenvironment of the organisation.

Key Characteristics

The process of transformation of anorganisation into a learning organisationcalls for commitment to lifelong learningfor all those within the school. Argyris(1977) explains: ‘organisational learningsystem’ which encourages and supportsa learning organisation, should form thefoundation of this transformation. Theindividuals’ learning activities arefacilitated or inhibited by an ecologicalsystem of factors that may be critical indetermining whether or not its


‘organisational learning system’ is onewhich encourages and supports alearning organisation. Here there is anemphasis on collaborative learning andthe creative and positive use of differenceand conflict. Unfortunately, many of ourschools prefer to be on the safer side bynot introducing something new in thesystem for which they may even mighthave to be answerable to the higherauthorities.

This organisation is highlycharacterised with commitment of theentire school team to change thestructure, system and practices tosustain learning. It is the structuralchanges which encourages and supportcultural change, and therefore a morefundamental change process may beneeded. “To become a learningorganisation involves both attitudinaland process changes” commentsMiddlewood, Coleman and Lumby.

Another salient characteristicusually found in such organisationsrequires a holistic understanding of theschool as an organisation. Aspinwall andPedlar (1997) illustrates totality oflearning in an organisation thatvisualise learning about things, learningto do things, learning to becomeourselves, to achieve full potential andlearning to achieve things together—completely embedded in learningculture.

The Commitment

The determination to become a learningorganisation, important as it is, cannottransform a traditional organisationunless a school head along with his

group members takes initiative to chalkout a programme for themselves abouthow to cope with the changingexpectations of the local people andcommunity to which it caters. Barringvery few, majority of our school headsfollow their own trail but within thenorms specified by the respective Stategovernments. The journey is long andtiring but with confident specific steps iffollowed seriously can make it possibleto transform schools into institutionsthat can learn and provide opportunitiesfor the personal development of its peopleby recognising that people learn indifferent ways depending upon theirabilities and capabilities, providing theminstructions depending upon theirmaturity levels on how to go about incertain directions for their self andinstitutional improvement, finallyencouraging all its people to learn,innovate, and contribute for the progressof its institution to which they belong.The importance of developing a clearvision of a school head to create aneffective management system whereinample learning opportunities areprovided to teachers cannot be denied.Helping teachers understand the newcontent, developing new teaching skills,enhancing practical pedagogical skills,understanding the psychology oflearning, giving them the opportunitiesfor attending training programmes withother subject specialists, developingessential team skills in them, involvingthem in the macro and micro school-based decision making can be consideredas safe beginning strides for a SchoolHead. Unquestionably, one canapprehend that a learning organisation


allows freedom and autonomy to ourSchool Heads and other practitioners tobe able to decide for themselves thatworks in the system. This will in itselfmake an enormous leap towards theorganisation becoming a learningorganisation. How a school can bepromoted as learning organisation is a

major breakthrough in State ofKarnataka. The two major initiatives,H.D Kote has been in practice for morethan one decade and Kalikayatna, arecent initiative have shown high levelof commitment and zeal as learningorganisations, well reflected in theforthcoming paragraphs.

An Innovative Learning Approach: The H.D. Kote Experience

The remote tribal Heggadadevankote block of Mysore district in the State ofKarnataka initiated certain innovative learning exercises on Micro planning on257 government schools out of 279 schools in the block in 1995. This collectivepurely teachers’ movement began its journey with the help of UNICEF involvingDistrict Institute of Education and Training and teachers of Rishi Valley in makinginitial efforts to transform the entire schooling practices which brought into actiona number of changes in all domains of school activities. Curriculum was designedon the basis of competencies identified under MLL; learning materials weredeveloped; teaching methodology and evaluation procedures were redesigned,learning kits which replaces textbooks, workbooks and teachers guide were devised(these include learning ladders which encourage individual pace of learning,learning cards easily identifiable to the children by the logos used, instructionalcards for teachers, games and reinforcement cards) appropriate classroommanagement techniques were adopted, a sense of ownership was built amongchildren by helping them to prepare learning materials through art and craft andsuitable indoor and outdoor activities were chalked out for joyful learning amongthem. A drastic change was seen in the learning and recapitulation exercises ofthe subjects like language, mathematics and Environmental Sciences. Classroommanagement and transactions have been entirely different from the traditionalpractices. Similarly progress chart specially designed for children to mark theirprogress themselves, the weather chart where children can freely recordinformation about weather conditions daily are significant additional features inthis learning experience. Interactions among teachers at cluster level to exchangenotes, ideas, songs, activities, puzzles etc., form an integral part of learningexercises.

The Learning Initiative: The Kalikayatna Experiment

Kalikayatna (KY), is a reflection of recent shift in paradigms in education as aresponse to the National Curriculum Framework-2005, formulated by NCERT,which largely envisages a total shift in the classroom environs. Children are seen


Transformation of Schools intoLearning Organisations

Creating enabling conditions isbecoming a necessary condition forbringing changes within the schools.Barth (1991), suggests thatstrengthening interpersonal relationsand collegial conversations focus moreupon what is occurring in the schooland, in particular, upon what needs tobe done to improve the quality ofeducation for students. Barth recognisesthat such conversations may, at times

result into conflict but it is equallyimportant that educators move beyondthe conventional boundaries they hadset for themselves. The transformationof traditional institutions to learningorganisations does not suggest adiminished role for schooladministrators. It does suggest that whatit means to be a leader needs to befundamentally altered. This shift requirea supportive climate from decisionmaking authorities where the schoolpractitioners are encouraged to doexperimentation, learn from mistakes,

as constructors of knowledge and teachers as facilitators of learning. Developingcritical thinking among children is held to be an important value. Learnerautonomy is stressed. It is initiated by an NGO called Prajayatna in collaborationwith Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, Karnataka. Kalikayatna Kalikayatna is underimplementation in Bilikere Cluster of Hunsur Block in Mysore District ofKarnataka. The class room management forms a major part in organising learningenvironment in the schools. Children from classes 1-3 form one group and childrenin classes 4-5 form another group. There is no concept of introduction of a textbookfor curriculum transaction. They are allowed to refer to books, textbooks meantfor those classes and any other material available to them, develop reading habitsin them and they learn more effectively at their individual pace. The syllabusprescribed by the state for classes 1-5 is redefined here in terms of concepts/themes. The subjects are seen as a holistic programme, conceptualised in theform of learning points. With every learning, the learner keeps reconceptualisinghis/her own understanding of these subjects in relation to other subjects. Thereare series of interactive discussions in smaller and larger groups in differentphases through several reiteration by composing different ability groups. All theactivities center on several discussions. The teacher also pays personalisedattention to each child depending on the situation. The observations made by theteacher are recorded in the observation book. The teacher maintains separateobservation schedules for each child. A portfolio of each child is maintained bychildren themselves, based on which evaluation exercises are done by the teacher.There is also a provision of well designed professional training of teachers once amonth at cluster headquarters, which keeps them constantly reminding anddiscussing about gaps, lacunae and progress of each child. The training sessionsalso gives them a platform to chalk out plan of action at every step.


take risks, while working acrossdepartments while followingmultidisciplinary approach.Understanding the school is vital, whichcomprises of the following informationabout the school:

● Levels of student achievement ininternal and external examinations;

● Academic and infrastructurefacilities in the school;

● Student discipline and healthstatus;

● The special needs of disadvantaged,marginal, and hard to reachsegments of student populationsuch as girls and children withphysical and mental disabilities;

● Health of children;● Family background and socio-

economic and poverty status, etc.etc.

This baseline exercise is expected tohelp them to determine the priority areasfor their respective schools. Based onsuch an assessment, each school canhave its own school development plan.

Some simple changes to the way aschool operates can make a hugedifference to the culture andenvironment of the organisation (Lassey,1998). The H.D experience shows that aschool has enough capacity to developas a learning organisation as it shouldbe able to provide enough space forfreedom to children to explore their worldthemselves to follow their own pace oflearning in order to steer a sense ofindividuality among them. Group workand co-operative learning seems to be aworkable proposition in Kalikayatnapractices. The children need to beencouraged an active rather than a

passive role in learning. RobertMelamede (1997) suggests dialoguerather than debates-listening,suspending judgement, commonunderstanding in this situation. Facultyand other staff can act as facilitators inlearning organisation. Healthy two-waydebate, positive conflict anddisagreement are part of the culture of alearning organisation.

As recommended by Joyce andCalhoun (1996) that schedules andassignments should allow time forcollective enquiry, otherwise,significant reform is nearly impossible ina typical school situation. In this setting,learning needs to be generated in smallgroups to provide motivation, support,learning etc. Honey (1991), supports “amini learning organisation in the partsyou can influence. Small incrementalchanges, if sustained, have a habit ofgaining momentum to the point wherethey become transformational”.Therefore, the learning experiences thata school is expected to provide is activitybased and joyful. Morgan (1986) —‘Organisational learning’ requiresopenness and self criticism that ischallenging to conventionalmanagement.

As well echoed in Kalikayatnapractice, training and professionaldevelopment activities for schoolfaculty will have to include a componentthat helps teachers to understand andredefine their roles for creating anenvironment which is conducive fordevelopment of child’s personality,encourage such activities which locksthem in the cycle of learning andimprovement throughout withoutdisturbing the broader framework of


rules and regulations. Sharon Kruse andKaren Louis (1993) contends thatpreparatory exercises can help in theformation of “Responsible Parties”, whichact as champions for extended inquiryand points out that email and regularfaculty meetings becomes an importantaspect in this arrangement.

Practitioner research is anotherelement that supports the process oflearning as it is more sustained andsystematic in bringing “conceptual andinstrumental change” (Lumby, 1999).Morgan (1986) asserts that fruitfulresearch needs to be linked to the ideaof the school as learning organisations,where learning occurs at many levelsand leads to organisational learning andchange. The actors who participate inthe process give them the chance ofreflecting on their own practices andconsider themselves as part of theorganisation. The participation they findit quite ‘challenging’, ‘refreshing’ and‘enlightening’ since learning can bedriven by data. Practitioners’ researchin fact gives an opportunity to teachersand institutional heads to lock into thesystem of reflection and feedback thathelps them to adapt educational ideasto one’s own context and professionalneeds. Schools where the culture ofcollaborative research is promoted,becomes a learning centre for both, theteachers as well as its students.

No improvement can take place untilteachers are emotionally involved withtheir jobs. Teacher selection holds veryimportant place in the process of lightingthat spark. School environment needsto be made more child “friendly” andwelcoming to their parents, so that there

are no drop-outs, push-outs and pull-outs. This is high time when recruitmentprocedures are changed, even thoughthis requires an extensive exercise.Based on different empirical findingssupported by our own perceptions/observations, the teachers in each schoolcan be divided into three categorise:

First category comprise of teacherswho have attained total liberationfrom the jobs expected of them.Second category comprise ofteachers who are committed, sinceredespite whatever may come.Third category comprises of teachersin between these two categories.Sometimes they are with Group 1 andsometimes with Group 2.

Now the success of an educationalleader in building a learning organisationdepends upon bringing Group 3 withGroup 1. Group 3 is the most importanthuman resource who through propercare and nurturing can become the mostimportant instrument for restructuringthe school to which they belong.Important is to identify this category ofteachers and for locking the schoolsystem in the continued cycle of learning.bringing basic commitment for schoolimprovement planning .

If passion for teaching is to berekindled, the selection procedures willhave to recast if institutes of teachinghave to be transformed into institutes oflearning. Selection procedure of teachersbased on I.Q. (Intelligence Quotient)degrees, divisions and other formalitiesneed to be revisited. May be teacherswith high E.Q. can be one of the possibleanswers but how to select teachers who


are emotionally involved with theprofession is the question to beaddressed seriously.

Concluding Statement

What are the ways by which aninstitution can lock itself into the cycleof learning? In order to bring positiveresults, there is a need for every schoolpersonnel to reflect on the most to themost vital issues honestly:

● Are we ourselves pace setters?Which category do we actuallybelong to – Ist, IInd or IIIrd?

● When policy in school is framed, do

we actually consult teachers? Arewe doing it in the real sense orour consultation is confined to asmall group? Is our behaviourdemotivating the IInd Category?

● Appreciation, recognition is anatural urge. Do we actually meanwhat we say and convey rightmessages with right tone? We talkof Generosity. Are we really doing it?

● Schools until this time have been ateaching institutions. Can we makeit a teaching-cum-learninginstitution — Learning Centre forHeads as well as for Teachers?

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ASPINWALL, K. and M. PEDLAR. 1997. Schools as learning organisations. In B. Fiedler, S.Russell and T. Simkins (Eds), Choices for Self-Managing Schools, London: PaulChapman.

BARTH, ROLAND SAWYER. 1991. Improving Schools From Within: Teachers, Parents andPrincipals Can Make the Difference, San Francisco, CA : Jossey-Bass.

BUSH, T. and D. MIDDLEWOOD. (Ed). 1996. Managing People in Education , EducationalManagement Research and Practice, New Delhi: Sage Publication.

CLARK, D. 1996. Schools as Learning Communities, London: Cassell.ELMORE, RICHARD F., L. PENELOPE PETERSON and SARAH J. MCCARTHEY. 1996. Restructuring

in the Classroom: Teaching, Learning, and School Organisation, San Francisco:Jossey-Bass.

EVERARD, K.B. and GEOFF MORRIS. 1990. Effective School Management, Paul ChapmanEducational Publish, ISBN-10: 1853960861.

HONEY, P. 1991. The learning organisation simplified. In Training and Development,July, 30-33

HOPKINS, D. 1994. School Improvement in an Era of Change. In P. RIBBINS AND E.BURRIDGE (Eds), Improving Education: Promoting Quality in Schools. London: Cassell.

JOOP SWIERINGA AND ANDRÉ WIERDSMA. 1992. Becoming a learning Organisation: beyondthe learning curve , Wokingham : Addison-Wesley.

JOYCE, BRUCE, AND EMILY CALHOUN. 1996. School Renewal: An Inquiry, Not a Prescription.In Learning Experiences in School Renewal: An Exploration of Five SuccessfulPrograms edited by Bruce Joyce and Emily Calhoun. 175-90. Eugene, Oregon:ERIC Clearinghouse on Educational Management.


KRUSE, SHARON D. and KAREN SEASHORE LOUIS. 1993), An Emerging Framework forAnalysing School-Based Professional Community, Paper presented at the AnnualMeeting of the American Educational Research Association, Atlanta Georgia.

LASHWAY, LARRY. 1997. Leading With Vision, Eugene, Oregon: ERIC Clearinghouse onEducational Management.

LEITHWOOD , K.L. LEONARD and SHARRATT. 1998. Conditions Fostering Organisational Learningin Schools, Educational Administration Quarterly, 34 (2), pp. 234-276.

LUMBY, JACKY. 1996. The Learning Organisation. In Managing People in Education,edited by Tony Bush and David Middlewood, Educational Management Researchand Practice, New Delhi: Sage Publication.

MALHOTRA, YOGESH. 1996. Organizational Learning and Learning Organisations: AnOverview (Website: http://www.brint.com/papers/orglrng.htm.

MIDDLEWOOD, COLEMAN and LUMBY. 1999. Practitioner Research In Education: Making aDifference, United Kingdom : Sage Publications Ltd

MORGAN, G. 1986. Images of Organisation, London: Sage Publications.PEDLER, M., J. BURGOYNE and T. BOYDELL. 1991, 1996. The Learning Company. A Strategy

for Sustainable Development, London: Mc Graw HillPETER, LASSEY. 1998. Developing a Learning Organization, London: Kogan Page Limited.ROBERT, MELAMEDE. 1997. http://eric.uoregon.edu/publications/digests/

digest121.html.SAMMONS, P., HILLMAN, J. and MORTIMER, P. 1995. Key Characteristic of EffectiveSchools, London: Office for Standard in Education.SCHÖN, D.A. 1983. The Reflective Practitioner, New York: Basic Books.SENGE, P. 1990. The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization,

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Education : Promoting Quality in Schools, London: Cassell.WEST-BURNHAM , JOHN. 1992. Understanding Learning,website: http://edlinked.soe.waikato.ac.nz/users/jan/ELC/learning.pdfWOODWARD, HELEN and CYNTHIA HALL. 2003. Collegial Learning and Collective Capacities,

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Examination and Assessment PrinciplesIntegrating Assessment withTeaching-Learning Processes

RAVI P. BHATIA*

Abstract

An analysis is made about the well-known drawbacks and inadequacies of thepresent examination system in India in terms of the poor quality of questions, lackof transparency and its inability to cater to the needs of the modern society thatrequires skilled manpower. There are also administrative difficulties although someof them like cheating in examinations and late declaration of results have to aconsiderable extent being successfully addressed. We underline the limitation ofthe present examination system which is mainly used for certifying purposes andwhich is integrated only to a limited extent with the larger teaching-learning system.We point out that a proper assessment system similar to the one that prevails inU.K. and elsewhere, not only fulfils this basic need but also helps the teaching-learning aspects both of students and faculty. This is done by a properunderstanding of the objectives and principles of assessment, by aligning theassessment with the curriculum and by giving periodic feedback to students.A brief discussion about the various types of assessments and their objectives,and how they are able to improve the educational system and generate requisiteskills is made. The need for proper infrastructure and qualified teachers whoenjoy trust and support systems is also stressed.

Introduction

Some faculty members and Directors ofIIT are informally admitting that IIT isunable to get the best students throughits competitive examinations. This mayappear puzzling, considering that out ofmore than 3 lakh students who take the

*Retired from the University of Delhi, 4, Mall Apartments, Mall Road, Delhi-110054.

test only about 4,500 students are finallyselected and those who are successfulare highly motivated and serious.

And yet this is one more admissionof the fact that there is somethingdrastically wrong with the examinationsystem in India. It is not being able toproduce persons with relevant skills and

Examination and Assessment Principles... 115

knowledge required in today’s world.There are several common problems inthe examination system both at theschool and college levels:

● Poor quality question papers withvague and often repetitive questions

● Subjectivity and lack of consistencyin marking of scripts by examiners

● Problems in administration ofexaminations and in declaration ofresults

● Cheating in examinations● Lack of transparency in the system● Large scale stress among students

both before the start of theexamination and after theexamination results is declared.

But in addition there are serioussubstantive issues involved as to thedifferent purposes of assessment of thestudents and how these are to beaddressed. While the education sectorboth at the school level and HigherEducation (HE) levels has undergonedrastic, almost unimaginable changesboth in terms of content, approach andpedagogy, the examination system is anobsolete system that we are unable ordo not wish to substantially change.

Most of our universities had adoptedthe British system of education includingthe examination system that basicallyconsisted of year end final examinationin different papers of any particularcourse – U.G. or P.G. For science orstatistics subjects there were in addition,the practical examination, usually heldbefore the theory papers, which carriedabout 20 to 30 % weightage. For medicalor engineering courses there werecertain additional tests like clinicalexamination or workshop practices etc.

The format of the education systemhas not undergone many changes exceptthat the annual academic programme atthe tertiary level has been modified to asemester programme in several courses.On the examination front also certainmodifications have been introduced inthe system – a mid-term exam or test hasbeen introduced carrying about 5 to 10%weightage and a few written assignmentsor projects have also been introduced incertain subjects like commerce ormanagement studies etc.

The entire issue of curriculum andexamination reforms at the school levelhas been considered by NCERT in 2004-05 in the National CurriculumFramework. The Position Paper of theNational Focus Group on ExaminationReforms (2005) has cited severalproblems being faced by ExaminationBoards, and has come out with certainsuggestions for improvement or goodpractices. The paper lists variousdeficiencies in the present examinationsystem – lack of quality of questionpapers, stress on rote memorisation,lack of transparency in grading andmarking, lack of flexibility in the systemto cater to the needs of ‘slow learners’ orstudents belonging to schools withinadequate infrastructure, etc.

The paper also underlines theinability of the system to serve ‘the needsof a social justice’ and to cater to thedemands of the modern society. It writes:“Indian school board exams are largelyinappropriate for the ‘knowledge society’of the 21st century and its need forinnovative problem solvers”

On the administrative front severalimprovements have been carried out inour examination system. Cheating in


examinations has been reduced by theintroduction of flying squads and othermeasures; declaration of results andissuance of mark sheets have generallybeen expedited and in many cases likethe CBSE, the results can be obtainedon line. The quality of papers and theirevaluation has also improved althoughthere is scope for taking further steps.

In India the pattern of examinationshas remained almost unchanged for thelast sixty years although in U.K. andelsewhere, assessment and evaluationprocedures have undergone majorchanges. Not only are there changes inprocedure to make assessment moresystematic, transparent and fair both tothe students and the teachers, aconsiderable amount of research hasalso been undertaken to evolve effectiveand innovative procedures. This hasbeen done in view of the evolving societalneeds, which lays emphasis on relevantskill generation and not just obtaining adegree of science or commerce forexample.

As a result of this evolution in theeducation sector, significant changeshave taken place in (what we callexamination system) the assessmentsystem and practices in U.K., Australiaand other countries. Assessment is nowused as an integral part of the totalteaching-learning process (TLP). There isalso a great deal of dependence on IT notonly in the teaching but also in theassessment sector. Computers havebecome indispensable in the educationaland assessment sectors both as toolsand in the form of e-learning and e-assessment.

The administrative improvements inthe conduct of examinations and

declaration of results in India, althoughwelcome, have not fully addressed thesubstantive problems of teaching-learning that have been outlined above.The examination system has basicallyperformed a certificative role – i.e.,remained a means of giving marks orgrades to students and has not been fullyintegrated in the teaching-learningregime. What is required is a thoroughunderstanding of the issues ofassessment and evaluation – their basicpurpose in the teaching-learningprocesses and advantages ordisadvantages of different types ofassessment procedures.

Considering the principal limitationsof the present examination system, weoffer some suggestions for going beyondthe certificative role of the examinationsystem and to evolve a system forimproving teaching-learningenvironment in India. The new systemthat we propose is not being calledexamination system, which has a specificconnotation but rather the assessmentsystem. The latter has much broadersignificance than the former withexaminations forming one of thecomponents of the assessment system.This is not just a semantic difference butrather a substantive one where the roleof teaching-learning and assessment areorganically linked. In fact the totalteaching-learning assessment combineis also called TLA in modern terminology(Biggs, 2003).

In the following sections of the article,we discuss several key issues:● Objectives and Purposes of

Assessment● Principles of Assessment● Teaching Learning Process (TLP)


● Skills required in ContemporarySociety

● Role of Teachers, etc.

Objectives, Purposes andPrinciples of Assessment

It is instructive to outline the variousobjectives/purposes of assessment.There are also various broad principlesof assessment that we must adhere tomake the assessment fair, transparentand dependable.

Objectives

There are basically two importantobjectives why we need to assessstudents – (i) for certification, and (ii) forgiving feedback to students in theprocess of teaching and learning.

(i) Certification

As mentioned earlier, the main objectiveof assessment in India has been tocertify students’ achievement at the endof a course or programme.

This means that when a student haspassed his/her plus-2 examination inScience and Mathematics stream, weknow what the student has studied inPhysics, Chemistry, Mathematics,English and possibly Computer Scienceor Life Sciences or perhaps Economics.His marks or percentage scored by himgives an idea about the level ofachievement in the various subjects andthe complete result provides informationwhether the student has passed, orobtained second, first division ordistinction marks.

The same is true for College orUniversity level examinations also.

(ii) Feedback for teaching-learning

In our system feedback about students’learning is generally ignored. Feedbackneeds to be given to students periodicallyfor improving both learning and teaching.If there is a deficiency in learning,suitable inputs need to be provided tostudents to improve learning oralternatively, if most of the students arenot learning properly, teachers need tochange their methodology or strategy ofteaching. This is being increasingly doneto improve teaching-learningenvironment in UK, Australia and USA.

Feedback is an important aspect ofteaching-learning process. If it is specificand worded clearly, it can enhancestudents’ motivation, encouragereflection and in general, promotelearning.

Another purpose of feedback asdiscussed by Boud and Falchikov (2006)is to promote long-term learning afterformal teaching has come to an end. Wewill discuss the impact of feedback inteaching-learning process in greater detaillater.

Keeping in view these objectives wehave two different types of assessment:

● Summative: a final mark or gradeor division at the end of a unit/module/course or at any specifiedperiod of the academic year.

● Formative: used for facilitatinglearning. Both students andteachers need to know how learningis proceeding.

We should indicate that summativeassessment itself is of two kinds


● Normative—Norm ReferencedAssessment NRA (for rankingstudents)

● Criterion Referenced Assessment.CRA (for informing what and howwell a student has learnt).

In India the NRA is used both forgrading students’ performance in anexamination as well as to rank them.However, it is important to differentiatebetween the two purposes. The formerpurpose is meant for giving marks orgrades (50 % or B grade or II division).The latter is to choose the top 10 or 15 or20 % students irrespective of the marksobtained by them. This is needed inentrance examinations for admission toa course or even for selecting candidatesfor a job e.g. in the Indian Civil Servicesor in the Defense Services, etc.

In CRA the objective is to assessstudents’ understanding of andperformance on what they have learnton the basis of certain pedagogic criteriaor competencies. Courses or modules arewritten in terms of competencies, criteriaand skills that are tested by this method.The emphasis is not on rote memory asused to be earlier or confined to a giventextbook alone, but on a properunderstanding and application ofcompetencies and the ability to acquirethe necessary skills.

Specific purposes of assessment

We have already listed two importantobjectives of assessment. There are someother specific purposes of assessmentthat are dependent on the point of viewthat is in our mind — the students’ orteachers’ or policymakers’ points of view.We list below these purposes:

A. Students

● Obtain a certificate of passing andmarks/division obtained

● Grade or ranks students● Diagnose students strengths/

weaknesses● Assist weaker students by giving

them special inputs or support● Motivate students to learn better● Provide feedback for students

learning.

B. Teachers

● Evaluate course strengths/weaknesses

● Identify weak students who mayneed special support systems

● Suggest alternate methods/strategies of teaching.

C. Organisers/Policy Makers

● Provide inputs for curricularchanges/development

● Provide feedback about features(strengths/weaknesses ) of coursesor Modules

● Gauge employment possibilities ofpassouts

● Provide relevant feedback andinformation to prospectiveemployers, etc.

Principles of Assessment

There are some broad principles of anyassessment process that should befollowed for fairness, transparency andconsistency. Some of these are listedbelow:

● Assessment to be integral part of theCourse/Curriculum

● Assessment should provide feed-back to support learning process


● Assessment to include severaldifferent competencies or learningcriteria.

● Assessment should be– Consistent and Reliable– Valid– Transparent– Bias Free– Practicable and do-able within

available time.By reliable and consistent we mean

that if the same answer is being markedby different persons or the same personmarks it at different times, the marksobtained should be either same or veryclose to each other. Validity means thatthe questions should test what is desiredto be tested. For example if we want totest students’ understanding andapplications of quantitative techniques,then the question should do preciselythat and not ask question about thedefinition or meaning of terms like meanor standard deviation etc.

Transparency signifies thatstudents are aware of the nature of theassessment, how their performance isbeing assessed and how to improve it.They should have access to their answerbooks after marking a practice that is anabsolute taboo in our present system.

Bias free assessment means thatthere should be no bias – for or againstany student while assessing hisperformance – a written or oral test or aproject report or an assignment etc.

There are various Methods ofAssessment like Quiz, Weekly/monthlyexams, Open book exams, Objective(Multiple Type) Tests, Take-home tests,assignments, E-Assessment, etc. These

have their advantages or disadvantageswith some being more appropriate incertain situations and others in differentsituations. However we do not discussthem here since they are beyond thescope of this article.

Teaching Learning Process

This is a very important objective ofassessment, which has traditionallybeen largely ignored in the Indiansystem. A proper and regular process ofassessment allows the teachers as wellas the administration to know how theteaching and learning process bystudents is going on and if remedial stepsneed to be taken to improve it.

According to Biggs (p. 141):

To the teacher, assessment is at theend of the teaching-learningsequence, but to the student it is atthe beginning. If the curriculum isreflected in the assessment, theteaching activities of the teacher andthe learner activities of the learnerare both directed towards the samegoal.

Learning-oriented assessment hasbeen considered to be very important inthe British and Australian Universitiestoday. A special issue of the Journal ofAssessment and Evaluation in HigherEducation (Vol. 31, No. 4 August 2006)has been devoted entirely to this objectiveso that assessment could be so tailoredto maximise meaningful studentlearning. Boud and Falchikov (op. cit.)have considered the issue of assessmentfrom the point of long-term learning.


According to them:

“The raison d’etre of highereducation is that it provides afoundation on which lifelonglearning in work and other socialsettings can be built. Thus apartfrom short term focus ofassessment, it must also fosterlearning after graduation…”

We have already underlined theadvantages of proper feedback forpromoting teaching-learning. However,Beth R. Crisp (2007) in her paper arguesthat teachers’ feedback alone isinadequate to promote deeper learning.At best it has limited impact. There couldbe several reasons but one reason is thatthe feedback is of general and imprecisenature which leaves students puzzled.This may be due to large number ofstudents to deal with and with limitedtime available to teachers, it is oftendifficult for teachers to give properfeedback. Another reason could be thatstudents themselves are often not verykeen to act upon the teachers’ feedback.

Role of teachers in Examinationsystem

The low status of school teachers, theirpoor emoluments and the minimumqualifications prescribed for becoming aschool teacher have been graphicallydescribed by Kumar (pp. 81-82). He writesthat as late as 1950, only 13% ofelementary teachers in India werematriculates. This percentage rose to 34towards the end of 1950s. Even todayonly about 70% of the primary teachersin India have passed the HigherSecondary or Senior Secondary

examinations and about 25 % havepassed only the eighth class examinationor lower.

It is not surprising therefore that inmost Examination Boards andUniversities, a veil of secrecy covers thewhole gamut of the examination system.Right from the time of paper setting toevaluation of scripts to moderation andfinally to declaration of results, thesystem works on the principle of secrecyand opaqueness and the belief thatteachers who do all the components ofthe examination system, cannot betrusted. They are supposed to work inutmost secrecy and confidentialitywithout their names being identified orpublicised. This practice has beencontinuing right from the British times.

Not only in the School examinationBoards, but also at the University level,examinations are externally organisedwhich means that paper setting,moderation and evaluation of answerscripts is done by outside teachers. Theteacher usually is not allowed to evaluatethe scripts of his own students.

A recent study of the U.P. Boardexamination results for Classes X andXII indicates that of about 34 lakhstudents who appeared in theseexaminations, an abnormally largenumber of about 15 lakh students failed.This is a shocking state of affairs whichshould cause soul searching and a deepanalysis of the factors responsible. Thereare many causes responsible for thistragic situation but one of the principalones is the fact that since there is onepaper for all the students, economicallyor academically weaker students are putto a great disadvantage. Similarly rural


students also face difficulties since theorientation of the question paper usuallyhas an urban bias. Another factor is theabsence of qualified and trainedteachers and lack of properinfrastructure.

This situation needs to be altered. Inaddition to removing or at least reducingthe above bias, a system where teachersare given proper recognition, supportsystems and necessary responsibilityshould be adopted for a better teaching-learning environment.

Krishna Kumar has writtenextensively on the practice that prevailedfrom the time there were publicexaminations at the school levels. Hewrites (p 68):

“The teacher however could notbe trusted and hence was notpermitted to examine his ownstudents. All he could do was toprepare them (students) to thehilt which meant giving them theopportunity to rehearse endlesslythe skills of reproducing the textfrom memory … on any questionbased on the textbook…”

Here the question of using theexamination system as a feedback toimprove teaching and learning processesdid not arise. To a large extent thepractice still prevails today.

Knowledge Society and Skills

In the time of British rule, knowledgeremained scare since it was confined toa select few. Here the primary goal ofeducation was to produce clerks and afew other professional people like doctorsor engineers for the country and the

process consisted of disseminating itthrough prescribed textbooks. The primepurpose of examinations appeared toconsist of testing the success of suchtransmission. The process of nationbuilding and the creation of anindustrialised society however requireddiverse skills and competencies.

A modern society requires varioustypes of professionals with diversifiedskills – not just doctors, scientists,engineers, chartered accountants oreconomists, but also nurses,paramedicos, travel agents, advocates,TV and newspaper reporters and anchors,salespersons, computer personnel etc.The type of skills required are usuallynot addressed in the examination systemthat prevails in India today.

This results in what has been termedas unemployable graduates or postgraduates. The NCF has quoted a headhunter who has said that “nineteen outof twenty graduate applicants and 6 outof 7 post graduate applicants areunemployable. They lack the requisiteproblem solving skills or often do notknow what problem solving means”.

Ganesh Natarajan writing onTransforming the skills environment inIndia has also underlined this problem.He writes:

“There is a constant refrain in theIndian IT and BPO sectors that lessthan 20 per cent of the 300,000 andmore engineers who graduate eachyear are employable in the softwareindustry without huge investment inlearning and training inputs”.

He further writes that ‘many othersectors like retail, hospitality and


healthcare have joined the clamour fora better skilled workforce. Oureducational apparatus has failed todeliver what the industry needs and nonumber of finishing schools which arenow mushrooming all over the countrywill compensate for a structural malaisein the learning content and processes’.

The monthly journal Seminar in itsJuly 2008 issue writes (p. 12):

“It is difficult to deny that no Indianuniversity or institute, the IIMs andIITs included, ever makes it to the topranks in any list …. Little surprisethat exceptions apart, all employers– public or private – continue to carpabout the unsatisfactory skill andknowledge base of our graduates,and at all levels.”

Types of Skills

There are various types of skills that needto be taught and acquired by students.These will naturally depend on the stageof education as well as the subject/stream that a student is following. Butsome broad skills that are necessary atdifferent levels, are outlined below:

● Development of Knowledge andUnderstanding.These are subject specific. Forexample in the subject of Politicalscience at the UG level theknowledge of the Indianconstitution and its framers, itsdevelopment in the last sixty years,its main features will be requiredto be understood and learnt bystudents.

● Cognitive and Intellectual skillsThese are generic skills thatinclude the concepts of analysis,

synthesis, collation, extension,generalisation, evaluation,application, etc. The levels ofanalysis or synthesis will depend onthe stage or level that a student isstudying. For example, analysis atthe lowest level would mean theability or skill to analyse withguidance of teachers using givenclassification principles or criteria.For the higher levels it may meananalysis without or with minimumguidance.

● Transferable skills

These include communication,management of information,problem solving, quantitative skillsor abilities, graphical or drawingskills. There are also skills involvedin working in groups or as a team.

● Practical skillsThese include the skills to work oncomputers, handle scientificequipment or machinery, workingin a lab or studio etc. Again theseskills will be developed from a veryrudimentary level to advanced levelas the student progresses from alower level to higher levels of study.

A good education and assessmentsystem should be able to test differenttypes of skills in addition to the subjectspecific understanding and concepts.Today, the focus of the education systemis to transmit knowledge and conceptsto students, without ascertaining to whatextent various skills are being acquiredby learners. Even in the science courses,there is only a limited emphasis onmaking students adept at practicalskills. Whatever skills a student is ableto imbibe is incidental and fortuitous and


in spite of the prevailing system. This isparticularly true of non-elite institutionsof higher learning which lack adequateresources and qualified faculty.

The system that has been suggestedabove integrates the teaching-learningand assessment practices organically.With proper infrastructure and qualifiedfaculty enjoying good support systemsand trust, there will be a noticeableimprovement in skill generation.

Conclusions

We have tried to analyse the presentexamination system at the school andUniversity levels and underlined thevarious deficiencies and limitations itsuffers from. We have attempted to gobeyond the traditional examinationsystem to an assessment system whichis aimed at integrating the teaching-learning process with the assessing ofstudents’ performance. This system isprevalent and successful in U.K.,Australia and other countries. Broadprinciples and purposes of assessmenthave been outlined above. In this system,the importance of proper feedback byteachers to encourage and motivatestudents is stressed.

The article also lists various types ofskills required in a modern society whichunfortunately are not being acquired bystudents in the traditional educationand examination system thereby makinga large number of graduates

unemployable. If assessment is properlyaligned to the curriculum andappropriate teaching-learning strategiesare observed, students are likely toacquire these skills and acquire betterskills and become employable.

The article points out at the lowstatus of teachers in India especially atthe school level. Moreover, a cloak ofsecrecy surrounds the examinationsystem that works on the principle thatteachers cannot be trusted despite thefact that they are involved in all stagesof the examination system. Teachersmust be given proper recognition andresponsibilities.

It is critical that proper workingconditions, trust, recognition andsupport system are available to theteachers. Otherwise, they will obviouslynot be able to play the increasinglyresponsible part in the teaching-learningprocess that has been suggested above.They also need to be periodically givenorientation and training in pedagogy anduse of newer technologies and practices.We understand the constraints onteachers even at the higher educationlevel — not to speak of the school level.However, if a beginning is made at leastin some well endowed and forwardlooking institutions like the IITs and theIIMs, the results are bound to beencouraging for all the stakeholders –students, teachers and educationproviders.


REFERENCES

BIGGS, JOHN. 2003. Teaching for Quality Learning at University, second edition. Berkshire,U.K.: The Society for Research into Higher Education and Open University Press.

BOUD, DAVID and NANCY FALCHIKOV. 2006. Aligning assessment with long-term learning,Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, 31 ( 4), August, 399-413.

CRISP, BETH R. 2007. Is it worth the Effort? How Feedback influences students’subsequent submission of assessable work, Assessment & Evaluation in HigherEducation, 32 ( 5), October, 571-581.

KUMAR, KRISHNA. 2005. Political Agenda of Education, second edition. Sage Publications,New Delhi.

NATARAJAN, GANESH. 2008. Transforming the skills environment in India, Rediffnews, 29August.

NCERT. 2006. National Curriculam Framework (NCF). Position paper of NationalFocus Group on Examination Reforms, New Delhi.

Evaluation of Inclusive Education Practices in Sarva Siksha Abhiyan (SSA)... 125

Evaluation of Inclusive Education Practicesin Sarva Siksha Abhiyan (SSA)

Primary SchoolsAMITAV MISHRA* and GIRIJESH KUMAR**

Abstract

The study aimed to evaluate the influence of inclusive education practices on learningand teacher attitude towards children with special needs as well as to evaluatehow children with special needs placed in regular schools have benefited. Twentychildren with disabilities of two from each 10-randomly selected schools werechosen for case study. A critical evaluation was done on all possible related variablesresponsible for meeting unique needs of child with disabilities such as: dropout/retention; provision of incentives including aids and appliances; individualisedprogramme; curricular adaptation; academic achievement; attitude of teachersand peers; and resource support to school. It was observed that not only mild andmoderate, but children with disabilities having any severity level were part of theprimary schools. Significant gap between school age and chronological age; lowergrade level inappropriate examination practices were observed. Retention ofchildren with disabilities was found good with appropriate attendance. Half ofthe teacher’s attitude towards these children were nor favourable; however, positivepeer acceptance was observed. The present article also mentions all possiblepractical suggestions and recommendations.

Introduction

The inclusive education (IE) has been wellaccepted and practiced throughout theglobe because the learning needs of thedisabled children demand special

*Reader in Special Education, Faculty of Education and Allied Sciences, M.J.P. RohilkhandUniversity, Bareilly.**Head, Department of Education, Faculty of Education and Allied Sciences, M.J.P.Rohilkhand University, Bareilly.

attention. Inclusive Education is not justabout including people with disabilities;it is about including everyone, andmaking particular efforts to identify whois excluded or marginalised. The basicstrategies of inclusive education are:


(i) curriculum and teaching approachesare flexible and child-focused;(ii) learning for all children is moreeffective and relevant; (iii) buildings andenvironments are accessible;(iv) teachers work together and are wellsupported and adequately trained;(v) examination and assessment systemsare flexible and accessible; (vi) there areadequate and accessible water,sanitation, nutrition and health andsafety standards and provision; and(vii) drop-out and repeater rates arereduced, and completion rates improved.Several steps need to be taken to provideequal access to education to everycategory of disabled individuals as anintegral part of the education system(WDEFA-1990). We are always in searchof appropriate and effective strategy tobring all children with disabilities underthe umbrella of primary education(Mishra, 2003). It has been rightly saidthat the issue is not whether disabledchildren can be included in generalclassrooms, but the issue is how toinclude them (Jangira, 1987).

The inclusive education in developingcountries like India is still in infancy.However, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA)had visualised of providing qualityprimary education to all children by2007. The emerging ‘school for all’globally is a pointer to this trend. During1994-95, District Primary EducationProgramme (DPEP) was launched in 42districts of seven states namelyKarnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra,Haryana, Tamilnadu, Madhya Pradeshand Assam and later it was expanded.The guidelines on Integrated Educationfor Disabled (lED) in DPEP were developedin 1997. lED became operational in DPEP

in 1998. After action plans on lED weredeveloped by different states, and thenstate specific strategies were evolveddifferently on every state depending onstate specific vision and needs. In eachstate interventions were broadly made inthe areas of teacher training, materialdevelopment and provision of resourcesupport that child with special needsoften need for teaching and learning.Teachers were adequately oriented to theneeds, problems and implications ofevery kind of disabilities (Mishra, 2002a).As a result, there has been a substantialexpansion of lED in terms of number ofdisabled children identified and enrolledin DPEP schools. Department of EEL(2006) reported that through DPEP/SSAabout 21,00,000 children with specialneeds (CWSN) identified and about16,00,000 of them are already in theregular school system in a span of 8years. About 20,00,000 teachers havereceived in-service training, about80,000 have undergone 45/90 day RCIrecognised course and about 30,000 VECmembers are being oriented about IE in17 states (MHRD, 2007).

An important issue associatedwith any large-scale scheme/intervention is that how an effect isexpected. The impact of DPEP on IEDappeared to be an important issuewhen planners were about to framestrategies for Sarva Siksha Abhiyan(SSA). Without evaluation, therehas no means of assessing howeffectively lE has been impartingquality education to disabled children.Case study method was adopted to carryout the study. Case studies wereundertaken both at individual andschool levels.


The specific objectives of the studywere: (i) to evaluate the influence of lEon learning and teacher attitude towardschildren with special needs; (ii) toevaluate how children with special needsplace in regular schools have benefitedfrom this programme. The variablesconsidered for the present study were:(i) level of learning achievement;(ii) teacher attitude; (iii) teacher trainingand its impact on students, (iv) peeracceptance; and (v) retention of disabledchildren.

Methodology

According to the design of the study, 10primary schools were randomly selectedas samples. Besides the detailed studyof each school and were also undertakentwo children with disabilities randomlyselected from each school.

Procedure

The procedures adopted for the studywere: (i) for recording the case history ofevery CWSN, appropriate formats weredeveloped. Also for studying the role ofschool in lE, a different format was made.Focus was given on benefits accruing tothe child on account of his/herplacement in regular schools. The schoolin which the child studying wasevaluated on the basis of informationand observation compiled through adetailed checklist and data sheet; (ii) Peerattitude was studied through directobservation of interaction betweendisabled and non disabled peers that:(a) whether or not the non-disabled peersaccepted the disabled peer(s); (b) whetherthe attitudes of the non-disabled peerswere condescending; and (c) whether the

attitudes of the non-disabled peers wererejecting; (3) the achievements ofchildren with disabilities were evaluatedthrough Grade Level Assessment Tool.Vineland Social Maturity Scale was alsoadministered on disabled children toevaluate their social maturity/adjustment due to IE; (4) Teachertraining programmes conduct as part ofDPEP was evaluated on the basis ofwhether or not teaching strategies/methods used are effective in helpingchildren with special needs to learnbetter; (5) Teacher attitudes were judgedby observing the teacher who is teachingthe children with disabilities.

Results

The study covered 10 primary schoolsthose were randomly selected from Hardoidistrict of Uttar Pradesh. Reportedlyefforts have been made in Hardoi districtto promote ‘Inclusive Education’ as partof DPEP and SSA intervention. Althoughthe lE programme is spread throughoutall nineteen blocks of Hardoi, but thetarget blocks were: Sandila, Kachauna,Sursa and Bawan. Out of 7648 identifiedchildren with special needs (CWSNs) inthe whole district, the four project blockshave integrated 621 CWSNs out of their861 identified cases. The interventionstowards promotion of IE programme were:(i) teacher training/sensitisation in lED(5 days/10 days/45 days); (ii) communitysensitisation and training to VillageEducation Committee (VEC); (iii) parentcounselling and guidance services;(iv) collaboration/hiring of NGO; (v) freedistribution of aids and appliances andfree health checkup; (vi) construction oframps; (vii) distribution of scholarships;


(viii) resource support to project schoolsby District Coordinator-lED, threespecial educators and one resourceteacher in every block.

According to the design of the studytwo students with disabilities from each10 selected schools (20) were chosen forcase study through case history methodand field observation. The details ofschools covered under study have beengiven in Table 1.

A broad difference in ratio of childrenwith disabilities and without was foundover sample schools. However, onaverage, one child with disability wasfound in every 28 children and hence aprevalence rate of 3.57% was recorded.In the sample schools 69 children withdisabilities were enrolled out of 82 suchchildren. This implies an enrolment rateof 84%. The things those observed to bemore alarming was: (a) poor teacher-student ratio; (b) physical incapability ofschool building to accommodate allstudents. A school was also observedthat did not have a building to shelterits student and teachers. When theprimary schools did not have basicinfrastructure and required number ofteachers then what we could debateabout the success of inclusive educationby ensuring appropriate and qualityeducation to children with disabilities?Due to DPEP/SSA intervention, most ofthe teachers were found to be orientedabout education of children in thedisabilities either through 5-day trainingworkshop or of 10-day duration. Further,some variables related to children withdisabilities were studied in detail thosewere covered by 10-sample schools.Table-2 given below represents thedetailed scenario of CWSNs

representation in sample SSA schools.Out of 69 enrolled students (with

disabilities), the number of students withlocomotion impairment (LI) was themaximum (35) followed by students withhearing impairment (15), then visualimpairment (12) and the number ofstudents with mental retardation wasminimum (07). The number of malestudents with disabilities (45) was almosttwo times higher than their femalecounterparts (24). Even children agedfifteen years were also observed studyingin the sample primary schools. Althoughmost of the children with disabilities wereprovided with free textbooks, but manyof them did not receive scholarship. Onlyhalf of the total students were given aidsand appliances.

The attendances of such childrenrecorded at schools were impressive. Itwas also given to understand the positiverelationship between wazifa (freedistribution of 4-Kilograms wheat grainsper month to each child) and his/herattendance. Many a times theexaggeration of figures in school recordmight result in impressive figures.Despite poor infrastructure, inadequatenumber of teachers, the enrolment andretention of children with disabilities arevery encouraging. However the quality ofclassroom transactions and academicperformance of such children are yet amatter of concerns.

As mentioned earlier that twostudents with disabilities from each 10selected schools (20) were chosen for casestudy. The summary of children(disability wise) are given in Tables 3-6.

Students with mild to severe mentalretardation were observed in primaryschools. All students were found with low


Tab

le 2

: D

etai

ls o

f C

WSN

s C

over

ed b

y S

chools

under

the

Stu

dy

Sch

ools

T

ypes

of D

isa

bili

ties

Sex

C

lass

In

cen

tive

s A

tten

na

nce

Age

Aid

s/M

RH

IV

ILI

Tot

al

MF

Ran

geI

IIII

IIV

VF

TB

SA

ppl.

RN

RD

O

11

52

614

95

6-1

11

28

21

1402

3/8

1103

02

2-

21

052

37-1

00

12

20

0501

0/1

0401

03

-2

-3

053

27-1

51

30

01

0303

0/2

0401

04

33

25

139

47-1

49

03

10

1302

3/6

0901

35

-1

15

076

16-1

12

23

00

0601

4/6

0600

16

-1

23

063

37-1

10

11

40

0604

1/6

0501

07

--

13

043

17-1

10

21

01

0400

2/3

0400

08

--

25

074

37-1

23

13

00

0702

2/2

0700

09

-2

-2

043

17-9

13

00

004

023/3

0400

010

11

-2

043

17-9

31

00

004

021/1

0400

0

Tota

l07

1512

3569

4524

6-1

520

1621

93

6619

19/3

858

074

Tab

le 1

: D

etai

ls o

f Sch

ools

Cover

ed U

nder

Stu

dy

Sch

ools

Tot

al

CW

SN

No.

of

Tea

cher

-A

vaila

ble

Tra

inin

g of

Tea

cher

sS

tud

ents

En

rolle

dN

otTea

cher

sS

tud

ent

Spa

ce to

in lE

Enro

lled

Ratio

Acc

omm

oda

te

139

414

0102

1: 1

97

150

5 d

ay

Trg

. to

2/2

212

605

0202

1:6

300

5 d

ay

Trg

. to

2/2

331

005

0206

1:5

225

0 5

day

Trg

. to

5/6

427

213

0003

1:9

120

0 5

day

Trg

. to

3/3

537

507

0203

1: 1

25

250

5 d

ay

Trg

. to

2/3

628

406

0804

1: 7

115

0 5

day

Trg

. to

4/4

718

204

0204

1:4

615

0 5

day

Trg

. to

4/4

814

807

0103

1:4

915

0 5

day

Trg

. to

3/3

924

304

0203

1: 8

115

0 5

/10 d

ay T

rg. 1

/3 &

1/3

10 1

12

0402

021:5

615

0 5

day

Trg

. to

1/2

MR

: M

enta

l R

etard

ati

on, H

I: H

eari

ng

Impair

men

t; V

I: V

isu

al Im

pair

men

t; L

I: L

ocom

otio

n Im

pair

men

t, F

TB

: F

ree

Tex

tB

ook;

S:

Sch

olars

hip

; A

id/A

ppl: A

ids

an

d A

pplian

ces;

R:

Reg

ula

r, N

R:

Not

Reg

ula

r; D

O:

Dro

p-o

ut


profile in their social maturity and gradelevel. However, the students were givenopportunity to appear for the last schoolexamination to the class they wereenrolled. Achievement in theexamination did not logically correlatewith their actual level of performance ongrade level assessment tool. Theirattendance in the school wasencouraging and except a few students.Many teachers’ attitudes towards themwere observed to be favourable. The mostexciting fact is that there was completeacceptance by their peers.

Hearing-impaired students of variedseverity were observed studying inprimary schools. Their academicachievement was evaluated to be onegrade below the actual grade in whichthey were studying. Achievement in lastexamination also did not correlate withtheir actual level of performance. Thesocial maturity and group adjustment ofhearing impaired children were found tobe age appropriate and almost at parwith their normal counterparts. Theattitude of teachers was also favourableincluding the acceptance by peer groups.

Both students with total blindnessand partially sighted were found studyingin primary schools. Academicachievement was also found to be low butthe evaluation done by school throughlast examination was different in manycases. Age appropriate social maturitywas observed in most of the children.Although 60% of teachers hadunfavourable attitude towards them, butpeer acceptance was good at everysituation. The attendance of suchchildren was good.

Like other disabilities, students withlocomotors impairment were found with

varied severity. Academic achievementwas also found to be low — though theydid not have any sensory or mentaldisability. Most of the children werereported of attending school regularly.About half of the teachers had favourableattitude. Peers exhibited positiveacceptance towards them.

Examples of one case study each ona child and schools are given at the endof due paper for readers.

The following conclusions may bedrawn from the above observations:

(a) Not only mild and moderate, butchildren with varied severity werefound studying in schools;

(b) The significant gap between schoolage (grade age) and actual age wasfound with half of the children —not only with mental retardation butwith all types of disabilities. In somecases it was due to late enrolmentin the schools;

(c) Except few cases (including allstudents with mental retardation)social maturity exhibited by thestudents with disabilities was ageappropriate and at par with non-disabled peers;

(d) On grade level assessment, allchildren were found to befunctioning at several grade levelsbelow the actual grade on whichthey were studying;

(e) Results obtained from schoolexamination concerning perfor-mance of children with disabilitieswere not reliable. Teachers haddifficulty in examining thesechildren with various categories ofdisabilities;

(f) As per available records, retention


Tab

le 3

: M

enta

l R

etar

dat

ion

Sev

erity

Age

/G

rad

e Lev

elS

ocia

lA

chie

vem

ent i

nA

tten

-Tea

cher

’sPee

rs’

(Na

me)

Sex

/E

valu

atio

nM

atu

rity

last

exa

min

ation

da

nce

Att

itu

de

Acc

ept-

Cla

ssH

ind

iM

ath

Hin

di

Math

ance

Mild

7/M

/l

15%

of

5%

of5 y

rs 3

m-

-78%

Un

favo

ura

ble

Good

(Bri

jesh

)G

rade

1G

rade

1

Mod

erate

11/F/4

45%

of

32%

of

5 y

rs13%

9%

84%

Favo

rable

Good

(Su

fiya

)G

rade

1G

rade

1

Mild

11/F/4

48%

of

33%

of

7 y

rs14%

9%

80%

Favo

rable

Good

(Van

dan

a)

Gra

de

1G

rade

1

Sev

ere

+C

P7/F/2

08%

of

13%

of

5 y

rs 8

m5%

9%

68%

Neu

tral

Good

(San

geet

a)

Gra

de

1G

rade

1M

ild

9/M

/2

20%

of

25%

of

6 y

rs13%

17%

80%

Favo

rable

Good

(Su

ara

m)

Gra

de

1G

rade

1

Tab

le 4

: H

eari

ng

Impai

rmen

t

Sev

erity

Age

/G

rad

e Lev

elS

ocia

lA

chie

vem

ent i

nA

tten

-Tea

cher

’sPee

rs’

(Na

me)

Sex

/E

valu

atio

nM

atu

rity

last

exa

min

ation

da

nce

Att

itu

de

Acc

ept-

Cla

ssH

ind

iM

ath

Hin

di

Math

ance

Sev

ere

8/F/2

22%

of

24%

of

7 y

rs 2

m15%

16%

81%

Favo

ura

ble

Good

(Pre

ma D

evi)

Gra

de

1G

rade

1

Pro

fou

nd

8/M

/3

30%

of

25%

of

Age

12%

10%

78%

Favo

ura

ble

Good

(Sh

ivakan

t)G

rade

1G

rade

1appro

pri

ate

Mod

erate

8/M

/2

50%

of

55%

of

Age

33%

37%

82%

Favo

ura

ble

Good

(Atu

l K

um

ar)

Gra

de

1G

rade

1appro

pri

ate

Sev

ere

12/F/2

23%

of

20%

of

l0 y

rs 3

m46%

40%

83%

Favo

ura

ble

Good

(Ku

sum

a)

Gra

de

1G

rade

1M

oder

ate

Mod

erate

6/M

/1

9%

of

16%

of

Age

--

55%

Neu

tral

Good

(Vin

od)

Gra

de

1G

rade

1appro

pri

ate


Tab

le 6

: Loco

moto

rs I

mpai

rmen

t

Sev

erity

Age

/G

rad

e Lev

elS

ocia

lA

chie

vem

ent i

nA

tten

-Tea

cher

’sPee

rs’

(Na

me)

Sex

/E

valu

atio

nM

atu

rity

last

exa

min

ation

da

nce

Att

itu

de

Acc

ept-

Cla

ssH

ind

iM

ath

Hin

di

Math

ance

40%

6/M

/1

15%

of

14%

of

Age

--

86%

Un

favo

ura

ble

Good

(Madh

ura

j)G

rade

1G

rade

1appro

pri

ate

60%

7/M

/3

36%

of

43%

of

Age

54%

57%

83%

Favo

ura

ble

Good

(Ran

jeet

)G

rade

2G

rade

2appro

pri

ate

40%

11/M

/5

52%

of

62%

of

Age

34%

36%

81%

Neu

tral

Good

(Nasi

m)

Gra

de

2G

rade

2appro

pri

ate

75%

I2/F/3

28%

of

41%

of

9 Y

rs 8

m11%

16%

42%

Un

favo

ura

ble

Good

(Nis

ha D

evi)

Gra

de

1G

rade

1

50%

6/F/1

20%

of

15%

of

Age

--

72%

Favo

ura

ble

Good

(Rit

u D

ixit

)G

rade

1G

rade

1appro

pri

ate

Tab

le 5

: V

isual

Im

pai

rmen

t

Sev

erity

Age

/G

rad

e Lev

elS

ocia

lA

chie

vem

ent i

nA

tten

-Tea

cher

’sPee

rs’

(Na

me)

Sex

/E

valu

atio

nM

atu

rity

last

exa

min

ation

da

nce

Att

itu

de

Acc

ept-

Cla

ssH

ind

iM

ath

Hin

di

Math

ance

Tot

ally

blin

d14/M

/3

25%

of

65%

of

Age

50%

40%

73%

Un

favo

ura

ble

Good

(Ch

hote

ylal)

Gra

de

1G

rade

1appro

pri

ate

Tot

ally

blin

d9/F/3

22%

of

30%

of

Age

9%

12%

77%

Un

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in the school was found good withappropriate attendance;

(g) Half of the teachers’ attitude towardsthese children was not favourable.However peer acceptance waspositive at every instance.

Based on the detailed study onindividual cases and schools on differentvariables, some specific suggestions aredrawn from the above results which areoutlined below.

Level of learning achievement

The level of learning achievement wasfound to be significantly low. It is obliviousthat disabling condition affects learning.However, the learning achievement ofthese children would improve by:

(a) Appropriate resource support toschool and teachers;

(b) More input to teachers through in-service training;

(c) Exploring the possibility to frameand implement individualisededucation programme (IEP); and

(d) Giving importance to appropriateteaching-learning material.

Teachers’ attitude

For successful IE programme, teachersmust be purposeful, enthusiastic andclear in their directions and instructionsto promote greater participation ofstudents with disabilities. Attitudinalbarrier concerns general educators’ lackof feeling responsible for educatingstudents with disabilities (Mishra,2004).During evaluation, about 50% of teacherswere found to have positive attitudetowards the special needs of suchchildren. At the same time 15% teacherswere indifferent and rest 35% teachers

had unfavourable attitude towards IE.This implies that 50% students’population having disability is deprivedof a caring and sincere teacher. Theattitude of teachers may improve byadministrators.

(a) Tagging high priority byadministrators to the education ofchildren with disabilities withcontinues observation andmonitoring of their classroomtransactions;

(b) Arranging more resource supportto teachers;

(c) Recognising dedicated and skilledteachers;

(d) Planning collaborative group works.

Teacher training and its impact

Training of teachers receives top priority.Teacher training was conducted at threedifferent levels. At the first level, allgeneral primary school teachers wereprovided intensive five-day training onspecial education inputs, so that theydevelop skills for identifying children withdisabilities and recognising their specialneeds. At the second level, six-week (45days) training was imparted to selectedteachers, in which they become awareof practical issues concerning handlingof various disabilities in the classrooms.At the third level, a small number ofhighly motivated and interested teachersare selected for intensive training of one-year duration or above.

In the present study, about 75% ofteachers were oriented by 5 daystraining. The number of second and thirdlevel teachers was very meager.Therefore, the general teachers did notget opportunity to be supervised or


helped by a resource teacher. The issueof teacher training may be examined withthe following suggestions:

(a) Each NPRC, should get at least oneof these teachers trained at sixweek level courses.

(b) The quality and methods of trainingalso be standardised even for 5 daytraining;

(c) A team of special educators must beavailable at block level to monitortraining and resource support togeneral/resource teachers;

(d) Teacher training needs to beredefined and planned.

Peer Acceptance

Peer acceptance was very positive andencouraging at every school, whereverthe study was carried out. Peers weresupportive and different forms of peertutoring were observed. Every childirrespective of potential was found to bepart of the group. Even few students withsevere form of disabilities were found tobe very comfortable with the group.Better peer support could be encouragedthrough integration camps andintegrated/unified sports (SpecialOlympics) and ability competition (likeAbilympics).

EXEMPLAR CASE STUDIES

APPENDIX-I

Case Study: Primary School Attamau

In Primary School Attamau, out of 394students, 14 children with disabilitieshave been enrolled in different classes,which constitutes as 3.6% of the totalschool children. Among the nine boys

and five girls, the numbers of orthopaedicdisabled (OD) children is the maximumi.e., 06, then hearing impaired children(HI), 05; visually impaired (VI):02 and; onechild with mental retardation (MR).

The basic facts related to primaryschool Attamau is given below:

1. Address: Village Attamau, BlockSandila, District Hardoi,U.P.

2. Building capacity to accommodate(No. of Students): 150

3. Total strength of students: 3944. Total strength of disabled students:

145. Number of teachers;026. Teacher-student ratio: 1:1977. Number of classrooms:04 (including

Varandah)8. Training of teachers in lED 5 days

Training received by all teachers9. Resource support for lED: NGO

(National Association for Blind,Lucknow).

10. Aids and Appliances: three childrenprovided out of 8 required cases.

Different variables related to schoolas well as individuals towards meetingthe specific need are briefly describedhere:

(a) Drop-out

During the last three years, sevenchildren with disabilities have left theschool — four children by promotion andthree were dropped out. Amongst thedropout students, an orthopaedicdisabled child namely Shaharuddin anda multiple disabled child SatyendraKumar had been shifted to elsewhereleaving their place of residence. Theparents of hearing impaired child namelySarvesh were not interested to send him


to the school. Reportedly the parents ofSarvesh were not satisfied with theacademic achievement of their child(whereas the normal siblings of Sarveshare attending the same school).

(b) Attendance

Out of the currently enrolled 14 students,a hearing-impaired boy Vijay Pal was notcoming to the school since the last sixmonths. Not less than five students likeVijay Pal were very irregular to theschool. During the visit to the school,nine students were present in theirrespective classes. A specific observationwas made that the students with visualimpairment and orthopaedic disabilityfound to be regular.

(c) Transportation

Theses children attend the school froma radius of 0.51 km, ranging from 100meters to 1 kilometer only. All childrencome by themselves except Sarvesh(visually impairment). He takes the helpfrom the peers.

(d) Incentives/Aids and Appliances

All students with disabilities had beenprovided free textbooks. Two students,only, those with visual impairment, hasbeen given scholarship under lEDscheme of MHRD through a NGO namelyNational Association for the Blind (NAB),Lucknow. Out of 14 students, eight ofthem were in need of aids andappliances. However only three studentsviz. Sarvesh Kumar was provided withBraille kit, Prema Devi with hearing aidand Jalaluddin with caliper (Ankle FootOrthosis-AFO) through different agenciesincluding Deptt. of Handicapped Welfare,

Govt. of Uttar Pradesh. The hearing aidpossessed by Prema Devi was notworking and Jalaluddin was reluctant tocome to school with caliper since it isnot well fitted. Four students were yetin need of hearing aids and Sangita wouldrequire a caliper for her better mobility.

(e) Individualised Programme

Plans of Individualised EducationalProgramme (IEP) of Sarvesh Kumar(Visually Impaired), Pushpa Devi(Visually Impaired), Sofia (MentalRetardation) and Prema Devi (HearingImpaired) were found with the teachers,but many hearing impaired children didnot have their IEPs. The specialeducators of the consulting NGO(National Association for Blind,Lucknow), which was looking after theimplementation of lED programme inHardoi, had developed these IEPs. TheIEPs usually carry annualised goals forevery student with disability, but all IEPsfound in the school were maintained aspart of the record work but were notadequately implemented. Many technicaljargons incomprehensive to the teacherswere observed in those IEPs.

(f) Adaptation in Curriculum

Adaptation in the curriculum andevaluation process was found not beingpracticed. This might be due to the lackof orientation to the teachers. Oral testswere taken for Sarvesh Kumar (VisuallyImpaired) and Pushpa Kumari (VisuallyImpaired) due to difficulties to evaluatetheir performance through Braille. Sincehearing impaired children viz. Md.Wakeel (Hearing Impaired), Neeraj(Hearing Impaired) and Prema Devi


(Hearing Impaired) did not followinstructions, then neither appropriatewritten test nor oral tests wereconducted. However they were asked towrite whatever they knew irrespective ofthe requirement of the test. Sufiya(Mental Retardation) was reported to beacademically unfit by her teacher andhence no test was taken for her. Therewas no difficulty for the students withorthopaedic disability for appearing thetests. All students were promoted.

(g) Academic Achievement

The academic achievement of thestudents with disabilities was reportedto be nearly at par with the non-disabledpeers. For example, Sarvesh Kumar(Visually Impaired) achieved 55% inHindi, 59% in Mathematics and 55% inSocial Studies in the last examination.Pushpa Devi (Visually Impaired) even didbetter than Sarvesh Kumar (VisuallyImpaired). Incidentally a mentallyretarded girl, Sufiya had 40% in Hindi,45% in Mathematics and 36% in SocialStudies in her last examination of ClassIII; although she did not appear for theexamination. The level of performance ofthe students observed during evaluationby the investigator did not match withthe past examination records.

(h) Attitudes of Teacher and Peers

Amar Singh, Class teacher of SarveshKumar (Visually Impaired) has startedlearning Braille and for him theclassroom transaction for the visuallyimpaired students is no more a challenge.However Shri Singh and his fellowteacher found difficulty to handle thehearing impaired children in theirclassrooms. Sometimes they used

gestures and due to overcrowdingclassroom they mostly ignored the specialneeds of such children. According to theteachers, no specific attention was givento Sufiya (Mental Retardation) — otherthan correcting her classroom behaviourthrough peers. The children withorthopaedic disability do not require anyspecific attention, since their peersmanage their special needs. Since nostudent is using wheelchair hence nosignificant physical barrier is reportedin the school. The attitude of the peerswas found to be positive to the childrenwith disabilities.

(i) Resource Support

As far as resource support to the schoolconcerned, the services of a NGO(National Association for Blind,Lucknow) had been hired for theirservices under DPEP-IED Scheme. Theirspecial educators covering all disabilitiesused to visit the school at least 2-3 timesin a month. The quality of resourcesupport for the visually impairedchildren was observed to be good.Overall, the role of school was found tobe positive towards education of CWSNs.Despite large number of students in theclassrooms, teachers were observed tohave genuine interest towards thebetterment of such children.

APPENDIX-ll

Case Study: Child with HearingImpairment in Primary School, Sathri

Atul Kumar with moderate hearing losswas enrolled two years back to PrimarySchool at Sathri. Now he is studyingin Class II under the class teacherMs. Nidhi Srivastava. According to


Ms. Srivastava, he could write completeHindi alphabets, identify simple wordsand count meaningfully up to 10.

Before admitted to school, Atul haddifficulty in hearing as well as inspeaking. He did not prefer to play andmany a time he used to hit youngchildren. Over the years, Atul has learnthow to play. But today, the problem ofhearing and speaking still is unsolved.

At the age of one year, when Atul didnot speak and hear like normal children,then parents recognised that he hassome problem. When Atul was conceived,his mother was only 16. At the age of 2-3months, Atul fell down and had headinjury and at the 7th month he had highfever and was hospitalised. The parentsconsulted several doctors at Hardoi andLucknow. Hearing aid was recommendedfor the child, but the parents did notprovide to him. Except, speech andlanguage area, all milestones ofdevelopment were within the normalrange. Currently Atul has begun toimitate few sounds like etc and able tocomprehend name of the objects ifspoken to him by gestures. Atul isindependent in his activities of dailyliving. He has adequate age-appropriatesocial skills except a few problembehaviours. On Vineland Social MaturityScale, an above average profile wasobtained in self-help dressing andoccupation dimensions. Atul hassignificant difficulties in communicationskill such as understanding at gesturelevel only; speech is limited to imitationof few sounds. Speech regarding (lipsreading) skill is not developed yet. Inacademics, on grade level assessment50% achievement was obtained in Hindiand 55% in Mathematics of grade one.

This suggests that Atul is performingabout one grade level below than hisactual grade.

Atul hails from a higher middle socio-economic status family with well-builthouse and handsome monthly income.The parents perceive no problemregarding management of his condition.Now Atul has been provided with ahearing aid by the school and since thenthe parents have come forward with theirinterest towards speech training for Atul.Parents acknowledge the role of schoolas well teacher in bringing up the child.

Parents perceive that Atul would beself-dependent in his life and the familywould support him to open a shop (orsimilar jobs) as soon as he is grown upand learnt something. However, parentsfeel that Atul could learn better if he shallbe admitted to a deaf school.

The class teacher of Atul, Ms. Nidhihas undergone ten days training of‘Master Trainers’ at M.J.P. RohilkhandUniversity during May, 1999. Ms Nidhifeels competent in classroommanagement, use of TLM; but findsdifficulty in undertaking speech andlanguage training of Atul. Many a timesshe fails to explain some abstractconcepts due to communicationbarriers with Atul. According to theteacher, her training has helped her tostrengthen the enrolment status ofdisabled students in her school. Butwhen the training aspect is considered,she explains her incompetence inpreparing Individualised EducationalProgrammes (IEPs) and implementingthem if specific and special techniquesto be used. To help Atul, the teacherwishes to have further training such asundergoing a ‘Foundation Course’ etc.


The class teacher is not satisfied withthe current achievement of Atul. Shesays that the performance of the childcould be improved if barriers incommunication are managed effectively.According to her, parents are supportive,but they need counselling from an expertin the management of hearingimpairment. Teacher perceived thesociety as changing very fast withsupportive attitude towards childrenwith special needs including Atul.

The peers of Atul, namely Jyoti,Mahendra, Rajesh, Arti and Shiv Devido not find any significant differentbetween Atul and them. According tothem Atul plays well and is very friendly

too, can draw and paint nicely; theteacher is good to them and lovesAtul and such children. When Atulwas asked about him, he said that hewould love playing cricket. However,Atul was not happy about his hearing aidbecause of its poor control on noise.

It was observed that the teacher ispersonally and professionally devoted tothe cause. Her level of motivation seemsto be high in terms of receiving resourceconsultation and pursuing furthertraining. Although, not of good quality andwide range, but teaching learning mate-rials (TLM) were found in the school at usedcondition. Peer acceptance and supportwas observed to be exceptionally good.

REFERENCES

JANGIRA, N.K. 1987. Project on Integrated Education for Disabled — A Document. NewDelhi, NCERT.

HART, S. 1992. Differentiation Part of the Problem from the Part of the Solution?The curriculum Journal, B (2).

MHRD. 2002. Short Term Study in lED: New Delhi, Govt. of India.–––––––. 2006. Elementary Education and Literacy. In Annual Report 2005-06. New

Delhi, Government of India.–––––––. 2007. Elementary Education and Literacy. In Annual Report 2006-07. New

Delhi, Government of India.MISHRA, A. 2002a. Short Term Evaluation of IED in DPEP- The Project Report, Lucknow,

UPEFAPB.MISHRA, A. 2002b. Teacher Education in Special Education. In R.P. Singh et al. (Eds);

Teacher Education in Turmoil, New Delhi, Sterlings Publications Pvt. Ltd.–––––––––. 2003. Innovation and challenges in Education of Children with Special Needs.

In B. Shah (Ed) Re- Engineering Education. Agra: Y.K. Publishers.–––––––––. 2004. Evaluation of Inclusive Education Practices and Implications for SSA

in U.P. Paper presented in National Seminar on Management of InclusiveEducation, organised by NUEPA, New Delhi, 4-6 October 2004.

RAO D.B. 1998. District Primary Education Programme. New Delhi, Discovery PublishingHouse.

RATHAIAH, L. and D.B. RAO. 1997. International Innovation in Education, New Delhi,Discovery Publishing House.

World Declaration on Education For All (WDEFA). 1990. Framework for Action toMeet Basic Learning Needs, Article-3, Clause 5.

Some Problems of Human Rights Education 139

Some Problems ofHuman Rights Education

SHANKAR SHARAN*

Abstract

Human Rights is becoming a very significant concept in the contemporary world.At the same time its use and misuse is also a much contested area. Theoretical,political and juridical pronouncements on the subject are as diverse as are thecountries in the world. In the event, the Human Rights education becomes a trickysubject. Various agencies, organizations and individuals interpret the very conceptof Human Rights in hugely different ways, frequently contradicting each other.On the other hand their uses for covert and overt purposes in the internationalarena generate heated polemics. Therefore, we in India have to be careful whileimparting Human Rights education through various channels and to a range oftarget groups. This essay tries to underline some of the essential issues in thisregard. If the conceptual differences, political overtones and activist agenda arenot carefully taken into account, the Human Rights education cannot serve apositive purpose in this country. Our teachers and educationists must care for allthe nuances and should not be carried away by any one or other declaration onthe subject.

*Lecturer, DERPP, NCERT, New Delhi.

It has been said that the democracy is based on the rights of man; it has been repliedthat it should rather take its stand on the duties of man; but both rights and duties areEuropean ideas. Dharma is the Indian conception in which rights and duties lose theartificial antagonism created by a view of the world which makes selfishness the root ofaction, and regain their deep and eternal unity. Dharma is the basis of democracy whichAsia must recognise, for in this lies the distinction between the soul of Asia and thesoul of Europe.

—Sri Aurobindo

It is time in the West to defend not so much human rights as human obligations.

—Alexander Solzhenitsyn


Human right is an oft repeated phrasethese days. However, its intent andobjectives are widely different for differentpeople. Words and deeds of manyactivists here and abroad, demands ofvarious NGOs, their politicalorientations, a systematic selection orexclusion of issues, their sources offinancial support and inspirations – allthese present a complex gamut ofproblems. Validating all kind of demandsand posturing under an umbrellaconcept of human rights sometimesbecome a contradictory exercise. It wouldbe in order, therefore, to first considersome pertinent points related to theconcept of human rights.

(a) Every introductory discourse onhuman rights invariably mentions thatthe concept has been largely derived fromthe ‘The Declaration of Independence’(USA, 1776) and the ‘Declaration of theRights of Man and Citizen’ (France,1789). After these customarily comes theUnited Nations Declaration of HumanRights (1948). Thus, almost all academicpresentations on human rightsunderline the experiences, expositionsand even the verbiage of the Euro-American history and agencies.

(b) The slogan of human rights came toacquire more prominence much after theSecond World War, i.e. in the post-colonial era. It is surprising, therefore,that when dozens of Asian, African andArab countries were under the colonialyoke – the same Western scholarship didnever call human rights as a universalnoble right. This was despite the fact thatthe aforementioned celebrateddocuments were already there for a longtime. Hence pointing to those documents

as the source of human rights concept isa post-colonial wisdom, and not quiteinnocent. After all, one may ask: why somuch concern for the human rights ofthose very human beings after theybecame free from the colonial rule of theWestern masters? Is the concerngenuine, or is it a new variant of theproverbial ‘white man’s burden’? Thegreat historian Arnold Toynbee hadrightly underlined the point by asking theWest: “What entitles its culture, itsscience, its social organisation, finally itsrationality itself, to be able to claimuniversal reality? Was this not a mirageassociated with economic dominationand political hegemony?”

(c) The concept of ‘human’ as well as‘rights’ do not have any universalmeaning. At least three major andfundamentally different formulationsexist in the world. They are: the Western-Christian, the Arab-Islamic and theIndian-Hindu. Any standard discourse inthese three thought currents proves itbeyond doubt that each of them hasfundamentally different notions ofhuman beings, human society, etc.Therefore, it is not correct to pronouncesome ‘universal’ human rights withoutfirst arriving at a genuine consensuswith clear-cut meaning of the term.

(d) Though there are some valuable ideasgenerated in the historical developmentof the Euro-American democracies, it isstill imperative to note that theexperience of a Western observer may nottally with that of countries that areculturally and philosophically verydifferent such as India or Japan. One hasonly to consult the classic writings ofLenin, Sri Aurobindo, Winston Churchill


and Ayatollah Khomeini, and it will beapparent at once that the veryunderstanding of what a humanconstitutes and concepts like liberty,equality, democracy, progress,happiness, rights, duties, etc. has neverbeen one and the same for differentpeople. For instance, Sri Aurobindo says:

This was the weakness ofEuropean democracy and thesource of its failure. It took itsmotive the rights of man and notthe dharma of humanity; itappealed to the selfishness of thelower classes against the pride ofthe upper; it made hatred andinternecine war the permanentallies of Christian ideals andwrought an inexplicableconfusion which is the modernmalady of Europe.1

With this profound view a comparisonof those Western documents would revealthe fundamental difference on the wholeissue. Then, one may ask, why force aparticular, uniform meaning, citing theUS, UN or other Western documents, onall people of the world? Especially on theyoung and innocent students of Asiannations who habitually trust their elderson points of knowledge?

(e) In a sense, the insistence to projectsomething as ‘universal’ human rightsis an extension of the Western dogmas.The well known British political scientistErnest Barker has noted that the genesisof the humanitarian movement in theWest was a fervent conviction “that thebenefits of the Gospel belonged to all andmust be extended to all …whoeverneeded the comfort of recognition of his

common humanity and his commonhuman rights.”2 It must not be glossedover that a similar evangelical sensepervades in those human rightsorganisations guided by Churchmissionary establishments. And they arenumerous and well-connected in ourcountry. So it should be recognised thatby human rights they don’t always meanwhat common educated Indian mightassume. For a large section ofinternational human rightsorganisations the universalism is theChurch concept of universalism whichhas one closed concept of God, onedogmatic designation of the deity, onefixed form of faith, one regimented modeof worship, one rigid moral conduct, andone straight-jacket of culture.Accordingly the universalism of theprevalent view of human rights, too, is adogma insisting on a Western-Christiannotion of man and, therefore, equallycounterfeit.

(f) Not only the dogmatic insistence is aforged universalism, but also thispersistence on forcible uniformity,whether in religion (‘Only True God’) orin human rights, reflects an imperialistmindset that has been the root cause ofcivilizational violence for centuries. EvenWestern scholars are now coming torealise that the monotheistic creeds arethe source of intolerance and violence.In a very perceptive article Jean-PierreLehmann has clearly held monotheismresponsible for intolerance, violence,hostility and wars3 . Professor Lehmannis a Professor of Political Economy at theInternational Institute of ManagementDevelopment in Switzerland and thehead of Evans Group, a global think tank


composed of government, industry andopinion leaders from Asia, Europe andthe US. His is not an isolated perception.Andrew Sullivan, the former editor of TheNew Republic and currently a regularcontributor to the New York Times, hasalso underlined it. He says, “It seems asif there is something inherent in religiousmonotheism that lends itself to terroristtemptation.”4 Taking yet anotherexample, the widely respected Timemagazine published a readers discussionon ‘Christianity, Islam and the Pope’. Inthis discussion the Time gave the mostprominent place to this view:“Monotheistic religions that lay claim tothe one and the only possible truth aredoomed by their very nature to end upin conflict”5 . The very selection and thedistinction given to it shows that the viewis gaining ground in the Westerndiscourse as well. With such perceptionsit is inescapable to conclude that aninsistence on a particular, Western-Christian understanding of humanrights is another variation of the samemonotheism. Thus, the Western notionof human rights, in as much as it isbandied as a universal remedy for manyills, is itself a source of intolerance for alarge section of humanity. This must betaken into account if one is sincere aboutthe rights of the human.

(g) To better appreciate the issue it wouldhelp to compare the Western-Christianconcept with the Indian-Hindu conceptof a human being. As Sri Aurobindorightly observed:

There are very differentconceptions possible of man andhis life, of the nation and its lifeand of humanity and the life of

the human race…. Man has notbeen seen by the thought of Indiaas a living body developed byphysical Nature which hasevolved certain vital propensities,an ego, a mind and a reason, ananimal of the genus homo and inour case of the species homoindicus, whose whole life andeducation must be turnedtowards a satisfaction of thesepropensities under thegovernment of a trained mind andreason and for the best advantageof the personal and the nationalego. … India has seen always inman the individual a soul, aportion of the Divinity enwrappedin mind and body, a consciousmanifestation in Nature of theuniversal self and spirit.6

In fact, Sri Aurobindo was onlyreiterating the classical Hindu thought.The earliest definition of human beingin Hindu tradition is to be found inUpanishads. The rishis who by employingyogic methods reached the farthestfrontiers of the inner in human beingarrived at the conclusion that humanbeing have five faculties or sheaths (dks"k),one within the other. These theyenumerated as follows: (i) human bodyor the physical sheath (vUue; dks"k),(ii) human desires and drives, or the vitalsheath (izk.ke; dks"k), (iii) human sense

perceptions or the mental (eukse; dks"k),(iv) human intellection and intuition attheir highest and most universal or thespiritual sheath (foKkue; dks"k), and, (v)human self-delight or the blissful sheath(vkuane; dks"k).


Thus, a wise reflection on the Indiandharmic concept of human beings is ofimmense worth to evaluate theuniversalistic claims of the Westernhuman rights discourse. The sense ofhuman there does not go much beyondthe first three sheaths and,consequently, limits a human being littlemore than an eating and procreatinganimal, even if a rational one. Incommon parlance, too, a human beingin the current Western outlook isbasically a free consumer and a tax-payer7 . How can, then, it be accepted asthe ‘universal’ viewpoint except by usingpropaganda and force?

(h) Apart from the fundamentalphilosophical difference on the conceptof a human being, one should notunderestimate the fact that the conceptof human rights has been greatlydifferent for the erstwhile USSR, SouthAfrica during its apartheid, Saudi Araband Algeria etc.8 China today insists thatthe human rights issue is nothing but astick in the hands of powerful Westernagencies to threaten certain countriesand make them subservient. Therefore,enforcing in our country a Western proforma human rights discourse ineducation is both arbitrary and harmful.One must include the non-Western viewson the issue to make the discoursemeaningful. Refusing to do so will onlyprove the charge that the ‘universalism’is forced and phony.

(i) For a balanced, comprehensive andmeaningful understanding of what is‘human’ and all concepts related tohuman society it is essential to study theviews of at least the contemporary greatIndians such as Swami Vivekananda,

Sri Aurobindo, Mahatma Gandhi andDr Ambedkar, if not the classicphilosophies available in the Upnishadsand Mahabharata, for instance. In theIndian context there is no escaping fromsuch a most valuable corpus ofknowledge and understanding. If humanrights organisations and activists inIndia are reluctant to study SriAurobindo or Gandhi as essential textsin order to understand human issues,they must answer: what they fear?

(j) In hectoring discourses on humanrights in India a particular communityis targeted for abuse or insensitivity tohuman rights. For instance, some‘untouchability’ is always bandied, inalmost every paper or seminar oreducational programme, as an, nay theexample of human rights issue.Untouchability is also directly orindirectly mentioned as a part ofstandard Hindu religious practice whichis, of course, a concoction. But that isbeside the point. The point is thatnowhere in the human rights discussionthe practice of ‘triple talak ’ as asanctioned and vigourously defendedIslamic practice is mentioned as againsthuman rights. Even while flaunting‘women rights’ no human rights activistor institution ever bring up the recurringplight of Muslim women by all kind ofmediaeval, barbaric practices not limitedto triple talaq9 but including many otherslike Muta’h10 (temporary marriage),infibulations (aka FGC, FGM)11 , forcibleveil-wearing etc. Various fatwas12 ofUlema and its actual implementation onseveral hapless Indian Muslim womenhave made tragic stories in media. Butno human rights activist seemed even


to take note of it. Similarly, the treatmentof kafirs (non-Muslims) in standardIslamic theory and practices are nowherecriticised as an abuse. In starkcontrast to all this, despite being strayincidents of dalit maltreatment — thattoo not at all sanctioned or approved bythe Hindu society — a war cry is beingtried by some missionary organisations‘to liberate 160 million dalits’ as a part ofhuman rights movement. This selectivebadgering of the Hindu community andforcing it into a guilt sense is not fair.Why this discriminatory targeting andselective silence? Are some communities,to recall George Orwell, more humansthan humans? Or is it something entirelyelse being tried under the garb of humanrights education in India?

(k) There have been well-recordedreports, complaints and repercussions ofmissionary activities in India. The NiyogiCommittees’ detailed report (1956), theWadhwa Commission report after thekilling of the Australian missionaryGraham Stains (1999) and various newsappearing every year in India aboutfraudulent activities in mass conversionsin tribal and distant, hidden areas arefor everyone to see. Still the notoriouspractices by whom Mao called ‘spiritualaggressors’, of buying some poor orinnocent man’s faith by muscular andunethical ‘rice bowl’ methods is nevertaken up as a gross human right abuse.Why? Please note: no one has everchallenged the facts and findings ofthe Commissions about the fraudbeing committed by missionaryorganisations13 . After every naturalcalamity like earthquake, tsunami andwar-devastation news appears of

international missionary organisationseager to help the victims with the clearintent of ‘harvesting souls’. Theconcerned organisations, too, never denyit, they only try to bury it under silence.So, why the fraudulent, unethicalpractices upon simple human beings arenot taken up as human rights abuse inany human rights discourse?

(l) In all human rights documents,papers, memoranda, seminar only thestate is presented as violators of humanrights. Consequently all remedies,safeguards, solutions are addressed toit. In India, most human rights violations,tortures, killings and other atrocities onhuman beings are done by criminals,fundamentalists and terrorists.Therefore, no rationale can be found forthe silence of the human rights activistsover such huge number of violations asif the victims of non-state aggressors areless worthy humans! Besides, ademocratic state such as India is subjectto every type of control by people andinstitutions. To present a democraticstate as the ‘other’ and an adversarydoes not indicate a healthy attitude onthe part of human rights activists.

(m) The issues of rights and duties,particularly in the global context, do havepolitical connotations often representingsome selfish interest. Russian andChinese scholars and governments haveresented on occasions that the humanrights issue has been used by someWestern forces as a whip to control andpunish some unfriendly regimes theworld over. Other scholars such as HomiBhaba, Gayatri Spivak or Edward Saidhave also underlined that manytheorisations about the coloured (Negro,


black) people in the West is but one wayof dominating its stranglehold on them.Our own observers have also noted thesame:

There was a time when every“local tyrant” was in fact a clientor a protégé of the West. What thewhite powers find mosttroublesome today is having tokeep track of the fast-changingidentities of friends and foes in aturbulent region like the MiddleEast. After all every outstandingnationalist leader in the area –Nasser, Ben Bella, Gaddafi,Assad, Khomeini – has taken onthe appearance of a monster inthe white man’s eyes at one timeor another. If none of theminvited the kind of vengeancebeing wreaked on SaddamHussein it is because, unlike therest, the Iraqi leader has hit thewhite world where it hurtsmost.14

Therefore, behind the concerns forChechens, Palestinians, Tibetans orBosnian Muslims and a willfulindifference to the plight of KashmiriHindus, for instance, there have beencovert and overt interests of someWestern powers, both governmentaland non-governmental. So we mustlearn to check the credentials of humanrights enthusiasts and educators beforegiving them respectability andresponsibility.

(n) After the 9/11 terrorist attack theWestern governments have beenscrutinising the sources for terrorfunding. In the process if a source is foundfunding a terror network as well as some

university programmes, the later alsocomes under close watch and necessarymeasures is taken. In the same way, inIndia, if a same source funds the spiritualaggression programme to ‘Convert Asia’and the NGOs engaged in human rightsactivism, one must treat the latter in asimilar way. The vigour to spread ‘humanrights literacy’ may be a subterfuge toprepare ground for ‘planting the Cross’.Or, alternatively, to work as publicrelation propaganda outfits for religiousterrorism15 .

One may recall that Shri K P S Gill,the former chief of the Punjab police, hastime and again stressed that severalhuman rights organisations active hereare but the front for terroristorganisations. According to his long, firsthand experience, “Such organisationsare not at all interested in genuineinvestigations in human rightsviolations, they repeatedly reject offersto cooperate in sincere inquiry. Their solepurpose is to malign the security forces,and how to tarnish the image of thecountry.”16 Such warnings should not bebrushed aside if we are sincere in oureducational undertakings.

(o) Therefore, before accepting any thingas a human right, especially for thepurpose of educational, training,‘sensitising’ programmes, an openconsensus must be made with theparticipation of hundreds and thousandsof educational, social, cultural, politicalworthies of every stream as to whatshould and what should not include intothe concept of human rights in India. Acogent, precise definition of humanrights must come first beforedisseminating it.


(p) Basic texts for such educational andtraining programmes should include atleast the contemporary Indian classicssuch as the Chicago Speech (SwamiVivekananda), Ideals of Human Unity,Foundations of Indian Culture andUttarpada Speech (Sri Aurobindo), HindSwaraj (Mahatma Gandhi), On theUntouchables and Untouchability and TheGreat Conversion (B.R. Ambedkar). It ishugely profitable to compare the ideasand ideals presented in the ChicagoSpeech and the Ideals of Human Unitywith the celebrated Western documentslike ‘The Declaration of Independence’(USA) and the ‘Declaration of the Rightsof Man and Citizen’ (France).

It is worth recalling in the context ofthe Western documents that themaltreatment of black population inEurope and the USA continued under thereign of the very celebrated documents!Evidently there was no contradiction forthe West treating its own black peopleand the subject peoples of the erstwhileAsian, African colonies heartlessly whileat the same time claiming suchdeclarations as the main, practically theonly source of ideas related to humanprogress and liberation. Also, it is nocoincidence that every totalitarianideology of the twentieth century wasmanufactured in the West and bears themarks of its provenance. In any case,“The scientific, rationalistic, industrial,pseudo-democratic civilization of theWest is now in process of dissolution andit would be a lunatic absurdity for us atthis moment to build blindly on thatsinking foundation”17 .

All this boils down to the fact thatthe ideas and ideals presented by SwamiVivekananda, Sri Aurobindo, Gandhi

and Dr Ambedkar are more humane,faultless or pertinent for the purposeof understanding and training aroundthe subject human rights. Therefore,in any educational course, syllabiand essential reading materials as wellas for training, sensitising programmesprecedence should be given to thethoughts of these Indian greatthinkers. Only then our students andofficials can fully appreciate the Westerndocuments in perspective. Then theywill be more realistic, wise and confidentin the matters related with humanrights.

In any case, a vague, sectarian andselfish concept of human beings andhuman rights cannot serve as a goodfoundation. It is essential that theconcept be suitably understood for thepurpose of education and training ofofficials, administrators and educators.Without having a comparativeunderstanding of the nature of humanbeings and the consequent scope of whatis being perceived as human rights,especially for our country, variousinstitutions and agencies might beworking to dissimilar purposes and totheir own narrow, sectarian andconcealed intentions. Without thisunderstanding our policy makers,administrators, officers, students,teachers and educational institutionsmight feel bewildered very soon as towhat is behind the idea of human rightssensitisation. Is it to make people morehumane or bitterer? Is it to make themmore lenient to all kind of imperialistideologies and terrorism? Is it to makepeople kind or more selfish, more dutifulor more right oriented, more social ormore indifferent? We all must find out,


with an open mind, free from pre-fabricated constructs and given dogmas,and free from the ‘moral’ pressuregenerated by vested interests. We mustcontinue our search and discoursekeeping in mind what Sri Aurobindo hadcalled the difference between thespiritual and mental view of existence:“The spiritual view holds that the mind,life, body are man’s means and not hisaims and even that they are not his lastand highest means; it sees them as his

outer instrumental self and not his wholebeing.” Always keeping this difference inmind can we make any social sciencediscourse more relevant and thought-provoking? Losing it will make our entireacademic exercise, as it has largely been,just a pathetic repetition of frequentlychanging (and often serving a particular‘national’ interest) Western doctrines andtheories. It has not made our socialscience academics respectable on theworld arena.

REFERENCES

1 SRI AUROBINDO, “Asiatic Democracy”, Bande Mataram, March 16, 1908.2 ERNEST BARKER, Principles of Social and Political Theory (London: Oxford University Press, 1967),

pp. 242-43.3 JEAN-PIERRE LEHMANN, “The Dangers of Monotheism in the Age of Globalisation” in The Globalist,

(online daily), Washington, March 30, 2006.4 ANDREW SULLIVAN, “Is this a religious war?” in Span, the journal of the US Embassy in New Delhi,

March-April 2002.5 CAROLYN D. LEWIS in Time , New York, Dec. 25, 2006/January 1, 2007.6 SRI AUROBINDO, “A Preface on National Education” in Sri Aurobindo and the Mother on Education

(Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 2004), thirteenth impression, pp. 14-15.7 GANDHI’S Hind Swaraj has a small chapter on the ‘philosophy of civilization’ where Gandhi very

perceptively analysed the lopsided view of the human being in the Western discourse.8 See, for example, SAMUIL ZIVS, Human Rights: Continuing the Discussion (Moscow: Progress

Publishers), 1980. Representing the erstwhile Soviet ideology Zivs has presented an understandingof human rights which is very from the Western notion or that represented by Amnesty Interna-tional or Human Rights Watch etc.

9 Citing instances of women being summarily divorced, over phone and through telegrams, notedlyricist Hasan Kamal calls it “a heinously irresponsible act which cannot be challenged in courtbecause our personal law says it is fine. Would you believe, some men have actually divorced theirwives because they were displeased with the meal prepared by them?!’’ (Indian Express, onlineedition, 13 Sept 2004). However, in general Muslim representatives do not speak about it. Theyalso want others to keep mum since they regard it as an internal affair of Islam. Therefore, not openunder human rights or any other consideration. According to Tahseen Usmani, for instance, “Whethertriple talaq in one sitting is valid or not cannot be decided by discussions, arguments and counter-arguments in newspapers and TV channels. This sensitive issue could only be solved by ulema,muftis and religious scholars belonging to different schools of thought within the limits ofShariat.” (“Why media is worried about triple talaq” by in The Milli Gazette, New Delhi, October16-31, 2004).


10 Muta’h is a fixed-term marriage contract according to Shariat (Islamic law). The duration of thistype of marriage is fixed at its inception and is then automatically dissolved upon completion of itsterm. The duration can be of any length, even few minutes or hours. By its very nature its intent isquestionable.To exemplify, an incident in Hyderabad: “In ten minutes of one another, Afreen (17), Farheen (20)and Sultana (19) were married. To a stinking rich 60-year-old sheikh from the Emirates namedMohammed Baquer Khan. He paid the parents of the Rs 10,000 each and promised anotherRs 10,000 each plus visas for their families to move to the UAE.” (The Telegraph, Calcutta, 15August 2005). The girls filed a complaint with police that the sheikh had disappeared after spendingseveral days with them at a city lodge. This is not an isolated incident. For its frequent occurrenceit has got a particular name in Andhra Pradesh and Kerala: ‘Arab marriage’.To take another example, in Kashmir numerous foreign jihadis used it at will to satisfy their lust.Noted columnist Varsha Bhosle wrote, “Under Mutah, a militant could enter into a contractmarriage for, say, a period of two years with a girl of his choice, and on completion of that period,the marriage stood automatically annulled. Thereafter, the girl is left to her own fate, with theburden of social stigma and the responsibility of single-handedly rearing the progeny of the unionfor the rest of her life.” (‘Human Rights Violations in Kashmir’, rediff.com, 25 January 2000 ).

11 Infibulation is also known as female genital mutilation (FGM), female genital cutting (FGC) etc.The UN documents use the terminology of FGM. For a brief description, see the “Female genitalmutilation”, Fact sheet N°241, May 2008, by World Health Organisation.In Islamic texts it is referred to as khafd or khifad. FGC is practiced in mostly Islamic countries.Especially in Middle East and Africa. As a result, according to World Health Organisation, everyyear two million young girls die of sepsis or loss of blood. (Oriana Fallaci, The Force of Reason,(New York: Rizzoli International, 2006), p. 220).For a detailed exposition of the problem and horror see Marianne Sarkis, “Female Genital Cutting(FGC): An Introduction” (http://www.fgmnetwork.org/intro/fgmintro.php). To raise awarenessabout this barbaric practice the United Nations has declared February 6 as “International DayAgainst Female Genital Mutilation”.Also see, “Female Genital Mutilation: Report of a WHO Technical Working Group, Geneva, 17-19July, 1995.” World Health Organisation: Geneva. 1996.The renowned author Ayaan Hirsi Ali has described it in her famous book, “Infidel” (New York:Free Press, 2007), pps 112-113,143. This is useful to understand the feelings of a hapless victimof FGC.Still, Islamic scholars defend the practice. In 1994, Egyptian Mufti Sheikh Jad Al-Hâqq argued thatthe procedure may not be banned simply on grounds of improper use. Al-Azhar University inCairo had issued several fatwas endorsing FGC, in 1949, 1951 and 1981. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_genital_cutting). Similarly, Sheikh Musa Mohammed Omer, a member of the ExecutiveCommittee of the Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs in Ethiopia explained and defended thepractice. During the sub-regional conference on female genital mutilation in February 2005 inDjibouti he explained (in an interview, given to IRIN, an UN information network) the position ofIslam in relation to FGM and why he continues to supports certain forms of the practiceQ: Why is the practice of female circumcision important in the Muslim religion?A: Our Islamic scholars believe that female circumcision is different from male circumcision. Theyhave a strong view that female circumcision is allowed, and that there is no evidence from Islamicsources prohibiting female circumcision, unless it is pharaonic(for full text of the interview see http://www.irinnews.org/InDepthMain.aspx?InDepthId=15&ReportId=62475).


12 See, “Text of the Question and fatwa on Imrana” in The Milli Gazette, New Delhi, 6 July 2005.Imrana Case: The woman was raped by her father-in-law. However instead of proceeding under thecriminal courts for action as a first recourse, a Fatwa was issued by Dar – Ul – Uloom [Deoband]stating her marriage with her husband to stand nullified and directing her to marry her father-in-law.Gudia’s case: Her husband went missing for 7 years which entitled her to consider the marriagedissolved according to Islamic laws. She contracted a second marriage. During her pregnancy fromthe second marriage her first husband returned. The religious leaders [of Deoband] pronounced afatwa declaring her second marriage as void and directed her to return to her first husband withoutany consideration of the woman’s choice. (Indira Jaisingh, “Working with the legislative, judicialand legal system to end institutional gender bias in the administration of justice and promote genderjustice in the informal and parallel justice institutions”, 18th-20th July 2007, Expert Group Meetingon CEDAW UNESCAP).

13 The Wadhwa Commission found that Graham Stains was not only a social worker but also a jealousmissionary committed to spread of his faith and converting the tribals into Christianity. Thisresulted in group conversions of poor tribals, which is illegal in law. This was the root cause of angeramong a section of the local Hindu population. About the Wadhwa Commission’s findings theTimes of India in its editorial (9 August 1999) commented, “This, however, is not to suggest thatthe [Wadhwa] report must be unreservedly welcomed. Some Christian organisations, for instance,have pointed to what certainly seem like discrepancies.” Use of the word ‘discrepancies’ is areluctant way to admit the truth of the report.

14 SHAM LAL, “The White Man’s Burden” in A Hundred Encounters (New Delhi: Rupa, 2003), p. 206.15 Some people object to the term. They should note that our National Security Adviser, one of the

highest responsible official in our country, Shri M.K. Narayanan not only uses the term ‘religiousterrorism’ but also consider it ‘the greatest challenge’ to the country. See Dainik Tribune, Chandigarh,30 Nov. 2006.

16 From the speech delivered at a book release function held in New Delhi, Sept. 9, 2006.17 SRI AUROBINDO, “A Preface on National Education” in the reference no. 6 above, p. 11.


Book Review

Growing Up As a Woman WriterAUTHOR: JASBIR JAIN

PUBLISHER: Sahitya AkademiISBN 978-81-260-2547-3Pages: xxii+528 Price: Rs.220/-

Growing up as a Woman Writer is acompilation of proceedings of twoseminars organised by the SahityaAkademi in 2001 at New Delhi and in2005 at Hyderabad. Edited by JasbirJain, the book is broadly divided into fivesections.

The first section presents tworeflective essays by Nabaneeta Dev Senand Krishna Sobti on the status ofWomen’s Writing in India. In her essayNabaneeta Dev Sen stresses upongender equality. She urges one to riseabove gender-bound writing as it oftenbecomes a self-defeating act. As a womanwriter one needs to widen one’s horizonand talk about every issue that isrelevant to society. There is nothing thatis the sole prerogative of male writers.Instead, women need to take every onealong and while doing so they will alsobe able to free men from the ‘chains ofmasculinity’. In a nutshell, womenwriters need to rise above limiting labelsand narrow definitions and aspire for ahumanistic focus in their work.

Krishna Sobti speaks in a similar veinand emphasises that creative writing isand should be above gender, caste, colourand creed. To quote her, “a woman ishandling her text and her life with newenergies, self confidence and vibrancyand wants to be the equal of her male

counterpart in every way.” She expressesconfidence in education and a career-orientation as a means of achieving this.Sobti also asserts, ‘Why should we beanxious to invent a new moral value forwoman writers? Let us not create twoseparate categories of writing.’ Thecentral thesis/argument being thatcategorising literature on the basis ofgender can lead to an unequal footingfor women. After all, women writers areincreasingly no longer at the margin butvery much a part of main streamliterature.

It was the second section of the book,‘Growing up as a Woman Writer’ that Ipersonally found most appealing. Thissection has the potential and materialto motivate any aspiring creative writer.The representation of writers in thissection is from different walks of life,regions, languages, religions and socio-economic strata which, serves as anexcellent illustration of the fact thatcreative writing is neither the prerogativeof a select few nor an inborn talent.Comprising experiences of elevencontemporary women writers, thisautobiographical section narrates howtheir journeys led them to becomingwriters in a male dominated society.Here we get to share the journey ofwomen writers such as Mridula Garg,Padma Sachdev, Jeelani Bano, RajeeSeth and Indira Goswami to name a few.

The stories these writers had heardduring their childhood, their keenobservation of life, the insatiable desireto read more books along with a mature

Book Review 151

sensitivity towards their immediateenvironment (physical and social) andthe much needed encouragement fromfamily are listed as having helped thembecome creative writers in their ownrespect. Often, it was the will to triumphagainst all odds. To quote Mridula Garg,“challenge in any form is the propellingforce of all creativity and I have no dearthof it. Each bout of criticism andexcommunication by male writers andcritics, or male dominated female criticsand writers gave me fresh reasons tocontinue and write, the only way I knewhow.” These reflective journeys alsounderline the need for encouragementof women writers. As Meena Kakodkarsays, “being a writing woman, to managethe house, office and continue writingwould not have been very easy withoutthe encouragement, and support of myparents and family.”

The third section titled ‘DifferentFrames’ is a collection of sixteenevocative stories by representativeIndian women writers such as Bama’s‘Annach,’ Volga’s ‘Confluence’, ShashiDeshpande’s, ‘Hear me, Sanjay …’,Neelum Saran Gour’s ‘The Birth’ …Thesestories remind one of an orchestra, eachplaying a different tune, representing adifferent reality and yet maintaining aharmonious core. Thus, the issues dealtwith in this section range from theproblems of the aged, gender exploitation,the struggle for acceptance in the society,partition, oppression etc.

The fourth section ‘Songs of the Birdsof Fire’ is an overwhelming array ofemotions. Written in free verse, it depictsthe different facets of life as seen byvarious women-poets. As K.Saraswathyamma writes, ‘Asking me

why I write is like asking me why I live. Ilive thinking of the works yet to bewritten. If I cannot write, I cannot deriveany pleasure from life.’ The act of writinghere expresses a sense of discovery,freedom and connecting with otherpeople as well as a sense of achievement.Particularly striking is J.Bhagyalakshmi’s ‘The Giver’ wherein shewrites, “I give you full freedom,” he said.I smiled and asked, “Where was myfreedom till now?”

The fifth and final section titled,‘Histories, Positions and Redefinitions’are critical essays that question theexisting literary canons. Therepresentation of thought herein extendsfrom the personal to the political, fromcreative to critical opinions and indeed,from Kashmir to Kanyakumari!Lipipuspa Nayak in her essay, ‘TheFeminist Interrogation’ raises some veryvalid questions — ‘…This leaves me withthe problematic: feminist concernsremaining the common denominator inthe writings of writers across times andgender, what is the true feminist canon?And has the canon been interrogatedonly by women writers? Can a text thatmeets the parameters of feministliterature be accepted by a large sectionof society?’ Another notable discussionis on how the mainstream feministmovement did not address the concernsof Dalit women during the struggle forindependence. Victims of centuries ofsocial, political, economic, cultural andreligious pressures, Dalit women deserverepresentation in the struggle for dignity.The book duly acknowledges MahaswetaDevi’s contribution towards in taking upthe cause of Dalit women. ‘Rudali’,Draupadi and ‘The Hunt’ are a few


examples of her work. However, Dalitwomen writers have been emerging asarticulate authors and activists likeBama. In her individual essay,Jasbir Jain talks of how feministwriting has to come to terms with thenotion of femininity, negotiate thecultural difference and work withthe idea of centrality, all at the sametime.

The collection has quite a fewtranslated pieces as well and thetranslations are of high quality. To me,this serves as a silent ode to translationbeing a creative act in itself. The bookclearly has a lot to offer its readers. Thebiographical notes at the end areexcellent references that supplement themain writings and the theme of the text.They have been written well and makefor an engaging read. This also lends thebook certain completeness.

Balancing the diverse array of topicsand issues, the language is simple andavoids jargon. Though the presentationis praiseworthy, there is only onenoticeable absence — humour. Women

writers have produced excellent creativework in this area as well and it wouldhave been interesting to read howhumour is used as a tool by womenwriters to negotiate with the worldaround them. Nonetheless, one cannothelp but agree with the editor that weneed to re-frame ‘feminist’ writing in awider perspective: ‘shift the lens’ as itwere, to capture the varied dimensionsof women’s writing.

The appeal of this edited volumeextends to the field of education as well.Deliberations on what it means to becreative and how creativity is notdetermined by gender, caste or class isan appreciable concept. The curriculardebates have also recognised the factthat ‘The voices of women in all their gloryneed to find a prominent place in ourtextbooks and teaching strategies.’ Andthe book presents an excellent argumentfor the same.

KIRTI KAPOOR

Senior LecturerDepartment of Languages

NCERT, New Delhi

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