Autonomy in School Education
The beauty of our country is its diversity. As the famous anecdote says,”kos kos pe paani badle, das kos pe bhasha”, which means, with every mile travelled, the taste of water changes and language changes every ten miles. This uniqueness of our country makes it colorful and vibrant. There cannot be a particular fixed formula to bind this oldest civilization in one thread. Its freedom makes it remarkable and extraordinary. The makers of our constitution knew this fact and that is why they had placed ‘education’ under the concurrent list. However, the politicians after them tried their best to fiddle both with the constitution and the education system of India.
The entire pedagogical system of our country is at fault. Today, our prime focus is on teaching and maintaining the purity of languages, while the beauty of a language is in its flexibility. In the formative years of education, the school’s emphasis on learning it’s rigidity. Further, teaching of subjects like science, mathematics and social science with a set pattern is futile. It has been seen that, if science and maths are being taught laying more emphasis on the understanding and calculation aspect rather than the language part proves more effective. This is the prime reason why we have failed to teach subjects like science and maths in vernacular medium despite having twenty-two schedule languages. The schools put their significant time and energy on establishing the Lagos of medium of study rather than study itself.
Similar is the case with teaching of history in India. Indian history is as diverse as its geography. Our history dates back to pre-Vedic and Vedic civilizations which has been lost in the archives. The origin of this problem lies in the narrow mindsets of the Britishers. They struggled to find out one common thread of origin like theirs in India, but they could not digest the fact of our variety. Whatever could fit in the narrow definitions of the colonial lords became history, rest everything was called mythology. The controversy surrounding regional history is due to this aspect only that they try connecting the dots between Kashmir to Kanyakumari forgetting that these were parallel civilizations co-existing during the time line. Further after independence, due to romanticism with a few rulers and glorification of our servitors-ship, our history books become prejudice. Only the history of the Mughals and British colonialism has been glorified in the Indian textbooks. The regional epitomes find their place in the mere footnotes. There is no place for events like Battle of Chamkaur, Battle of Bharatpur and others of such likes in the main course books. The time has come to revive them and re-glorify rulers like Pratap, Chauhan, Marathas and Jats. With the proliferation of social media, the world is knowing that almost each and every western invention is either copied or inspired from the age-old inventions of the Indian sages.
The early varna-vyavastha system of India describes the power distribution ladder. Power can be attained either by acquiring knowledge, weapon, wealth or land. Early education in India commenced under the supervision of a guru which was open to all and seen as one of the foremost method to achieve enlightenment. The education was known as ‘diksha’ as it was the amalgamation of ‘gyan, vigyan, shaastr, shashtra and neeti’. The Brahmans learned about sacred texts while the Kshatriya were educated in the various aspects of warfare. The Vaishyas learned commerce while Shudras gain the knowledge of farming and allied services mostly through lineage skills transfer. Students were expected to follow strict monastic guidelines prescribed by the guru and stay away from kingdoms in gurukuls or ashrams. This system of education enjoys complete autonomy as it was solely upon the teacher to decide what and how much to teach. As population increased, universities like Taxila came into existence, later the centres of urban learning became increasingly common and cities such as Kashi and Nalanda became visible.
Before the introduction of British education, indigenous education was given higher importance from early time to colonial era. This can be seen from this statement of Samuel Ludlow, a British surgeon of 1858, “In every Indian village which has retained anything of its form. The rudiments of knowledge are sought to be imparted, there is not a child, except those of the outcasts (who form no part of the community), who is not able to read, to write, to cipher; in the last branch of learning, they are confessedly most proficient”. The history of modern education of India dated back Lord Macaulay in 1835. His idea was to form a class of Indians who may be interpreters between British and the millions whom they ruled. He wanted a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect. In reality, he wanted to create an array of Indians who could be perpetual servants to them or clerks at the best.
The fabric of school education system of our country is in turmoil today. Since independence, we are struggling to carve out an education policy for our country, but in vain. To design a singular education policy for the country is the biggest mistake we are committing, ab initio. This is in contradiction to the ethos of constitution. There cannot be a singular education policy for a vibrant country like us. In a country of twenty-two schedule languages, many foreign languages and hundreds of dialects, it becomes an arduous task for the legislatives to plan a distinct education policy. With twenty-nine states and seven union territories, India boosts of having as many as fifty boards of education and five international education boards fully operational in the country. This further complicates the education structure and makes it impossible to have a parity at the pan India level. These boards do not have parity in terms of curriculum, examination pattern and schedules. Majority of the curriculum is outdated, books have obsolete data and stories have not changed since decades. Certain portions of the curriculum are never used by students in their entire life, but they have to forcefully rote learn it in order to pass in the exams.
The recent paper leak of CBSE, which was by far the most trusted brand in education of India, has proved a fiasco for the school education system. Had it not been the media, the CBSE would have never accepted its mistake. They were in complete state of denial until recently. The state boards and other regional boards have made the examinations a mockery with mass cheating exercises and rampant corruption. The incidences of circulation of hand written question papers on WhatsApp before the examination is perhaps the last nail in the coffin of Indian school education. Eminent educationist Sqn Ldr Yudhvir Singh (Retd.) calls certain provisions of the Right to Education Act 2009, a bad chapter of the education system while recalling his three decades of experience in this field. Issuing of bogus EWS certificates by Govt. authorities, no detention policy till class eight are some of the major hurdles he faces every day in his school. He further adds, it has become really challenging to run a school after the unfortunate Gurugram school incident. Such guidelines issued by CBSE where a police constable will audit the school are disgrace to this dignified service.
It is high time government should also consider granting autonomous status to schools like the higher education institutions. HRD Ministry has granted autonomy to 80 universities, colleges and institutions recently citing their betterment. The same principle should apply to the schools also. Today, every engineering college aspires to be an IIT; MBA colleges aspire to come parallel to the likes of IIMs but sadly we have no school of such repute to be aspired for. This autonomy will give the schools much needed freedom. They shall be able to draft their own curriculum, plan their own system of exams and award certificates. Ethos of value education and life-skills will also be integrated in the working of the institution. The government should plan education framework guidelines rather than education policy. When the schools will be able to design their own syllabus, education will reach the grass root level and promotion of vernacular medium will get the much-needed boost. This is the only remedial measure to bring a parity in teaching of regional history. This is the call of the hour for tribal area welfare, as they can preserve their culture, language and scripts. Granting of autonomy will also end the perpetual problem of exam paper leakage and ensure quality. This will even reduce the burden of the boards and can drastically bring down the operational costs. Autonomy is the one-way solution to bridge the huge gulf existing between elite and budget schools. Denial Pink has rightly said, “control leads to compliance whereas autonomy leads to engagement”. Authorities can start with granting autonomy to 100 schools on a pilot basis and compare the results with the existing system. These three words categorically defines the annals of paradigm, “Meaning, Mastery, Autonomy”.
Jagdeep S. More, Educationist
