Elementary Education in India: A Quick Glance at the Past
According to the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2014 facilitated by Pratham, 96.7% of children between the ages 6-14 are enrolled in schools. That’s no mean achievement considering the fact that India’s vast population and high levels of illiteracy were major challenges for post-independence India.
Our colonial masters chose not to invest in elementary education, instead investing in higher education in English medium depriving the vast majority of our population of access to opportunities. The Charter Act of 1813 was the first legislation to implicitly provide for elementary education, a pittance of Rs. 1 Lakh was allotted, nothing more than a cruel joke at the expense of the native population! Christian missionaries from Europe were the first voluntary organisations to devote themselves to teaching the natives, both in English and the vernaculars, as did certain progressive Englishmen such as Elphinstone and Munro.
Notable were the efforts of certain individuals such as Justice Ranade, Jotiba Phule, Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar etc in attempting to increase the reach of quality education especially among the marginalised, but lack of major efforts on the part of the colonial government meant that these interventions could never be scaled up to reach the masses. The heroes of our independence struggle did try to intervene at the grassroots level, but they mainly promoted political awareness rather than basic and holistic education, which was seen as the necessity of the hour. Gandhiji’s principle of Nai Taaleem is especially relevant where the pedagogy was based on the spiritual principle that knowledge and work weren’t separate.
Ineffective interventions at the lowest levels meant that India’s tryst with independence began with the enormous challenge of educating its population of 350 million out of which a mere 12% were literate! Unfortunately, during the Nehruvian era, the focus was more on higher education when tertiary institutions of repute such as the IITs came up. Even with the Kothari Committee (1964-44) on Education suggesting large interventions in education, nothing notable was done by successive governments to ameliorate the condition.
The 24th amendment to our Constitution in 1971 transferred ‘Education’ to the Concurrent list from the State list in the 7th Schedule which allowed the centre to effect changes in the structure of the system ensuring uniformity across the nation. Around 30 years later, this facilitated the Central government to launch the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan to universalise access to elementary education. The 86th Constitutional amendment of 2002 made access to education a fundamental right to every child and the Right to Education Act (RTE) of 2009 was the legal vehicle for its implementation.
All through these tumultuous years, some NGOs, voluntary organisations and several foundations actively participated in the field of education in their own way to tackle extant problems in the sphere. Many among these such as The Akanksha Foundation, The Jiddu Krishnamurthy Foundation etc deserve a mention.
The deteriorating quality of public schools have resulted in a definite increase in enrolments in private schools. This enrolment in private schools has gone up to 31% in 2014 from 19% in 2006. This is also aided by the fact that even private unaided schools now have to compulsorily admit 25% among the marginalised Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) under the provisions of the RTE Act, 2009, a decision which was hotly debated from either ends. While some felt that the government was reneging on its promises under the original act and imposing unfair restrictions on the business model of the said schools, others hailed the decision as necessary to reduce the prevalent inequities in the system.
The SSA and the RTE set quantitative limits to maintain teacher-pupil ratios and also mandated the upgradation of school infrastructure to conform to minimum standards as prescribed under the legislation. To an extent, the issue of physical reach has been solved. But, false optimism is thwarted by the ASER-2014 which, based on a sample survey, pointed out that about a half of enrolled students in 5th grade could not read a 2nd grade level text and the trends are hardly encouraging as the standards have steadily declined since 2008. Further, to meet the strict requirements of the RTE Act, the standards of teacher recruitment have been consistently compromised resulting in poorer learning outcomes.
It’s quite evident that quantitative interventions are clearly inadequate if not sufficiently backed by a strong will to drastically change the system rather than tweaking the existing one. Relying solely on government efforts is clearly not the way to a brighter future for our kids. Curriculum that is divorced from the individual needs of a child is grossly inadequate to facilitate learning.
It’s imperative to think outside the box in these circumstances. Brute force techniques of numerical manipulation and mere physical access to education infrastructure could only be a first step in addressing this problem of humongous proportions. ConveGenius seeks to do its part by innovating in the realms of educational technology, pedagogy, service delivery etc with a vision to increase access to quality content and reduce inequities in the system. By making learning fun again, we look to add quality to quantitative interventions, aiding cognition.