1. Introduction
The school I am writing about is located in a small village, 25 km from Almora town, in the state of Uttrakhand, India. The village is located in a beautiful valley. It takes around 2 hours to reach this school from Almora. The first 20 km are travelled on a paved hilly road and the next 5 km on a muddy, unpaved road. It is a Govt. primary school (class 1 to 5). The stats for this school in 2015-16 were:
Number of students: 26 [Class I – 5, Class II – 3, Class III – 2, Class IV – 8, Class V - 8]
Number of teachers: 1
2. Infrastructure
School has 2 classrooms, 1 small staff room and 1 kitchen (for Mid-day meal [1])
Not enough tables and chairs for all students
Due to single teacher school, all the students sit together in one classroom
7 Aanganwadi [2] (pre-primary) children also taught in the same school and have occupied one of the classrooms
It has a sufficiently large playground for the children to play during lunch time
The swings and see-saw installed in the playground are broken and do not work
The toilets and water storage areas are relatively clean and hygienic
3. A normal day at school
3.1 Assembly & Discipline In-charges: The school begins at 10:00 AM in the winters and 07:30 AM in the summers. 4 discipline in-charges (1 each from grade 2, 3, 4 & 5) are selected on a rotation basis each day. They lead the morning assembly. They also help the teacher in school management activities like unlocking/locking the classrooms, toilets & staff room, moving furniture (in & out of class – in winters, all the children sit outside in the verandah in sunlight). If the teacher is busy in some clerical/office work, these children take the responsibility of maintaining decorum in the school.
In summers, at times only 5 or 6 students (that too sleepy) attend the assembly. Rest of them keep coming in till after 8:00 AM.
Teacher perspective: Teacher believes that this gives an opportunity to children to stand out and lead. It also helps them to gain confidence & a sense of responsibility.
3.2 Early Morning: After the assembly is done, all the children sit together. Class 1 & 2 students sit close to the teacher while classes 3, 4 & 5 are a bit further. The morning routine followed by teacher is as below:
3.2.1 The teacher first completes the register work. During this time, one student from each class comes to the front and recites common things in various subjects:
a. Math: Tables (2-20) for grades 4 & 5, Numbers (1-100) for grade 2 & 3.
b. English: Days of Week, Months of Year, etc. in English with spelling (oral recitation or written by 2, 3, 4 & 5 grades)
c. Social Science: General Knowledge about Uttrakhand state & our country India, like geography (division of UK into mandals & districts with names), politics (important positions held in village, district, state & country – gram Pradhan, DM, CM, PM Etc.)
3.2.2 Next, either the teacher or a student from 4th or 5th grade dictates a paragraph in Hindi or English. Grades 3, 4 & 5 students write the dictation.
Teacher Perspective: Being a single teacher school, both the teaching & clerical work has to be done by the same teacher. This process serves 2 purposes: a. The teacher gets some time to finish clerical work for each day in the start itself. This work becomes hectic if not completed on a daily basis. b. This also serves as a revision of students for the basic contents of each subjects.
3.3 Till Lunch: Next, teacher focusses on individual grades as follows:
3.3.1 While the 3, 4 & 5 grades are busy completing and submitting the dictation, teacher focusses on grades 1 & 2 students:
i. Grade 1:
a. English - Write Alphabets in both small and capitals, read & write simple words, rhymes
b. Math – Read & Write numbers from 1 to 100, Simple addition & subtraction
c. Hindi – Read & Write Hindi Varnmala & simple words (fruits, vegetables etc.), rhymes
ii. Grade 2:
a. English - Read & write English Words with pronunciation & meaning in Hindi, stories, rhymes, textbook exercises
b. Math – Tables (2-20), Addition & Subtraction (with carry), Multiplication, Division
c. Hindi – Reading & Writing of stories (from textbook), rhymes, textbook exercises
3.3.2 After giving work to both grades 1 & 2, teacher focusses on grades 3, 4 & 5. Text book is strictly followed for grades 3, 4 & 5 for all subjects. Process is as below:
a. She guides the children to read a particular lesson from the textbook & explains it.
b. She then starts with the exercises by telling them how to write answers or solve problems on blackboard (for Math specifically).
c. The rest of the questions, children are supposed to do by themselves.
d. Teach one of the grades-> give work -> Teach another grade-> give work, this cycle is continued.
e. If children are not able to understand something, she calls one to the blackboard and guides him/her to solve the exercise and others can follow.
f. Some part of the exercise is given as homework.
g. In between, she also looks at grades 1 & 2 to see how they are doing and corrects them if necessary.
h. Before moving on to next subject, children submit their copies to the teacher for correction.
Teacher Perspective: a. The belief here is, in grades 1 & 2 children should be able to learn how to read & write in Hindi (basic), as it acts as base for all subjects in upcoming grades. More focus is required for grades 1 & 2, if base is built it will be easier to teach them in upcoming grades. b. For grades 3, 4 & 5, the belief is that after explanation of a concept and demonstration by example, they should do exercises on their own to understand it better.
3.4 Lunch: Till lunch time, 1 or 2 subjects are generally covered for each grade. Mid-Day Meal starts around 12:30 PM in winters and 10:00 AM in summers. After the mid-day meal, children are given very less time to play.
Teacher Perspective: It is felt that the break is a distraction from studies. Children have less inclination towards study after the break.
3.5 Post Lunch: After mid-day meal, the children continue with the work they have been doing. The general process followed is as below:
a. The children complete the work and submit their copies for correction.
b. Once the children have done the assigned work for one subject, they move on the next subject.
c. Again the teacher explains a concept/lesson, gives examples and then assigns work to children.
d. Process cycle of grade teaching is same as that before lunch time.
e. Once the teacher is done with teaching for the day, she is involved in correction of class work and any clerical work left.
f. The children continue to do the assigned classwork with minimum intervention from teacher.
g. Generally, Hindi, Social Science & Sanskrit are taken post lunch.
Teacher Perspective: a. It is believed that post lunch, children do not pay much attention, so comparatively easier subjects like Hindi & Social Science are taken post lunch. b. Correction of work is very important as if that is not done then children start to take classwork lightly and do not do it properly.
3.6 Closing: At around 3:05 PM in winters and 12:05 PM in summers, teacher asks children to close all the books and pack their bags.
a. Grade 1 & 2 children form a group and practice English & Hindi rhymes.
b. One child from grade 3, 4 & 5 comes in front and repeats the early morning routine (revision).
c. After this, the children put the furniture back in the classrooms (if its outside) and the discipline in-charges lock everything.
d. Then, all the children assemble in the verandah and sing a song or rhyme together lead by the discipline in-charges.
e. After this, children leaves for their homes in a specific order. Grade 1 & 2 leave first, followed by grade 3, then grade 4 and lastly grade 5.
Teacher Perspective: a. Teacher believes that timing for grade 1 & 2 is too long. They should not study for such long hours as they have less subjects. b. This revision & poem recitation in the end help the children in their oral assessments/evaluation.
c. It is not humanly possible for a single teacher to engage with primary children continuously for 5 hours. So, this process gives a bit of break to the teacher towards the end.
3.7 Miscellaneous: Arts & Craft is done on Saturday. Also, one Saturday in a month is reserved for Parents-Teacher meeting.
4. Learning (classroom & home) environment
4.1 Teacher-Children Relationship
a. Teacher sits on a chair and table while the children sit on mats on the floor. This is due to limited number of chairs & tables in the school for children. When the teacher explains any topic, either she uses the blackboard or the children of a particular grade gather around her chair.
b. Teacher neither eats with the children, nor eats anything offered by the children. This might be due to children being from a lower caste. Also, it is a general belief of the teacher that s/he should not mingle or play with children for s/he might lose control over them.
c. Teacher uses scolding as a means to control children. Teacher feels that there should be a fear of the teacher in the minds of the children. Only this fear can make them follow the rules, complete their work, keep in line etc.
d. Teacher uses phrases like “Buddhu ho tum (you are stupid)”, “Tumko kuch nai aata (You don’t know anything)” etc. for children who cannot understand something or give wrong answers. This creates an unwanted inferiority complex in children and induces a fear of speaking up in class.
4.2 Children-Children Relationship
a. There is group-ism among the children based on family status (in the village) and caste (more common in 4 & 5 grades). As a result some of the children are always sidelined.
b. If a child gives a wrong answer to any question asked by the teacher, other children make fun of him/her. This creates a fear in the mind and children do not speak up even if they know the right answer.
c. There is gender bias among the children. Boys play cricket and do not allow girls to play with them. Even in games like kho-kho, teams are generally divided in the form of boys v/s girls.
d. Children often call each other by funny names and at times fight with each other over small things (snatching each other’s pen, pencil etc.)
e. They usually let each other copy the work given by the teacher.
4.3 Community-School Relationship
a. The teacher formally meets with the community (School Management Committee) once a month. SMC is usually supportive of the teacher because of the latter’s long time presence in the same school.
b. Most of the parents do not take interest in the education of their children. This might be because of the limited time available to them as most of them are farmers or day workers. The only formal learning children have is the time spent in school (5 hours each day). After going home, they hardly open their books as is evident by non-completion of homework given if any. Few children who have elder siblings (studying in higher classes) sometimes tend to finish the homework.
c. Most of the parents have little awareness about the importance of education, as is evident by the inadequate number of copies and stationary the children have (even after repeated requests by the teacher), their torn and tattered books and uniforms. Most of the families are financially stable, still this problem is seen.
5. Assessment
Assessment is done 2 times in a year – half yearly and annual, with some class tests as and when decided by the teacher. The syllabus for half yearly assessment is not repeated again in the final assessment.
a. Question paper is set by the teacher.
b. Paper pattern is subjective questions, fill in the blanks, match the columns type questions taken directly from the textbook.
c. Class 1 & 2 have weightage to oral examination in which teacher hands out cards (animals, fruits, pictures of objects, alphabets, matras, etc.) and students are asked to describe the same.
d. Marks are given out of 50 in each subject.
e. Assessment is solely focused on memory and remembering. Understanding and comprehension is completely ignored.
6. Learning Levels of Children
6.1 English
a. All grades have just memorized the rhymes and stories given in textbook without understanding the meaning. Only 5% of the children can read English that too in a broken form.
b. Even the 4 & 5 grade children do not understand the meaning of very basic words (live, eat, go, come, play, study).
c. Children cannot write without the help of textbook.
6.2 Hindi
a. Children have again mugged up the stories and rhymes. They have problem in explaining any rhyme or story in their own words.
b. Most of the children can read Hindi easily.
c. Children can write Hindi easily, but only about the topics they have read in the textbook. For example, not a single grade 4 & 5 student was able to write five lines about “What they want to become when they grow up and why?”
6.3 Math
a. All grades have difficulty in solving math problems.
b. Even 4 & 5 grade have problems in solving complex addition and subtraction involving carry.
c. Children have problem in retaining concepts like profit/loss, simple interest, percentages etc.
7. Challenges & Implications
7.1 Single Teacher Challenges: One single teacher teaches all the subjects (Hindi, English, Math, EVS, Sanskrit) to all grades, manages the day-to-day working of the school, sends data to functionaries as and when required, participates in other activities like census, elections etc.
Difficult to manage students from all classes 1-5 simultaneously. Class 1 & 2 children especially need a lot of attention. The teacher does not have time to focus on weaker students in a particular grade. As a result, the weak students continue to lag behind class after class.
Similarly, that single teacher handles all the subjects. Teaching English language in the rural areas is a big challenge in itself. Mathematics poses pedagogical challenges of its own. In such a scenario, can we expect a single person to teach all the subjects?
Apart from teaching, the teacher also looks after school management. Maintenance of registers (children count in village, their parents’ information and date of birth, mid-day meal scheme, scholarships given to students, expenditure of various funds that are provided to school from time to time, etc.) takes a major junk of the time.
At times, the education department requires various data to be sent by the school. The teacher has to ensure that the data reaches the department within the set deadlines.
The primary school teacher also runs some health programs in his/her school, under which the students have to be given a particular dosage of some medicine provided by the health department and maintain data for the same.
Such teachers do not attend In Service Teacher Trainings as schools will have to be closed on days they go for the trainings
Implications: Lets us look at a few figures for Primary only Govt. schools in Almora district[3].
Distribution of students and teachers:
21.6% of the primary schools in Almora district have a single teacher. Another 72% of the schools have 2 teachers. Even though, the PTR (Pupil to Teacher ratio) of 1:30 as mandated by RTE (Right to Education, 2009) is maintained in 96% of these schools, but do those 1 or 2 teachers in a particular school possess the capability and techniques to handle all the students from grade 1 to 5 simultaneously, in addition to management of school and other work? The students are not only of different grades, but within the same grade also, there are different levels.
In the current scenario of things, it remains solely up-to the teacher, how s/he educates the students. A few motivated bunch try to do their best for their students, but the same cannot be expected from all. If a student lags behind, most of the teachers just leave that particular student, in the interest of majority. This particular child continues to move up the grades because of No Detention policy (I am not going into the merits and demerits of NDP here. It is a vast topic in itself). Primary education is the base. If any child lags behind here, s/he may continue to face problems during upper primary and higher education. Such children are alienated from the system and may drop out in future.
So, we need to rethink and research the minimum number of teachers that can run a primary school effectively, and impart education to all children, as described in our National Curriculum Framework (NCF 2005) [4]. The number of teachers should be increased accordingly and they should be trained in some sort of multi-grade, multi-level teaching techniques such as Nali-Kali [5] followed in Karnataka, India (even though the effectiveness of it is under question these days [6]).
7.2 Learning environment and pedagogy: The current classroom process and environment creates fear in the mind of children. A fear of speaking, asking questions and being different. They just follow the teacher or at times that one good student who finishes the assigned work. They have no concern whether the teacher or the other student is right or not. Those who try to be different are punished and pushed to be in line with the rest. Most of the teachers today have studied in the rote learning environments during their childhood, and it is their firm belief that it is the sole effective way of teaching and learning. With no exposure to the new teaching and learning processes, they religiously follow the same old rote learning methods in their classes.
Implications: A lot of educational thinkers have written that this type of environment is very harmful for the students [7]. It conditions them to follow blindly and put a full stop to their thinking & questioning ability. To change the learning environment, it becomes extremely important to train and expose the current working teachers to the recent studies about the perspective of education, how children learn and what type of classroom environment is best for learning [8]. Similarly, the teachers also need to move away from rote learning procedures and learn new pedagogy [9] and techniques for teaching, so that it maximizes the learning outcome of the students. This calls for a teacher training and development program that not only focusses on content knowledge but also on perspective of education, child psychology and pedagogical knowledge.
7.3 Community: More than 95% of the schools are in rural areas, where most of the parents are farmers, labourers and daily wage workers, who have little or no awareness about the importance of formal education and informal learning, or the environment required for it. Children spend only 5 hours in school daily and the rest of the 19 hours at home. The thinking of a child is shaped not only in 5 hours of school, but also in those 19 hours at home. For ex. Our National Curriculum Framework – 2005 calls for a democratic environment in classrooms. Even if such an environment is provided in those 5 hours of school, it will fail to create a deep impact, when the environment at home is such that where s/he is yelled upon, made to do work forcefully, sometimes even beaten for the same. When a child joins the primary school at the age of 6, s/he has already been through such an environment and somewhere a feeling has set in that it is the way things work [10].
Implications: The community needs to be engaged and made aware of the importance of both formal education and informal learning. The teacher seems to be the best possible person to engage the community. No doubt, some external awareness programs can also be run for the same, but they can never be as effective. A teacher who consistently goes to a particular school in a village can build a very strong rapport with the community and motivate them, than some random people who visit that village a specified number of times in a year. In this scenario, it becomes very vital for both the teachers and government functionaries to understand that engaging the community is a part of teachers’ job and formal time should be allocated for the same. Also, how to effectively engage the community should be part of teachers’ training.
7.4 Curriculum & Textbooks: The third chapter in Hindi textbook of Class 5 “Shimla ki sair”. This lesson is about a child who is learning to ride a bicycle. I was discussing this chapter in the class and the students seemed least bit interested. The valley in which the school is situated, people do not use bicycle as a mode of transport at all. Most of them have never seen a bicycle in real life. Now, if we teach this lesson to a child who has played with a bicycle and gone through the excitement of learning to ride one, he may connect with this lesson very well. But, here in the hilly terrains of Almora, bicycle is surely not the thing students can connect to.
Coming to the textbooks, the textbooks are very dull. The quality of pictures and colors used is not attractive for children. Given the choice between the textbook and another glossy storybook, every student always picks the glossy storybook to read. I saw the textbooks that came for 2016-17 session. Let me point out a few things about them:
They had issues with the formatting of pages. Some of the chapters were repeated, while others were totally omitted.
The pages were not properly separated. The students while separating the pages, sometimes tore the entire page itself.
Some pages were also tearing out.
These issues were found in at-least 2 out of 10 books.
Implications: The curriculum for primary classes was last updated in 2009. After that, there had only been minor changes in the design, some pictures etc. The lessons have more or less remained the same. It is in dire need of update. Even if we use a centralized curriculum for the entire state of Uttrakhand, it needs to be researched extensively. It needs to be in context of the learners [11].
The printing quality of textbooks can be further looked into. The textbooks for primary classes should be designed keeping in mind the age of the learners. The printing and formatting errors should be avoided at all costs.
7.5 Assessment: For primary classes, there are only 2 sources for the question papers used for assessment. First, the teachers in the school themselves prepare the question papers. They simply choose the questions from the textbook as it is and put them in the paper. Secondly, there are a few places (where people most certainly have no idea about aims of education or the way assessment should be done), where teachers can go and buy question papers, if they don’t want to take the labour of setting them on their own.
At the end of 2015-16 session (April month itself), CCE (Continuous Comprehensive Evaluation) format report cards were sent to all the schools. The teachers decided to use them from next session, as they had very little knowledge about CCE.
Implications: Majority of the teachers finished their studies, when terms like CCE were rarely heard of. They are only aware of the assessment that they have gone through during their time, which was totally memory based. Now, when we already know the fact that education is much more than memorizing few things and then reproducing the same in the examination, the examinations themselves need to be reformed. This point again leads to a comprehensive teacher training and development program that exposes them to the latest studies and developments in the field of education, including assessment [12].
7.6 Geography & Public transport: The hilly terrain is a big challenge in Almora district. Due to problems in availability of basic facilities (electricity, water supply, market etc.) in villages, most of the teachers live in some of the major cities and commute to their schools daily. Due to the hilly roads, this commute can range from 30 minutes to 2.5 hours (one side). Timing of the school in summers is 7:30 AM, so to reach their schools, teachers often leave their homes anywhere between 5:00 AM to 7:00 AM. No public transport is available at these odd hours. Teachers on the same route have hired shared private taxis for their commute.
Also, only 65% of the schools are accessible by all-weather roads. Teachers have to walk or trek to reach their schools, in other cases. This time taken for this walk or trek ranges from 10 minutes to an hour in extreme cases (one side).
Implications: The roads and public transport system needs to be strengthened. This can help in overall development of the villages.
7.7 Image (of teachers and Govt. education system): There is a general belief that there is no learning going on at all in public schools. The system blames the teachers for not doing anything. The teachers blame the system for not providing the enabling conditions to let them teach. This had led to a very poor image of the public education system.
Implications: Just shifting the blame on one another is not going to help. All the stakeholders have to come together, collectively analyze the challenges and work out measures to address them. Then only, we can expect some positive progress in achieving our educational goals.
8. Conclusion
The teacher is the central point of our education system. There is an urgent need to empower this teacher. A lot depends on how the teacher sees himself, the education system and the important task of shaping the country’s future, which he has been entrusted with.
Also, the challenges need to be seen in totality. Ignoring even one of them can have serious consequences on the quality of education.
References:
Mid-day meal scheme of Indian Government - http://mdm.nic.in/
Anganwadi is a government sponsored child-care and mother-care center in India - http://www.aanganwadi.org/
National University of Educational Planning and Administration, U-DISE (Unified District Information System for Education) data, 2015-16- http://schoolreportcards.in/SRC-New/
National Curriculum Framework, 2005 – 1.7 Aims of Education, Pages 10 and 11 http://www.ncert.nic.in/rightside/links/pdf/framework/english/nf2005.pdf
Nali Kali (joyful learning), a multi-grade, multi-level, child-centred, activity based curriculum – http://ssakarnataka.gov.in/pdfs/int_lep/nk_report.pdf
http://www.thehindu.com/features/education/nali-kali-initiative-in-karnataka/article7932750.ece http://www.deccanherald.com/content/487673/redesign-nali-kali-programme-schoolteachers.html
On Education by J Krishnamurti, Talks to Students, Chapter 6 – On Fear, Pages 40 to 47
National Curriculum Framework, 2005 – 4.2 Nurturing an enabling environment, Pages 81 to 83
National Curriculum Framework, 2005 – 2.4.5 Critical Pedagogy, Pages 22 to 24
National Curriculum Framework, 2005 – 3.10.1 Early Childhood Education, Page 65 “The formation of later attitudes and values as well as the desire to learn are also influenced at this stage, while lack of support or neglect can lead to negative consequences, sometimes irreversible.”
National Curriculum Framework, 2005 – 2.4.1 Teaching for construction of knowledge, Pages 17,18
National Curriculum Framework, 2005 – 3.11.8 Assessment at different stages, Pages 76,77