WE are tired of listening to or writing about the hoary perennials in education.¹ True, there is a lot that is terribly wrong but there are also many interesting initiatives happening around the country for us to celebrate and learn from.

In the last few years we have been part of efforts to document many programmes run by the government and NGOs/corporate foundations to strengthen government (elementary) schools and improve the quality of education.² It is now well known that an overwhelming majority of children from poor households go to government schools – with 85.85% of schools managed by the government or through local bodies and among them 91% are located in rural areas (Arun Mehta, Elementary Education in India: Progress Towards UEE, Analytical Report 2004-05, NIEPA, July 2006).

Given prevailing dropout rates in the country, ensuring that government schools function efficiently has been acknowledged as the top priority of the government. As a result several state governments have introduced a range of strategies to get schools to work more efficiently, increase the actual teaching-learning time in school and also provide academic support where required. Equally, non-governmental/civil society players in the education sector have increasingly recognised the value of working with the government system through sustained efforts to enhance the quality of teaching and learning.

It is in this context that we have tried to explore factors that could turn around a seemingly impossible situation on the ground and enable children to learn and enjoy the schooling experience. Travelling around the country was a gratifying and humbling experience. We found a fascinating mix of strategies and practices – in some states we saw government officials focusing their attention on fine-tuning and tightening the monitoring mechanism to increase accountability at all levels. In another state we observed how a few dynamic people were able to get the government functionaries at different levels to acknowledge that there was indeed a crisis of confidence in the education system.

We met social activists who were able to galvanise the local panchayat to monitor learning, and teachers who had formed an association to improve learning. Someone was busy supplementing science teaching through mobile laboratories/science fairs and others with training teachers. With so much exciting and focused work going on, the puzzle was why these had not translated into a strategy, impacting on a much wider scale. Evidently, despite a communication revolution in the country, several of these efforts remained confined to pockets, with little concerted effort at dissemination to take the lessons from various success stories to scale. During the course of our journey we realised that if these stand-alone strategies were deployed in a coordinated manner, there would certainly be a mini revolution in the education sector, constituting an organic, holistic approach to addressing issues of quality. This article attempts to capture key generic lessons (most of them well-known and also documented) drawn from experiences across the country.³

 

Quality has always been an elusive and daunting concept. Our first insight was that successful initiatives start off by breaking down ‘quality’ into various tasks and inputs while recognising the organic link between them. Essentially the process involved starting with the larger picture and zooming in on various components that went into its making – without loosing sight of the whole. This implied that if measurement of learning outcomes was acknowledged as a key determinant of quality then efforts were made to go full circle and ensure that the measured results were shared with children and parents, the outcomes analysed by teachers with resource persons at the cluster and block levels, and the entire experience fed into the planning process at the local level.

Considerable time and effort was spent to get the administrative system to acknowledge that real success lies in enabling every child to learn and attain desired competencies. It was recognized that the best textbooks, creative teacher training and attractive buildings, cannot ensure learning unless the teacher and the supervisory mechanism walk the last mile and concentrate on teaching and learning.

 

Two, short-term capsule interventions are insufficient to sustain learning – they can at best provide a head start. For example, short-term bridge courses, ‘learning to read’ camps or accelerated programmes to help children ‘catch-up’ can inject energy into the system and be a good starting point. Creating structures to ensure that learning continues in the routine/regular school, however, is necessary to sustain the learning process. There are no short cuts to learning – it has to be a continuous and sustained process throughout the academic year. While developing basic skills in reading, writing and arithmetic is the foundation for life long learning, it is equally important to create learning experiences that excite and challenge children and expose them to creative activities. Teaching of science, for instance, through mobile laboratories or fairs is a great supplement – it enables the child to move beyond the narrow confines of textbooks and rote learning. However, it cannot be the mainstay of science education and teachers have to do the routine teaching inside the classroom.

Three, in an era of user-friendly technology, using the radio and the electronic media can add value to the learning process. However, it may be foolhardy to believe that technology can substitute the teacher. It can at best add value and make learning an engaging and fun-filled experience. The programmes we studied clearly demonstrate the importance of the teacher in preparing for and getting the best out of radio lessons, computer aided learning or story telling/reading. Empowering and enabling the teachers to use technology with confidence is particularly important when we deal with computers.

Four, creating a credible and transparent monitoring system to track learning can serve as a powerful tool for quality assurance. This has been introduced in many programmes to enable the system to not lose sight of quality. In the late 1990s, the Government of India recommended the use of household surveys to cut through system-generated statistics which had tabulated over 100 per cent enrolment for many years. The outcome was a better and more nuanced understanding of how to identify those geographical pockets or groups of children who continue to remain beyond the pale of formal education.

 

The DPEP programme generated data on learning outcomes as well through three sample surveys, popularly known as BAS, MAS and TAS.⁴ The credibility of these ‘tests’ was, however, questioned within the country and by the international education community. The credibility of testing mechanisms hinges on the integrity of the teachers administering it in the schools or on the independence of the testing agency. We can draw some important lessons from these experiences, namely:

* Learning outcomes of children are measured using grade-specific competencies. While this information provides valuable insights, it fails to capture the learning process. Therefore, developing indicators to ‘measure’ the teaching and learning experience inside the classroom, teacher-student interactions and the overall school environment is essential and can help practitioners in planning and priority setting.

* The process is as important as what is measured. The need for an ‘independent’ and ‘credible’ mechanism for testing is as important as continuous/periodic processes. There is of course one danger. If the tests become the only means of evaluating the performance of schools, teachers could just ‘drill’ the children in doing the tests – while ignoring regular teaching and learning activities.

* Measurement is just the starting point and one needs to complete the loop. Grading schools by infrastructure and learning outcomes is just the first step. Sharing it with children and parents, using the information for in-house analysis at the cluster or block levels, and feeding it into training and planning is as important.

 

Fifth, accountability and transparency go together. Information collected by the system is used by administrators to monitor progress. Availability of this information and its use at all levels, especially at the school, school-complex and cluster level, is crucial. With information comes the issue of transparency. Placing information collected at the school level in the public domain, viz., gram sabha (general body of the community at the village level) and discussing it is one way of promoting transparency. Forging closer linkages with community of parents and other interested people in the immediate environment of the school has the potential to turn around a difficult situation. One area where transparency could make a big difference to the morale of teachers is in teacher cadre and personnel management. This remains a tricky matter, but where the government has successfully insulated it from rent seeking there is a positive impact on the system.

 

Six, generating and sharing micro level data and information disaggregated by location, social group and gender is an important starting point. This acquires meaning only when it results in differential allocations of resources to meet the specific needs of special groups, situations or locations. Planning based on broad unit costs/templates has little meaning in deprived or difficult situations. This is where most national programmes have not recorded positive experiences, and some state-specific initiatives or those taken up in partnership with local corporate or NGOs could bring in necessary value addition. Forging partnerships with non-governmental players – be they corporates, NGOs, community leaders, scientists or institutions of higher education – can add value to the education process. This is particularly important because such partnerships can improve the government education system where the poorest children study.

Seven, the secondary and tertiary layers⁵ created to provide academic support need to be engaged in teaching and learning and officers/ resource persons have to spend time in school and work with children. When they do return to their primary task of supporting teachers or teaching children (and stop being glorified data gatherers), they have the potential to turn the system around. Restoring the professional identity of teacher educators and academic support staff is critical to drive home the message that teaching and learning is the heart of education.

Eight, innovations in any aspect of the education process acquire value provided the lessons are shared and disseminated. Systematic documentation, dissemination and study tours can have a snowballing effect. Equally, affirmation and rewards/play an important role in creating the momentum for change and catapulting performance of schools into a public domain and could galvanise proactive involvement of the community of parents and other stakeholders at the local as well as the state and national levels.

 

Nine, meaningful innovation is the product of design and not chance. Planning and preparing for change, building a clear path in the early days and reaching out and generating a sense of ownership among key players is crucial. Innovation is associated with small micro initiatives – something that is small and beautiful, often dependent on an exceptional individual or a small group of like-minded people. But initiatives of individual officials or leaders, howsoever creative they may be, cannot become an ‘innovation’ unless they are embedded into the main frame of the education system. This is of particular importance to the subject at hand – how to improve the quality of education and ensure every single child is in school and learning.

Ten, individuals play an important role in initiating and sustaining innovations. The agency of the leader is not only critical in government initiatives but also in non-governmental initiatives. The challenge lies in making these promising practices an integral part of the system – be it a large scale government programme or a non-governmental project. Sustaining the energy beyond the first flush of enthusiasm has rarely been easy and that is one of the reasons why we have refrained from calling them best practices. Identification of people with the right aptitude, commitment and the requisite skills has always been problematic in the government. NGO and corporate foundations are perhaps in a better position to carefully build a team of like minded and, most importantly, committed individuals.

 

Overall, there are a number of interlocking elements that go to make the education system. Each is organically linked to the other and sustainability hinges on the ability of the pioneers to systematically weave in practices and processes into the very fabric of the system. Teacher training alone cannot improve teaching and learning processes nor increase the time spent on the main task. Addressing administrative, personnel and other issues alongside accountability systems could help us turn the corner.

A systemic, not a piecemeal approach, is needed even though we may start from one point. A virtuous process needs to be set in motion where an innovation, even if limited, demonstrates tangible outcomes. As a result the input processes improve in the next round and the initiative gathers greater support within the system. The second round could take the practice to a higher level, further improving outcomes and gaining more champions in the system. This, if managed right, could set in motion a virtuous spiral of change.

Discussions with people in the government and outside reveal that the factors that inhibit effective teaching and learning in schools have a lot to do with broader systemic and governance issues like indifferent administration, low teacher morale, teacher availability, actual teaching time, assessment processes and overall monitoring mechanisms. As a result, most effective (albeit small scale) programmes have tried to grapple with ways and means to turn the system around. Equally crucial is the inability of schools to give attention to every child. Fortunately the discourse on quality education has become more nuanced and the people wrestling with it on the ground recognise that learning is as much an individual struggle/process for every child. The ability of teachers (and the administrative system governing schools) to recognise this and reach out to every single child could make a big difference.

 

The future of Indian education lies in moving from individual excellence to institutional excellence, a situation where the government takes pride in turning the education system around and gear it to deliver good quality education for all children. A medium term plan made in collaboration with people working at all levels, especially teachers and local panchayat leaders, can help rejuvenate the system. Equally, it can give renewed hope and when things begin to change and start looking up, can unleash positive energies and trigger change.

Waiting for a systemic overhaul in a fractured and polarised polity may be never-ending. We need to remember that the poor and disadvantaged cannot be asked to wait while the system corrects itself. Wresting the initiative wherever we can and enabling a positive spiral of change could be a good starting point.

 

Footnotes:

1. To borrow Gita Sen’s phrase.

2. The most recent being a project executed by Educational Resource Unit in 2005-06 was jointly supported by the Department of Elementary Education and Literacy, Government of India and the International Labour Organisation, New Delhi. We reviewed over 51 programmes and documented 15 of them.

3. The following programmes were documented in 2005-06: Government: Active Schools in Latur (Govt of Maharashtra), Activity Based Learning in Chennai (Municipal Corporation of TN), Communitisation Programme (Government of Nagaland), Integrated Learning Improvement Programme (Government of W. Bengal), Madarsa Board (Government of MP), Pratham (Gujarat), Quality Improvement Programme and CLIP (Government of AP), School Monitoring (Government of Uttaranchal), Planning for Equity (Government of Assam). NGO/corporate: Science programme of Agastya Foundation (Karnataka and AP), Learning Guarantee Programme (Azim Premji Foundation, Karnataka), MV Foundation’s work with teachers (BVKK, Andhra Pradesh), EDC-IRI (Karnataka), and Rishi Valley Institute of Educational Resources (AP). In addition the authors have drawn upon documentation on two NGOs, namely Centre for Learning Resources (Pune) and Pratham’s work in several states.

4. BAS: Baseline Achievement Survey, MAS: Mid-term Assessment Survey and TAS: Terminal Assessment Survey – done at the start, mid-point and end of DPEP. This was designed and executed by NCERT, New Delhi.

5. Cluster and Block Resource Centres, District Institutes of Education and Training, Block and Mandal Resource Persons, etc.