THE campaign for universalisation of primary education has succeeded in getting schooling accepted as a non-negotiable for all children today, including those from underprivileged sections. As universal schooling becomes mandatory, it becomes imperative to spell out why the right to schooling is a non-negotiable, and enquire whether schools deliver what we expect.

Schooling is considered a non-negotiable right because of an assumption that schools educate and by doing so provide equal opportunities for all regardless of class, caste or sex. But, is it true that schools educate? And, more important, what do schools do if they don’t educate?

Here one is not talking only about the much criticized and dismal state of government schools but our best schools – private or corporate and public schools. The success of our professionals, particularly the software engineers, doctors, writers, management and financial experts in India and abroad, leads most people to assume that all is well with the Indian education system and any attempt to question or debate the issue is suspect and/or unnecessarily cynical. But an assessment obsessed system should not be averse to a candid assessment of itself.

For too long we have used the term ‘education’ in a very general way, to mean very different things to different people. So much so that we can no longer be sure if people are using it to mean even roughly the same thing. Though we feel there is some common ground that permits a conversation, it is fast disappearing. It is important, therefore, that we begin by clearly spelling out what we mean by the term ‘education’.

One way of discovering a commonsense understanding of the term is to examine how it is used in ordinary, everyday conversation. It is not uncommon to come across statements like, ‘I wouldn’t have expected this from an educated person like him’ or ‘Whenever I see an educated person behaving in an unethical, irresponsible manner or irrational, superstitious manner, I’m still shocked.’ All these statements imply a certain notion of an educated person and (the process of) education. I will try and spell out a minimalist, substantive understanding of education that is contained in everyday talk and is common to what most educationists advocate.

In calling a person educated we make a positive value judgment. There is an expectation that education will improve the person, and that an educated person will behave in a better manner than one who is not educated. There is a sense of being let down, disappointment and dismay if an educated person does not conduct himself in a manner that is rational, morally good and socially responsible.

 

 

It is clear that by education is meant all-round development of a person, not merely specialist or professional training. Educationists too stress that education is a holistic process and not only a training of the intellect. It is development of moral, social, aesthetic as well as rational capacity. People might differ on the degree of importance that they place on these various dimensions but most would include all these in their notion of an educated person.

An educated person is not just well-informed (stuffed with facts and figures) or one who has learnt the knack or know-how of doing something. An educated person is not just one who knows what, and how, but also why. While one expects that an educated person has knowledge, one also expects that the person has an understanding of the underlying principles of the physical and social – including political and economic – world. An educated person is someone who has evolved his own mental map according to which he steers his life and interprets all new facts and experiences.

Nor does one expect that an educated person’s knowledge or understanding is inert but that it informs his perceptions, worldview and how he conducts his life. If a person realizes or learns of the importance of truth, goodness, beauty, love, justice and simplicity but shows no commitment to them in the way he lives his life, we cannot help feeling that person is not truly educated. The minimum we expect from an educated person is that s/he thinks in a rational and critical manner and behaves ethically and responsibly.

A person certainly cannot be said to be educated till he has developed his potentialities as per his individual aptitude and acquired a greater understanding of his core self. Not only does the etymological root of the word ‘education’ point in that direction but most philosophical and religious traditions urge one to ‘know thyself’. This would mean acquiring some understanding of what it means to be oneself, clarity regarding one’s values, priorities and aim or direction (as distinct from one’s socialization or cultural conditioning – though not necessarily in rejection of them). Only then can an educated person be truly called self-determined and be held responsible for his actions.

 

 

Education is an attempt to guide and introduce the person to the process and importance of self-realisation. While this could be, and often has been, misused in the past to socialise persons, the concept of education excludes processes such as indoctrination and conditioning. An educated person carries the idea of autonomous and authentic person and not one who has been conditioned or indoctrinated. Education is guidance and direction but in a fashion that does not estrange or alienate from oneself but puts one on to the path of meaningful learning and realizing one’s true self.

This list of the characteristics of an educated person must surely make us blanch. For we know, even without listing the characteristics, that this is not our experience of a schooled person. For what typifies a schooled person are a very different set of characteristics. Schooled people are:

(i) Those who have learnt the knack of doing things in an appropriate or expected manner – be it examinations, dressing, behaviour in a social setting, speaking confidently at different occasions, communicating effectively, solving mathematical problems or doing sophisticated, scientific experiments – but their behaviour outside of that particular situation reveals that they rarely understand the underlying issues, concepts or problems. As for appearances, the present day school graduates seem smarter and more sophisticated than their counterparts of earlier generations.

(ii) Despite awareness of different facts, more information and skills, many have often neither internalized nor assimilated them such that they becomes personally meaningful or lead to a coherent overall picture. It is as if they hold all the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle in their hand but are incapable or unwilling to put them together. Unfortunately, even school teachers and curriculum planners seem to be confused and are busy tying to ‘raise quality’ by ever increasing the quantity of information to be learnt at yet younger ages, without requisite understanding or concern about what can be grasped at what developmental stage/age.

(iii) The schooled people no longer worship at the altar of truth, goodness, justice or – and though they would debate it – love and beauty. More often they worship at the altar of success (meaning money and status), pleasure and convenience. The concept of ‘a good life’ is no longer measured by commitment to truth, goodness or justice but by access to success, pleasures and convenience – a change that is faithfully reflected in most advertisements today.

(iv) Most schooled people, used to timetables and the bell ringing every 45 minutes, have been conditioned to rarely think in terms of an integrated and meaningful way of spending even a day of their life. Those who have been further schooled realize that attempts to lead an integrated life may only add to the inconsistencies and contradictions that we strain to live through at every moment of our compartmentalized-for-convenience-lifestyle and thus do not even attempt it.

(v) Schooling is not about helping a person discover who he is. From the moment a child enters school, his day is organized for him and he must fall into line. Successful, schooled people are those who have learnt fairly early to fit themselves into the system. Those who tried and could not fit in are termed ‘failures’ and those who refuse to play the game or submit are the ‘dropouts’. Far from making a person clear about their values, priorities or direction, schools today require that people submit themselves to the requirements of the system and take on the values of the system or be streamed/phased out.

(vi) Just as education is viewed positively, so too is schooling. The difference is that education is valued for intrinsic reasons, while schooling is valued for instrumental reasons. People are clear that for all its negatives, it is a priority as it is one’s lottery ticket to the goodies of modern life. I deliberately used the word ‘lottery ticket’ and not ‘passport’ for even with it, there is uncertainty whether you will get something.

 

 

This makes it sufficiently clear that if we accept the earlier listed criteria as the criteria for education and as characterizing a schooled person, then schools do not educate. The disconnect between the first and second list makes abundantly clear that schooling and education are two very different things. Schooling tells one what to think whereas an education teaches one to think. One could even say that education is a process of meaningful learning and capacity building whereas schooling seems to have become more an exercise of human resource management.

 

 

Having gone thus far, let us pursue this line of enquiry. At this point we can do no better than to turn to Everett Reimer’s, The School is Dead and Ivan Illich’s, Deschooling Society. These two books question the very idea of schooling. Both Reimer and Illich point out that schools have taken on new functions like custodial care, role selection and indoctrination and some of these functions sit ill with the task of educating.

While custodial care does not necessarily conflict with the task of education, indoctrination does. An important task of schools today is to mould children into an uncritical acceptance of mainstream values and agenda/policies. At no point is there any attempt to include a discussion of radical alternatives to the dominant norms of society. (Some committed individual teachers may do so, but at their own initiative and risk). However, because some bright students will question or be critical, they are indoctrinated into believing that ‘the system cannot be changed’ or that ‘you cannot reverse the direction of change/progress’ and are sought to be tamed by turning their critical energies into plugging the shortcomings of the system rather than questioning it in a radical manner.

What greater proof do we need of schooling as indoctrination than the fact that we have uncritically internalized the idea that only constant competition and examinations provide the motivation and incentive to learn, to keep us on our mental toes, which is contrary to our experience that we learn best in congenial and supportive situations. Under pressure one only tries to cope by relying on previously acquired skills or trying to not look too bad. It is shocking when people actually ask, ‘If it were not for exams how would the teacher know what the child has or has not learnt? And if it were not for marks, how would we know where our child stands?’

 

 

It is absurd that one needs to point to their own experience: don’t you as parents assess your child without examinations and know where s/he stands, or assess your colleagues and know their strengths and weaknesses without the need for conducting any formal examinations? Any teacher who has taught a child for a while can tell you the real level of the student, down to the spelling errors that s/he is likely to make before even conducting the exam. If we were not so schooled into accepting the logic of competition and examinations we would see people strive for excellence and voluntarily undertake challenging work in a congenial atmosphere without any incentives.

Constant performance assessment creates pressure for glossing over deficiencies and weaknesses (for it is also an evaluation of the teachers’ ability). The results are always better than the students’ actual level. Besides constant tests take away from the time that could be spent on teaching, learning and correction of shortcomings. It skews the time spent upon teaching and learning in favour of time spent on examining and marking. Teachers, instead of assisting learning, spend most of their time assessing learning – one reason why there are few school-going children who do not also attend extra coaching classes. Instead of enabling and equipping students to learn, schools have taken on the function of examining and screening out on the basis of those examinations.

 

 

Role-selection is done through streaming out those who are unwilling or unable to fit into the system and selecting those willing and able to play along with the system. This also ensures that those eliminated accept the outcome as just and unquestioningly agree to take on the lesser roles assigned to them, while those selected feel that they have earned or deserve their place in society. Dropouts are judged as bad losers who do not accept the outcome of a fair system. This function sits ill with the schools’ avowed aim of providing equal opportunity to all and facilitating learning. The IDAC publication, Danger School, points out that most of the dropouts are from the lowest classes of society and that the professionals’ children usually become professionals while children of unskilled workers become labourers. Earlier we had a rigid caste system but now we have a modern, rigid class system. The few anomalies are ‘made much of’ to advertise and highlight the fairness of the system and to insulate it from being challenged.

Further, as Illich points out that with the blurring of the distinction between process and content, a consumerist logic kicks into place. This is easily done as both the process and achievement are referred to by the same word ‘education’. By this logic the more the years of schooling, the more ‘educated’ is the person. This also ensures that those who can afford to consume the most are the ones who are deemed the most qualified and hence best suited for the job. This belies a general expectation that schools are places that equip a person to enjoy equality of opportunity.

For those encountering these arguments for the first time, this may come as a shock. Today, to question the sanctity of schools is equivalent to questioning the existence of God or the sanctity of religion in the past. Others, who have encountered these ideas before are still struggling with the desire to deny the truth as well as the necessity of understanding and coming to terms with it. It is difficult to disregard our pet notions and cherished belief in the system of schooling.

 

 

Was this by design? A conspiracy? I don’t think so. This is what has happened and to realize and recognize the shortcomings of the system is the first step to its correction. No one had deliberately set out to portray gender stereotypes in textbooks. And once, after a time lag, it sunk in how this was negatively affecting the girl students, we responded by trying to correct it. In the case of schooling too, we need to first understand exactly what is happening and only then can we move towards designing an appropriate corrective. In recognizing that schooling is not education, one is not necessarily concluding that schools cannot be educational.

The implication is that, as things stand today, schooling is not education nor is it a means of equality or social justice. The important question is: Where do we go from here? We cannot simply wish the situation away. Do we just deny and/or ignore this and continue to support the existing schooling system? Or should we try to make schools educational institutions once again? Or, has the time come for thinking of more efficient alternatives to the schooling system as Reimer, Illich and Holt have argued ? It is clear that mere cosmetic tinkering with the curriculum and methods will not do, and that it is time for radically rethinking schooling.