JOURNAL OF INDIAN EDUCATION

Volume XXXIII Number 2 August 2007

CONTENTS Editor’s Note 3 The Aims of Education 5

The Arts as Education ANJANA P URI 14 Why Arts Education Should be Included in the Curricular Area

Constructivism and the Pedagogy of SAROJ PANDEY 21 Education for Peace A Reflection on School Education Curriculum Reform (NCF-2005)

Religion, Education and Peace RADHIKA HERZBERGER 30

Reinventing the Paradigm of Teaching ANJALI KHIRWADKAR 50 Implication for Teacher Education

A Study of Relationship between PARAMANAND SINGH YADAV 59 Environmental Awareness and and ANITA BHARATI Scientific Attitudes among Higher Secondary Students

Teachers’ Expectations from their M. VARMA, M. S. SODHA 70 University and RASHMI S ONI A Study in the Context of University of Lucknow

A Study of the Present Scenario of G.N.P. SRIVASTAVA 85 Early Childhood Education (ECE) and RANJEATA SINGH in Bhubaneswar

Participation of Scheduled Castes RAJESH TAILOR, SANDEEP KUMAR S HARMA 98 Children at the Primary Stage in India and RITESH T AILOR

Strengthening the Role of State PH. NEWTON S INGH 108 in School Education vis-à-vis the Private Initiative The Aims of Education 5

The Aims of Education*

Abstract

As an apex national agency of educational reform, NCERT is expected to review the school curriculum as a regular activity, ensuring the highest standards of rigour and deliberative openness in the process. Consequently, in 2004, the NCERT initiated the review of National Curriculum Framework for School Education– 2000. In the context of this exercise, a National Steering Committee chaired by Prof. Yash Pal and 21 National Focus groups were set up. These focus groups were created to generate ideas and to reflect upon curricular areas, national concerns and systemic reforms. Each Focus Group through discussions and intensive deliberations produced a research-based Position Paper providing a comprehensive view of existing knowledge in the area and future direction. The position papers prepared by the NFGs provided inputs to the National Curriculum Framework–2005. All these position papers are available in print form and also on NCERT’s website. For the readers of the Journal of Indian Education we present here the text of one such position paper Aims of Education.

Introduction and ask ourselves, ‘what are we doing in our engagement with this task? Is there For a fairly long time now, we have been a need to ask ourselves afresh some of engaged in the great task of educating the basic questions such as what ought the children of India, an independent to be the purpose of education?’ The nation with a rich variegated history, constitution of the focus group on the extraordinarily complex cultural aims of education is perhaps meant to diversity, and commitment to democratic provide such an occasion. values and general well-being. Given the If we look at what the school enormity and importance of this task, it education system has done in the last is necessary that we create occasions decades, perhaps we have much to be from time to time to sit back collectively satisfied with. Products of this system

* Position Paper, National Focus Group on Aims of Education, National Curriculum Framework–2005, NCERT, New Dellhi. The Aims of Education 7 useful, but, very importantly, have this education must now be seen as fostering other expressive aspect. A community values which constitute the well-being traditionally assumes a degree of of the individual on the one hand and continuity for itself–continuity of its the well-being of humanity on the other. constituent structures of human But the difficulty here of course, is relationships, which give it, to a large to clear about the notion of the extent, its identity and meaning. Given independent of the complex matrix of this assumption, the aims of education relationships in which an individual is within what might, somewhat inevitably located? And what is this all – misleadingly, be called a communitarian inclusive humanity, as distinct from this framework, have primarily to do with the or that specific variety of humanity? community’s idea of well-being and The lack of clarity about the idea of flourishing. The highest value that an individual and humanity as such is education within such a framework was bound to create difficulties for us in expected to promote and foster was, thinking about the aims of education in perhaps, ‘allegiance to the community’. our times. Thus, for instance, we have However, even though community to find a way out of a seeming continues to be a powerful presence in contradiction such as: We must our own times, and despite proliferation encourage children to cultivate the of deliberately constructed communities, ‘scientific temper’ (that is, the tendency the world has for a long time been moving to follow their reason beyond the dictates away from a community-centric view of of culture, tradition, and community) human existence in two widely divergent and also teach them the unassailable directions: the direction of the individual values of humanity. Also, we must find a and the direction of the universal or the stable room for the nation between the global. The well-being of the individual individual and the humanity. is seen to be more important than the well-being of the community. This Aims of Education perhaps is the genesis of the idea of Here are however, issues relating to human rights as of many other central education about which have a fairly clear concepts of the modern world. idea and about which there ought to be Humanity is sometimes conceived as general agreement to a large extent. It the ‘community’ of all individual human would be helpful to seek an answer to beings. But this is a serious the question ‘what ought to be the aims misconstrual of the idea of a community. of education?’ by way of our engagement Our attachment to the notion of with these issues: community is profound and persistent. In equating humanity to a community, (i) School education is a deliberate we not only give expression to this and more-or-less external attachment but also invest it with a intervention in the life of a child. meaning it does not have. Although much learning and Given the radical change of teaching takes place at home, in the perspective that has taken place, neighbourhood community, and in The Aims of Education 9 to do with moral life at all. For example, external to physical fitness. (The position courage by itself can be put to incredibly taken here is distinct from the utilitarian evil use; think of the courage Nathuram position epitomised in the dictum Godse. The same thing can be said of ‘honesty is the best policy’.) In the moral intelligence. As to temperance if it is sphere, the process is integral to the tempered with the vital unity of moral life, product and the product is inalienable it is in perpetual danger of degenerating from the process. Here, there can be no into soulless, ritualistic disciplining of such thing as finding the most efficient oneself. means of achieving a predetermined goal What is it that breathes morality into (as in, say, matters of management), for the virtues? It is – we must have the the means in the pursuit of a moral end courage to acknowledge – truth and love, is not replaceable. or, in terms of our own powerful tradition An important corollary of this is that of moral thought, ahimsa. Truth means if value education must be a part of the freedom from self-deception; here it is education system, values or virtues must never enough to speak the truth be integral to the whole process of occasionally. As Wittgenstein puts it, “The education. Value education cannot be truth can be spoken by someone who is imparted as a separate bit of education; already at home in it; not by someone the whole of education has to be value who still lives in falsehood and reaches education. Here, we need the powerful out from falsehood towards truth on just reminders, in variety of ways, of the 2 one occasion.” Courage, temperance, Gandhian ideas of ahimsa, peace, and intelligence, and so on cannot come harmony. together in the vital unity of virtuous life unless they are profoundly mediated by (iv) Cultural diversity is one of our the love of truth. And the love of truth- greatest gifts. To respect and do when we are talking of a moral life-can justice to others is also to respect flourish in the supreme and active and do justice to their respective presence of ahimsa. cultures or communities. We, Secondly, in the context of moral life, therefore, need to radically change the means and the end must form a the centre versus periphery continuum such that, as it were, the perspective on intercultural means and the ends make a wholesome relationships in our country. unity? The distinction between the Cultures on the so-called periphery means and the end in this context, if must receive as much attention as there is one at all, is not the same as the cultures in the centre. As for distinction where the means is merely education, its implications is that instrumental in producing the end, for ways of life other than one’s own example, playing football as a means of must be imaginatively and keeping physically fit. Morality is external effectively presented as deserving of to a virtuous life in the way football is as much respect as one’s own.

2 Wittgenstein, Ludwig 1973. Culture and Value, Blackwell. The Aims of Education 11

Some Implications for Pedagogy and understanding …. He knew that it was not Evaluation at all necessary for the boys to understand literally and accurately, but It may be useful to consider some of the that their minds should be roused, and implications of what has been said so far in this he was always successful he was for pedagogy and evaluation. The not like other teachers, a mere vehicle of strangeness of the school environment textbooks. He made his teaching can be mitigated by imaginatively linking personal, he himself was the source of the experience of school with the child’s it, and therefore it was made of life stuff, experience outside it in the community. easily assimilable by the living human While school might have many new and nature.”3 exciting experiences for the child, it must not appear as rejecting or eve ignoring Pedagogy must draw upon resources the child’s experience in the community. of creativity and exploration, such as Pedagogy will gain but incorporating literature in its various forms and history children’s experience of what the Greeks in its uncovering modes, e.g., unmasking used to call oikos, and likewise and it can the mind of the colonisers as well as that teach them fresh ways of experiencing of the colonised. It is important to the world outside the school. For establish connections between example, if a child has grown up in apparently discrete events and things, intimate contact with the nature around between things and events close to one him, as most children in tribal and those distant in time and space– communities do, school can enrich and connections which can bring sudden enhance this intimacy by sharpening light to the workings of the child’s own the child’s awareness of his own natural mind. environment–something that sadly does If the world of education is, in a not happen in most of our schools. The sense, moral education, and if means role of the teacher here is absolutely and ends in moral matters are crucial. One is reminded of the nineteen- organically or internally connected, the year-old teacher who came to help Tagore teacher, who is the primary vehicle of with the teaching in his school: education, must be seen substantially as With him boys never felt that they an embodiment of virtues in his role as were confined in the limit of a teaching a teacher. class; they seemed to have their access Teaching should be in the to everywhere. They would go with him conversational mode rather than in the to the forest when in the spring the sal mode of authoritarian monologue. It is trees were in full blossom and he would in the conversational mode that the child recite to them his favorite poems, frenzied is likely to grow in self-confidence and with excitement…He never had the feeling self-awareness and will more easily of distrust for the boys’ capacity of establish connections between the

3 Tagore, Rabindranath 1996. My School. In Sisir Kumar Das (ed.) English Writings of Tagore, Vol. II. Sahitya Academy. The Aims of Education 13 have learnt through participation in the experiences are either inconsistent with practices of our communities. In different or at a considerable variance from what communities, the practices and we had gradually learnt to take for traditions vary widely. granted. Such experiences are critical The term tradition may be interpreted and challenging as they involve or require in many ways. In its barest sense, it formulation of new concepts, revision of means that which is handed down or preconceived notions, and new ways of transmitted from generation to looking at and dealing with the world. It generation in a community because it is this unique human ability that is consists of devices and principles that called rationality, which is manifested in have helped the community to make human behaviour in a wide variety of sense of its experiences and activities. ways. Perhaps, it was for this reason that Our attempts to make sense of our Wittgenstein had rightly remarked, experiences, to comprehend the world “tradition is not………a thread he (man) can that we live in, require that we recognise pick up when he feels like it any more patterns, structures, and order in the than a man can choose his own world. Without such recognition, we ancestors.”4 would not be able to make any Education as a planned endeavour, judgements; we could not be in a position at a personal level on a small scale or to be certain about anything. This quest institutional level on a large scale, aims for certainty, taken to its extreme, may at making children capable of becoming become a demand for a monistic and active, responsible, productive, and absolute criterion by which it would be caring members of society. They are possible to draw sharp lines between the made familiar with the various practices rational and the irrational, knowledge of the community by imparting the and a lack of it. In becoming captives of relevant of skills and ideas. Ideally, such a restricting vision, we forget education is supposed to encourage the that there are numerous ways in which students to analyse and evaluate their we learnt to know and to reason about experiences, to doubt, to question, to the world. This forgetting leads us to investigate – in other words, to be reduce rationality to mere formulas of inquisitive and to think independently. deductive reasoning, placing greater As we grow, we face new and value on theory over practice, natural unfamiliar experiences which question sciences over art, and information over our old ways of thinking as these knowledge.

4 Wittgenstein, Ludwig 1973. Culture and Value, Blackwell. P.76. 14 Journal of Indian Education August 2007

The Arts as Education Why Arts Education should be Included in the Curricular Area

ANJANA P URI*

Abstract

Although the arts are as old as mankind and are as complex as the ways of human beings, they have not yet been given the same status as the sciences and the humanities have been given, within the frame of school education. One has yet to understand the inherent link that connects the arts to other subjects, giving them their inter-disciplinary character. Each of the arts – irrespective of whether they are performing, non-performing, visual – has inherent values that make it a source for education, holistic in nature. It thus becomes significant to examine performance holistically, because within the concept of holistic performance are a large number of areas that might be diverse in nature, but are closely linked to each other within as well as outside the bounds of the art form. It is, therefore, required to look for the relationship between the performing arts and the other subjects. One could investigate to what extent the arts have been integrated in the text of specific subject areas or one could look for different subject areas in the performing and visual arts. This would need analysing the arts in a manner that would highlight various fields associated integrally with the arts. The arts have to be considered as something beyond immediate performance, comprehending the difference in concepts such as ‘arts in education’, ‘arts and education’ and ‘art as education’.

Introduction sciences and with other subjects Repeating what has been said time and comprising the humanities. The arts are again in the context of the status of the as old as mankind and therefore have arts within the framework of school history; they are region specific and education may seem pointless. But it does therefore are connected with geography; not stop one from wondering why the arts they are expressions of the complex web are still not considered on a par with the of socio-developmental structures on

*Senior Consultant, (Music), DEAA, NCERT, New Delhi. The Arts as Education 15 which human society functions and are on to the most complex musical patterns therefore integrally linked with rendered in performances. In a backdrop sociological study; they are expressed as colourful as this, it would be of the through sound, word and script, and are essence to understand the intra- and an therefore linguistic manifestations; they inter-disciplinary character of the arts. are mental images, which are given physical expression through a The Arts and their Different Streams psychological process; converting what Performing and visual arts are is concealed within into visible outer expressions of inner reactions to the images through psychological and surrounding environment. Regardless of physiological acts involves scientific whether it is a child’s scribbling or its analysis; drawings are geometrical vocal sounds devoid of meaningful words, impressions; colours are the play of light they are effective articulations of what and shade; and the aesthetics of colour, is veiled within. These at a later stage sound and form give the arts an develop into disciplined arts of enhanced status that actually makes expression, the mediums of which might them unparalleled. If this is not enough be varied. What a child passively imbibes to give the arts the stature they deserve from its surroundings includes a in the academics, what is? diversity of areas that might or might not True, the arts are as complex as the be connected to music, dance, acting, ways of the human being – all painting, various crafts or sculpting. Yet expressions is complex. The development the arts do become the means to express from rock art drawings where “the legacy the content, relationship and inter-play of mankind [that] captures experience of of different subjects. the life phenomena of man”1 to the lines Although all the arts within the of abstraction and representation Indian context might together broadly be stimulating the imagination to think in categorised as performing and non- terms of serpentine lines, circles, curves, performing art forms, or performing and squares, form and non-form, illustrates visual arts, there is in fact a line, nearly the most modern of 20th century art invisible, that separates one from the expression. Think of surrealism,2 which other. What might seem visual in the has traced a significant route from inner form of a painting or other craft has more reality to outer physical manifestation. often than not had a link with It is true, though, that while this is performance. One, does not, after all, evident of the visual arts, it is more hear the lilting recitation of arithmetic difficult to define, say, music and the that the weaver sings to him/herself musicality of the voice. Music and while he/she weaves a motif. The mask musicality are at once oral and aural, does not bring alive the character central formless unless transcribed palpably to a performance as it does in a ritual or even though they are as physical as dance, when it hangs on a wall far breathing. They are a ‘canvas’ that removed from context. What might displays sound-shapes beginning with decorate the walls of a drawing room in the sound of the child’s first cry and going urban settings could very well be 16 Journal of Indian Education August 2007 something steeped in belief, ritual and Manganiar singers create both images philosophy in the rural milieu. Be it the and imagery. Then, in its stillness a par3 which becomes the focal point in the painting moves, speaks, performs and performance of a Rajasthani folk creates imagery. It is a visual, which narrative, or the Puruliya Chau4 mask might change every time one turns to look without which the Puruliya Chhau at it. The peformative element seems, performance is meaningless, the indeed, to exist in everything. In order to performative and the visual are well- recognise this performative element it is knit. These ‘objects of craft’ may not be necessary to develop a discerning eye, a meant to be considered in isolation. But receptive ear and a sensitive mind. To a curious mind might want to inquire understand and appreciate the arts what it is essentially or whence it came. needs preparation. The required It is, of course, beyond doubt that while preparation would no doubt be holistic on the one hand one does recognise the in nature – a preparation most close link between performance and appropriate for the comprehensive visual, the difference between the two is development of the child. sufficiently discernible to consider them independently. Validating the Arts In the performing art forms such as What has been the purpose of these the Siddi Dhamal5 and Teyyam6, performing, non-performing and visual performance and the visual fuse, art forms? Why have they always been a inseparably. There are the classical part of the psyche? What is it that makes performing art forms, where the them so important within the Indian performance itself becomes the visual. social structure? And if they are as The visual is the performance. The important as they do seem, why is one element of ‘visual’ performance is, of so hesitant in accepting them as a part course, more prominent in dances of academics? like Kathakali, Odissi, Kathak, Looking for a ‘purpose’ in the arts is Bharatanatyam, Mohiniattam and like wanting to know what the purpose Manipuri. The visuals that music creates might be in daydreaming. Why should are varied and very different from the one desire to reach the tip of Mount visuals that a dance creates. A singer Everest or why would one want to fly like, for instance, Gangubai Hangal, who beyond the stars? What urges the is a small-built person off stage, would boatman to sing while he rows his boat gain a giant size during performance. and what makes a grandmother want to The visual that the Shehnai maestro, take a child into the fantastic world that late Ustad Bismillah Khan, created in her stories weave? While analysing performance with his entire group of co- daydreams might shatter their non- performers was a powerful picture, being, the arts often make analysis difficult to forget. The performances of necessary. Daydreams could be the kabeerpanthis7, Prahalad Singh described as pleasant, wandering Tippaniya’s troupe, are spell-binding. thoughts that distract one’s attention The colourful turbans of a group of from the present, whereas the arts are The Arts as Education 17 outcomes of social activity. They are playing of musical instruments, dancing, expressions or applications of creative acting, recitation, narration, acrobatic skill and imagination through visual feats along with visual components such mediums such as painting or sculpture, as crafts, attire, weaving, drawing and or through performance such as music painting, make-up, design – these merge and dance, or acting. An art form is a into a single whole. Ironically, down the conventionally established form of years, each integral unit has been, artistic composition, such as an oral or segregated from the other. This written text, which could be presented segregation might have achieved the as a narrative composition depicted small aim of giving these areas an through a pata chitra8 or rendered individual status as solo art forms. But through kathagayaki9, as is done in the it has, in the process, tended to reduce Pandavani10. Thus, the arts are subjects their size and stature. Each of these of study concerned primarily with human areas has a philosophy, sociology, culture. This makes it necessary to history, language, vocabulary and a investigate them “against the cultural idiom, fusing to become an background of physio-geographical integrated whole through rendition or realities, racial strands, agricultural depiction. functions and social organisations which have contributed in giving them a The Cross-curricular Character of distinctive character”11. Parallel the Arts existence of variegated, complex streams There are two ways of looking for a of performing and visual art forms has relationship between the performing arts created multicoloured pictures. If one and the other subjects. One way would views the arts as a creation that has no be to look for the arts and aesthetics in purpose or meaning beyond itself, it areas of other subjects, for investigating becomes what in popular parlance is to what extent the arts have been known as art for art’s sake. Antithetical to this is the view that the arts are a Language blueprint for a better society. They have Economics a purpose beyond being a mere display History of creativity. Each of the arts – irrespective of whether they are performing, non-performing, visual – has Commerce Arts Sociology inherent values. This makes each art a source for education, holistic in nature. Performing and non-performing art Geography forms in India have, down the ages, been Technology coupled with the community’s world Science Environmental view. They have been handed down from Studies one generation to the next, creating an oral tradition of transmitting knowledge. Fig. 1: Looking for the arts in different Within the performing arts, singing, subjects 18 Journal of Indian Education August 2007 integrated in the text. The drawing below their philosophy and world-view, and the shows how it might be possible to do this. social circumstances that designed their Some difficulty might be encountered performance. It might also be of interest since the sciences and humanities, as for the student to understand how a way well as commerce and economics, are of life could become an art form, and how, today highly specialised subjects. How by turning into an art form, it could much space do they really leave for acquire commercial value. This might incorporating the visual and performing explain also to some extent the arts? connection of the arts with economics There is also another way of doing and commerce. this. Would it not be simpler to look for The student may also be interested different subject areas in the performing in discovering how deep-rooted sociology and visual arts? This would need is in community arts. Innumerable forms analysing the arts in a manner such that of expression emerge because of social various fields associated integrally with reasons, because of integration with the the arts are highlighted. This would environment in which a community is enable teacher and student to view an located, and are representational of art form beyond immediate performance. cultures and worldviews unique in For example, the Sidigoma dancers nature. They might be occupational by hail from Africa and are followers of the nature, and at the same time symbolise Sufi mystic Baba Gaur. It should be a way of life that supports their very interesting to trace not only the history existence. For instance, the Tippani of this community but also the dance of Chorwad in the coastal area of geographical route the community took Saurashtra is in fact the consequence to come to India. It should be of of an occupational behaviour pattern. considerable interest to the student to Floors and ceilings of houses in olden analyse the language in which they sing, days were not made of cement but of finely pounded limestone, or chuna. Women pounded it rhythmically with a Language stick to which was attached a disc called tippani, in order to turn the chuna into History fine powder. Songs accompanied the Economics rhythm of the pounding, making the hard work relatively easy. When cement and Commerce Arts Sociology other material replaced this traditional mortar or chuna, what remained of the pounding-work were its movements and Technology accompanying songs. The tippani is Geography now a musical instrument. This dance Environmental form – danced by women – is called Science Studies Tippani Naach. It thus becomes significant to Fig. 2: Looking for other subjects in the arts examine performance holistically, The Arts as Education 19 because within the concept of holistic not involved or related to scholarship. performance are a large number of areas The word co-scholastic indicates an that might be diverse in nature, but are added interest that goes also with other closely linked to each other within as well more ‘meaningful’ subjects. Non- as outside the bounds of the art form. cognitive indicates not being fit enough Separating them from each other would to be acceptable as supporting, or mean removing them from their prime facilitating mental action or process of context. Considered thus, it becomes acquiring knowledge through thought, essential to recognise an art form’s links experience, and the senses. Thus, to tag with other subject-areas such as these adjective on to the arts would be a language, history, geography, sociology, derogatory act. psychology, philosophy, mathematics It would also be necessary to consider and the sciences. This would, in turn, the difference in concepts such as ‘arts take these closer to the performing arts, in education’, ‘arts and education’ and without their being considered in the ‘art as education’. One would have also curriculum as extra-curricular, non- to go beyond using the arts as simply a scholastic, co-scholastic or non- tool for education. While using the arts cognitive. While an extra-curricular as an educational tool might be activity could be likened to a hobby, productive in conveying a lesson to the which can be pursued in addition to the student, care needs to be taken to normal curriculum, the word non- prevent the arts from becoming merely a scholastic implies that which does not tool. Art as instrument would have to be help academic achievement and does not used with adequate precaution, so that support learning of any high level. It is it is not damaged in the process.

ENDNOTES

1. LORBLANCHET, MICHEL (ed.). 1988. Rock art in the Old World. Papers presented in Symposium A of the AURA Congress, Darwin (Australia). Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, New Delhi 1992, p. iii. 2. STITES, RAYMOND S. 1940. The Arts and Man. McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc. New York. p. 154 3. http://kalarte.com/india/ra-c/ra-ctext.html Kalarte Gallery: India Par (paintings on cloth) from Rajasthan The Rajasthani par (sometimes spelled phad) is a painting on cloth that is a visual accompaniment to a ceremony involving the singing and recitation of the deeds of folk hero-deities in Rajasthan. Pabuji ki Pars depict exploits from the life of the folk hero Pabuji Rathor. The legends are painted on long rectangular cloths that may be 35 feet long by 5 feet wide. The bard-priest known as bhopa recites incidents describing the exploits of Pabuji from the epic and is assisted by his wife and son or another person who points to the scenes on the par about which he is singing. 4. http://www.accu.or.jp/ich/en/arts/A_IND7.html AsiaPacific Database on Intangible Cultural Heritage Purulia Chhau is a vibrant and powerful folk dance form with an inclination towards theatre. The use of mask in the dance makes 20 Journal of Indian Education August 2007

it more attractive for the audience. The use of masks in this form of Chhau, remains to be its focal point even today. The making of these masks is an independent art altogether. It needs a gifted artist to visualise the mask and then give shape to it. 5. The Siddhis are a unique community settled along the coast of Gujarat in Bharuch, Bhavnagar, Junagarh and Surat. Descendants of migrants who were brought here in the 12th century from Africa, the Siddhi still retain their native sense of rhythm and fluid grace. Dressed in grass skirts and adorned with peacock feathers, they perform the Dhamal on the eve of the urs of their prophet Baba Gaur. As the dance gains tempo the dancers perform various feats of skill. The climax of the performance culminates in the Siddhis tossing coconuts in air only to break them on their heads. They even walk on fire. 6. Teyyam is a ritualistic dance in Kerala With its rare and fantastic make-up and costume, lively foot work, gymnastic fervour and ritualistic vitality it represents the folk life of Kerala. 7 Followers of Kabeer, who sing his verses. 8. http://orissagov.nic.in/e-magazine/Orissareview/nov2004/englishPdf/ raghurajpur-craftvillage.pdf. The patachitra as the folk painting of Orissa is called has a history of great antiquity. Raghurajpur, a small village in the Puri district, is known for its patachitra artists and has therefore made a unique place for itself on the cultural map of India. They exhibit the use of strong lines and striking colours on pieces of treated cloth, dried palm leaves or paper painted by the chitrakaras. The paintings depict themes of Indian mythology. 9. This is the art of singing out a narrative giving, it a balladic structure. It is the recital of a mythological story or a folk tale. 10. http://indiaheritage.org/perform/folk_pandavani.htm Pandavani is the form of story-telling belonging to Chhatisgarh, which serves as a means of both entertaining and educating the people. It narrates the story of the five Pandava brothers (protagonists of the epic Mahabharata). A team of Pandavani performers consists of one main narrator-singer and one or two musician-cum-singers, who play on the tabla and the harmonium. The main narrator-singer holds a tambura (stringed musical instrument), decorated with small bells and peacock feathers in one hand and kartal (a pair of cymbals) on the other. 11. Vatsyayan, Kapila Traditions of Indian Folk Dance Indian Book Company, New Delhi, 1976 (pg. 9). Constructivism and the Pedagogy of Education for Peace 21

Constructivism and the Pedagogy of Education for Peace A Reflection on School Education Curriculum Reform (NCF–2005)

SAROJ P ANDEY* Abstract

This paper has been developed against the backdrop of National Curriculum Framework – 2005, which envisages major paradigm shift from behaviourist approach to learning to constructivist approach that lays stress on the personal experiences of learner in the process of knowledge construction. The role of teacher in this approach has shifted from the transmitter of knowledge to facilitator of knowledge. The NCF – 2005 also emphasises on education for peace, not as a part of value education as traditionally been integrated in schools, but, as an independent value in itself. The paper highlights the implication of this paradigm shift in the approach towards learning for promoting the culture of peace as, both, the constructivist approach and peace education are associated with the humanistic philosophy which is dedicated to developing more mature and self-directed learner – a pre-requisite for living together. To develop a culture of peace, the pedagogy of education needs to be broad, diverse and oriented towards lifelong learning. Active listening, problem-solving, and conflict resolution skills help in inculcating feeling of living together, which are also basic to the constructivist way to learning. Therefore, the epistimological shift suggested in the NCF – 2005 provides greater opportunity to promote the culture of peace than ever before.

Peace has been one of the most desired and a better quality of life. A strong need necessities of human life since time is being felt by educationists, immemorial. Since the advent of philosophers, scientists and political organised society human beings have leaders to rejuvenate the human values, strived for it, and are even more united which may bring long lasting peace on today in their quest for peace, harmony this planet. The insistence of Delor’s

*Reader, DTEEE, NCERT. New Delhi. 22 Journal of Indian Education August 2007 report (1996) on Learning to live together addresses structural violence, human as the central pillar of education is the rights and economic inequality (Garcia, indication that education must be geared 1984; Rivera, 1978) and in the United to promote a culture of peace, tolerance, States, it is often concerned with democratic values, human rights and prejudice, violence and environmental duties among students. The National issues (Harris, 1996, Stomfay-Satitz, Curriculum Framework – 2005, strongly 1993). advocates education for peace at all In India education for peace levels of schools. programmes have traditionally been Peace, however is an elusive concept concerned with promoting certain core having different interpretations in values. Mahatma Gandhi envisaged a different cultures as well as different non-violent society, which would be free connotations for the spheres in which from exploitation of any kind, and can peaceful processes are applied. It ranges be achieved through the instrument of from inner pace to outer peace. education. In Gandhian concept of peace- Consequently, the interpretation of truth, non-violence, self-suffering and peace ranges from absence of war, and means and end relationships are society without structural violence to important. The educational policies of the liberation from exploitation and injustice country lay stress on combative role of of any kind, ecological balance and education in eliminating obscurantism, conservation and peace of mind, etc. religious fanaticism, violence, Education for pace therefore includes a superstition and fatalism, and variety of issues like human rights promote some core values such as education, environmental education, India’s common cultural heritage, international education, conflict egalitarianism, democracy, secularism, resolution education and development equality of sexes, observance of small education, etc. family norms and inculcation of scientific A review of programmes on education temper, etc. Peace and living together for peace in different countries indicates have been integral part of Indian way of that they differ considerably in terms of living and manifested in its Constitution ideology, objectives, emphasis, curricula, through various articles. It firmly believes content and practices, etc. for instance, that inculcation of certain values among in Australia, education for peace focuses younger generation would help them to on challenging ethnocentrism, cultural exist in the dynamic socio-cultural fabric chauvinism and violence and promoting with peace, harmony and prosperity. cultural diversity, nuclear disarmament, This is the reason why all commissions and conflict resolution (Burns, 1985, and committees on education in India, Lawson and Hutchinson, 1992). While like, the Radha Krishnan Commission in Japan it targets issues of nuclear (1948-49), Mudaliar Commission disarmament, militarism and the nature (1952-53), Sri Prakash Commission of responsibility for acts of violence (1959), Kothari Commission (1964-66), performed in the past (Murakami, 1992). Sampurnanad Commission (1961), In South America, education for peace Rammurti Committee (1992) and Chavan Constructivism and the Pedagogy of Education for Peace 23

Committtee (1999), etc. make important the five core values that were promoted recommendations for incorporation of through education value education at all levels of education. Consequently, the National Curriculum The Constructivist pedagogy and Frameworks of 1975, 1988 and 2000 had NCF – 2005 adopted a value-oriented approach to Besides the thrust on education for integration of peace concerns in peace instead of value education, the education. NCF (2005) can also be distinguished A major shift in this approach is from earlier frameworks in the witnessed in the National Curriculum epistemological approach adopted for Framework – 2005, which considers that education of learners. The earlier value education is subsumed in Education behaviourist approach to learning has for pace, but is not identical with it. The been replaced by the thrust on National Focus Group on Peace constructivist based learning. The Education constituted in the context of constructivist epistemology is based on NCF–2005 in its Position Paper on the premise that learning does not Education for Peace says, “Peace is a involve discovering the reality, but contextually appropriate and peda- constructing the reality. gogically gainful point of coherence for According to the constructivist values. Peace concretises the purpose of theory, knowledge is being actively values and motivates their internalisation. constructed by the individual and Without such a framework, the integration learning is an adoptive process based on of values into the learning process remains the experiences of individual (Mayer, a non-starter. Education for peace is, thus, 1992: Hendry, 1996, 1996). Therefore, the ideal strategy for contextualsing and learning is not mere absorption of operationalsing value education” (p.1). knowledge and learner is no longer While accepting the traditional approach controlled respondent to stimuli as in the of integration of various peace related behaviourist approach (Jonassen, 1999: values and concern in school curricula, Perkins, 1991a) but is considered as it further adds, that, education for peace ‘already a scientist’ (Solomon, 1994, must be a concern that permeates the p. 16) who actively constructs learning entire school life – curriculum, co- while trying to make sense of the world curriculum, classroom environment, through his own experiences, goals, school management, teacher pupil curiosities and beliefs. Knowledge relationship, teaching-learning according to constructivist epistemology processes, and the entire range of school cannot be transferred intact from one activities. Clearly the NCF – 2005 is more individual to another and therefore, vocal and direct towards the need of learning and teaching cannot be promoting peace through education than synonymous: we can teach, even well, the earlier curriculum reform attempts without having students learning. What where the concept of peace was can be the better example of it than the subsumed in value education and present school system in the country therefore peace was considered one of where in spite of all teaching-learning at 24 Journal of Indian Education August 2007 schools the learning outcomes of the school knowledge to real life students both at the cognitive and experiences and adapt to the needs of psycho-emotional levels are cause of various demanding situations. concern? The mushrooming growth of A basic premise of constructivism is coaching centres, rising number of that individuals live in their own world failure in examinations and alarming of personal and subjective experiences levels of stress among students and built new knowledge on the basis of manifested in the form of suicide, their previous experiences, rather than violence against others, and other new knowledge being imposed from disruptive activities are indication of the outside. The role of teacher, therefore, inability of our education system to relate undergoes a major transformation from

TABLE 1 Changing Epistemology of Learning

Learning Traditional (Behaviourist) Constructivist Learning is a change in Learning is a process of behaviour brought out subjective construction of through selective reinforce- knowledge based on ment of response. It is a personal experience of product and external entity. learner. Knowledge Passed on, transmitted, Reciprocally developed co- reproducible, and linear. constructed, builds on prior- knowledge, spiral.

Pedagogy Teacher centred ● Learner centred coopera- ● Evaluation & assessment tive and experiential of set knowledge ● Doing, stating, theorising ● Practising, listening, ● Range of possible reproducing responses ● All students do the same ● Tasks vary among tasks students

Motivation ● Extrinsic, grade focus ● Intrinsic, Learning focus

Teacher ● Imparter of knowledge ● Facilitator, guide ● Asks questions ● Raises questions ● Explains concepts ● Facilitates students ● Superior to learners theorising ● A learner among learners

Learners ● are objects that learn ● Co-inquires ● Passive listeners ● Active partners in learning ● Rarely ask questions ● Raise questions beyond seeking clarification of instructions Constructivism and the Pedagogy of Education for Peace 25 the imparter of knowledge to facilitator objectives emerge and are realised of conditions, which will help learner in through learner’s search for authentic the process of knowledge construction. tasks via critical thinking, reflection, and This changing concept of knowledge, problem-solving approach. Therefore, learner, and teacher has been presented the teacher must confront students with in Table 1. information and experiences that Clearly a major shift can be seen in challenge their misconceptions and offer the concept of learner from constructivist opportunities for this reflective process perspective. She/he is not a passive and augment their metacognitive recipient of information rather she/he capabilities. In such a situation learners can manipulate, interpret and make are more likely to view the problem with sense of her/his environment using a greater sense of ownership. According experiences. In this way she/he can to Cey (2001), authentic learning occurs construct an understanding to help her/ when instruction is designed to facilitate, him achieve her/his goals (Duffy and stimulate, and recreate real life Kirkley 2004) The constructivist based complexities and occurrences. The pedagogical models include collaborative guiding principles of constructivism are: learning techniques, discussion forums, ● Posing problems of emerging and jurisprudential models to clarify relevance to students. concepts and facilitate learning. ● Structuring learning around According to the constructivist primary concepts. approach, the instruction centres on the ● Seeking and valuing students’ experiences of learners. Meaningful points of view. understanding occurs when students ● Adapting curriculum to address develop effective ways to resolve students’ suppositions. problems; therefore, instructional ● Assessing learning in the context of contents cannot be specified. The teaching. constructivist teacher, therefore, cannot be effective by just following the teaching This process, therefore, is very method that relies heavily on breaking effective in negotiating conflicts and content into smaller components of finding solutions acceptable to the observable and achievable behaviours, conflicting parties. which are measurable immediately after The NCF – 2005 provides wide scope the instruction. Instead, the for utilisation of the personal experiences constructivist teacher assumes that of learners in day-to-day school every learner has a unique perspective, activities. Expressing concern over lack so the notion of the ‘average’ learner is of opportunities for students in the rejected (Bednar et al, 1992). It provides present system to share their personal a major shift from all learners learning experiences, the NCF (2005) strongly the same things’ to ‘different learners recommends “the curriculum must enable learning different things’. Pre-specified children to find their voices, nurture their content and objectives are not congruent curiosity to do things, to ask question and with the constructivist view, instead, the to pursue investigations, sharing and 26 Journal of Indian Education August 2007 integrating their experiences with school issue. Conscious efforts are made by the knowledge rather than their ability to teacher under constructivist approach reproduce external knowledge (p.13)”. It to cultivate non-threatening learning motivates schools to “provide environment (Watt and Bentley, 1987) opportunities to students to question, that facilitates students’ knowledge enquire, debate, reflect and arrive at construction process. Teachers in this concepts to create new ideas (p.18)”. situation are required to display respect These are the important steps of value and care for students’ learning and clarification and conflict resolution students knowledge construction process process also, which help in removing is facilitated by encouraging them to apprehensions, mistrust and doubts discuss, explain and evaluate their ideas about others and encourages living and procedures. The NCF – 2005 provides together. Active listening, critical opportunities for such learning thinking, problem-solving and conflict experiences to learners – right from the resolution are the skills emphasised in pre-primary stage to higher secondary the context of education for peace, which stage. It lays stress on problem-solving, are also the thrust of constructivist way dramatisation and role-play, etc, which of learning and promoted in NCF – 2005. remain under explored strategies of It strongly feels that “schools must be teaching in the present system. It marked by the values of equality, social recommends “in order making the process justice and respect for diversity, as well of learning participative, there is a need to as of the dignity and rights of children” shift from mere imparting of information to (p.81). debate and discussion. This approach to Expressing concern over the neglect learning will keep both the learner and the of child’s local context in the present teacher alive to social realities” (p. 54). school practices the NCF (2005) recommends “we emphasise the Triangular Relationship between significance of conceptualising education NCF – 2005, Constructivism and or situating learning in the child’s world, Pedagogy of Peace Education and of making the boundary between the Education for peace is fundamentally school and its natural and social dynamic, interdisciplinary, and environment porous. This is not only multicultural in nature and aims at because the local environment and child’s developing knowledge, skills and own experiences are the best entry points attitudes needed to achieve and sustain into the study of disciplines of knowledge, global culture of peace. Promoting the but more so because the aim of knowledge culture of peace calls for developing is to connect with the world” (p.30). skills among learners for active listening, A central strategy for constructivism problem-solving, and conflict resolution. is the creation and encouragement of These skills need to be developed early collaborative learning environment, in learners and nurtured continuously. which provides opportunities to learner The personal experiences of learners, to develop, share, compare and therefore, have to be honoured and understand multiple perspectives of an treated as a base for dialogue and new Constructivism and the Pedagogy of Education for Peace 27 learning. It is essential to note at this encouraged through effective point, that, when we talk about peace we communication, problem-solving, and expect at least three basic conditions – negotiating behaviour. All these communication, cooperation, and pedagogies help in knowledge confidence – the process of making these construction; development of deeper three conditions work is peace building. understanding and insight into the Therefore, peace is like the bridge that problem and have been emphasised in facilitates the process of communication NCF. Education for peace represents a and helps in developing closer humanising process whereby individuals relationship between people. Education overcome their violent instincts. It for peace does not teach students what teaches respect for life and living to think, but rather how to think together, it helps to develop among critically. In the process, its holistic and students a positive self-image, sense of participatory approach draws more from dignity and self worth, sense of the constructivist than traditional responsibility for self and others, and a curriculum designs. It aims not to capacity to trust others. reproduce but to transform, and is a The learning process in education for continuous process dedicated to the peace is understood primarily as enormous task of improving the spiritual, experiential and activity-based rather as well as material quality of life of than by rote memorisation or by people. Both constructivism and Peace repetitive conditioning. We shall be very education are associated with the clear in our minds that we cannot humanistic philosophy, which is indoctrinate peace. The learning models dedicated to developing more mature and for peace are logically built on the self-directed learner who is conscious of assumption of human nature, i.e. his/her rights as well as the rights of learners are sentient beings that actively others and his/her duty towards others, participate in the learning experience; and emphasises lifelong learning. The they also learn through reflecting cases, promotion of culture of peace calls for a reading and examples (J.Synott, 2005). transformation of motivational To put it precisely they learn, both by, orientations of students from competition practical engagement and interaction, as and conflict to cooperation and mutual well as also, by processes of reflection understanding (Unfortunately the whole and abstraction. Clearly the existing ethos of our existing educational teaching-learning strategies followed in institutions is more geared towards our schools which reduce learners to competition which encourages a win lose passive listeners and emphasise rote orientation to conflict and a strong memorisation do not fit into the pedagogy motivation to win which fuels conflict). of peace education, instead, In such cooperative orientation, the constructivism where there is strong sense of interdependent communality of emphasis on behavioural skills, such as, interest, mutual understanding, conflict resolution (Carter, 2000; tolerance, cooperative conflict Chetkon- Yanoov,2003 ), dialogue (Freier management and resolution are and Sharl,1987) and participatory 28 Journal of Indian Education August 2007 processes that are central to learning to design curricula to give greater experiences, is more appropriate for ownership to learners in their process of promoting peace. The National learning. Curriculum Framework – 2005 promises Clearly a triangular relationship can ideal situation for practising these be established between constructivism; pedagogies which are directed towards education for peace and NCF – 2005. developing an independent, mature and With emphasis on learner centreed, reflective learner by providing learner directed, collaborative, opportunities to learners to question, supported with teacher scaffolding and debate, reflect, and arrive at concepts or authentic tasks it provides suitable create new ideas. The guiding principles opportunity to promote culture of peace for curriculum development of NCF are: and tolerance amongst students than ever before. Though promoting peace ● Connecting knowledge to life outside is very complex and difficult task, schools; especially, in the present local and global ● Ensuring that learning is shifted scenario where violation of human away from rote methods; rights, violence, intolerance, and ● Enriching the curriculum to provide fundamentalism is increasing day-by- for overall development of children day and has become an order of the day, rather than remain textbook nevertheless it does not discourage the centric; efforts to enable learners to process ● Making examination more flexible various information rationally and act as and integrated with classroom life; responsible citizens of the State than being and nurturing an overriding carried away by emotions and narrow identity informed by caring caste, class, regional, and religious concerns within the democratic orientations. National Curriculum polity of the country. Framework – 2005 expects developing These principles provide ample scope such mature learners through and opportunity for schools and teachers constructivist learning strategies.

REFERENCES

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CHETKOW-YANOOV, B. 2003. Conflict Resolution skill can be taught. In W.Wintersteiner, V. Spajic-Vrkas and R.Teustch (Ed.). Peace Education in Europe: Visions and Experiences. Waxman, New York. p. 84-103. CEY, T. 2001. Moving towards constructivist classroom. http://www.usask.ca/ education/coursework/802papers/ceyt/ceyt.htm. FREIER, P. and I. SHOR. 1987. A Pedagogy of liberation. Macmillian Education, London. GARCIA, C. 1984. Latin America traditions and perspectives. International Review of Education. 29(3). 38-48. HARRIS. I.M. 1996. From world peace to peace in the hood. Journal for the Just and Caring Education, 2. 378-398. HENDRY, G.D. 1996. Constructivism and educational practice. Australian Journal of Education, 40(1). 19-45. JONASSEN, D.H. 1992. Evaluating constructivist learning. In T. Duffy and D. Jonassen (Eds.). Constructivism and the Technology of Instruction: A Conservation. Lawrence Erlbaum, Hillsdale, N.J. 137-148. LAWSON,M and F. HUTCHINSON.1992. Peace education in Australia: The legacy of the 1980s. Peace Environment and Education, 3 (1). 22-32. MURAKAM, T. 1992. Peace education in Britain and Japan. Office of Sociology of Education, University of Education, Kyoto. MAYER, R.E. 1992. Cognition and instruction; Their historic meeting within educational psychology. Journal of Educational Psychology, 84. 405-412. PERKINS, D.N. 1991a. Technology meets constructivism: Do they make a marriage? Educational Technology, 31(5). 19-23. RIVERA, D. 1978. A brief approach to the violence of knowledge. International Peace Research Newsletter, 16 (3). 38-48. STOMFAY-STITZ, A. 1993. Peace Education in America, 1828-1990. Scarecrow, Mutechen, N.J. SOLOMAN, J. 1994. The rise and fall of constructivism. Studies in Science Education, 23, 1-19. National Council of Educational Research and Training. 2005. National Curriculum Framework. NCERT, New Delhi. SYNOTT, J. 2005. Peace Education as an educational paradigm: review of changing field using an old measure. Journal of Peace Education, 2(1). 3-16. WATTS, M. and D. BENTLEY. 1987. Constructivism in the classroom: Enabling conceptual change by words and deeds. British Journal of Educational Research,13, p 1-19. 30 Journal of Indian Education August 2007

Religion, Education and Peace*

RADHIKA HERZERGER** Abstract

Religion today has become an easy outlet through which people vent their hatred and thus become a source of violence ironically against its very essence of universal love and peace. Since hatred and violence are rooted in greed, turn up in the most insidious forms within the individual self, education has an important role in inculcating the values of peace among the students while unlearning greed and aggression. The presentation espouses the educational philosophy of Jiddu Krishnamurti’s and the Rishi Valley School, a project guided by his philosophy to promote the culture of peace. In the wake of the growing problems brought with the assertion of renewed identities founded on religion and also the various problems resulting from human negligence, for example, the degrading eco-system, etc. Krishnamurti’s vision could be translated into reality of today.

The world’s religions unanimously talk explicit curriculum of study. It is an about peace, but when religion becomes educator’s primary responsibility to a source of violence the people must take reconstitute schools in such a way that stock of the situation and seize the peace becomes an overriding presence responsibility for re-examining its ideals within its premises. Indeed if peace is to of peace, especially in a country such as accompany schooling there has to be India, the majority of whose population interdependence between the ideals of is religious. Equally important is the peace and the reality of violence, the gaps obligation to examine these ideals that divide them cancelled out. At this conjointly with the actual, on the ground difficult moment in human history, the violence. Of greatest importance is the burden of carrying out this programme need to embed the continually renewed falls on the state, which designs ideal of peace into different aspects of educational policy; on administrators, education, into both the implicit and who wield direct authority on the ground;

* This is a written text of a lecture delivered by Ms Radhika Herzberger on First Zakir Husain Lecture at RIE Mysore on 19 January 2007. It has been published by the NCERT in the form of a booklet. ** Director, Rishi Valley Education Centre, Madanapalle, Chittoor District, Andhra Pradesh. Religion, Education and Peace 31 on teachers, who exercise authority and Valley School where I have worked for on students, who stand at the bottom of almost twenty-five years. In the course this heavy superstructure. of this presentation I will focus on the The need for continually re- issues of war and peace in the context of examining the notion of peace is education. The aim of education at this particularly crucial to the enterprise of point in human history, as I see it, is to education today because the survival of establish a culture of peace in schools. civilisation depends on good education. For me peace means more than the Current scientific research predicts absence of overt violence; I look upon it cataclysmic events following global as a living presence that demands warming – rising sea levels will gradually change and renewal of the human spirit. inundate coastal cities, wipe out island The view that the education of the states, displace millions of people. Social young is filtered through culture scientists tell us that violent conflicts are dominates current thinking in inevitable in such a scenario. Which education. Robin Alexander puts it this country will provide refuge to the way – Maldives population if their island home … drawing on the insights initiated by drowns? Vygotsky and Bruner and consolidated by The full impact of failing natural later cognitive and cultural psychologists, ecosystems will be felt by the generations we have replaced the view of the that we educate today; it is therefore only developing child as a ‘lone scientist’, who right that we take measures to avert this learns by interacting with materials ... by grim future with intelligence. Human one of learning as necessarily as a social beings are products of culture as well as process, In this, significant others – nature. To avert tragedy and to live in parents, teachers, peers provide the peace with each other and with nature, mediation or intervention which scaffolds humanity will have to discover a new and takes forward the child’s balance within itself. The present understanding’ (Alexander 2006 p.15). generation of educators needs to Jerome Bruner further maintains cultivate a long vision, and to create a that educators emphasise the central culture that supports nature instead of role for ‘narrative’, by which he means further ravaging it. stories, songs, drama, fiction that give Other questions relevant to this line cohesion to a culture, and which help of thinking about peace help enlarge the individual students ‘find an identity framework for examining the concept. Are within that culture’. ‘Knowledge,’ he war and peace opposites, and is peace says, ‘is not simply thinking and the merely the absence of conflict? Since result of intellectual activity and violence, with roots in greed, turns up in experience, it is the ‘internalising of tools the most insidious forms, globally, locally, that are used within the child’s culture systemically, and within the individual (Bruner, 1996). self, where does one begin to address the ‘How one conceives of education, we issue of peace? These are questions I have finally come to recognise, is a have inherited from the founder of Rishi function of how one conceives of the 32 Journal of Indian Education August 2007 culture and its aims, professed and India, with its myriad groups otherwise’ (Bruner 1996: ix-x). competing to assert their separate Bruner’s separating out of what a identities, defies an educator’s culture professes and what it allows in intellectual compass; and so the present practice creates spaces for questions, top down formalistic approach that offers analysis as well as the liberty to shape abstractions in the form of national culture. Given the environmental crisis, heroes and modern development education will have to create structures successes in competitive contexts that that undo present attitudes to nature reward aggression. The official line that and create a culture that recognises and India stands for ‘unity in diversity’ may honours human dependence on sound be a truth waiting to be born, if we educate ecological systems. The future of our children to stand together in solidarity humanity depends on teaching coming for purposes that serve universal generations to listen and learn from interests while preserving differences. nature, on models of growth that are Human societies can come together ecologically sound, on repairing the to solve global problems of species damage done by their forefathers to depletion, soil erosion, air and water natural systems. In short, educators pollution, and rebuild their relationship need to acknowledge that a radical to nature, if knowledge is united with change is necessary and that attitudes values aimed at restoring ecosystems will have to change, cultures liberated back to health and the task of education from the violence they implicitly contain. then is not only to design curricula that It is certain that with the onset of are Earth centred but also to teach modernity, particular sub-cultures have students how to unlearn habits and to accommodate tenets and norms worldviews born of greed and aggression. beyond those that are an organic part of My plan is to investigate these their own history. Universal principles, connected issues in two parts – I will first such as, respect for nature, equal rights describe an educational project in the for men and women are examples of these interior of south India, guided by the principles that culture groups are obliged philosophy of Jiddu Krishnamurti. The to uphold. The pertinent questions in attempt here will be to illustrate the this context remain: whose stories, manner in which one school has whose songs and theatre shall we, in a promoted a culture of peace by applying complex culture like India’s, teach? And the philosophy of its founder to address what are the cultural practices and the complex issues of poverty and values that need to be unlearned? And ecological degradation that face the local how is this unlearning to be effected? population. The second section will Given the vast religious, class and caste contain an exposition of Krishnamurti’s divides in this country, how we in India educational philosophy. I will present him understand the word ‘culture’ is neither as a deep ecologist who explored the easily described and nor universally nature of intelligence and human acknowledged. interactions based on this intelligence. Religion, Education and Peace 33

The unusual procedure of placing process of modernisation was inevitable, practice before theory flows from features he denied on the other that in Krishnamurti’s discourse that escape permissiveness, nihilism and extreme systematic analysis. Krishnamurti did forms of relativism were certain to follow not present his point of view in a clear in its wake. Krishnamurti sought to expository manner. He had doubts about embed his vision of a ‘good human being’ philosophy’s speculative programmes. in the practice of education. He was an iconoclastic thinker who Rishi Valley School was established fashioned a discourse of his own, the by a philosopher of Indian origin who was chief purpose of which was to challenge educated with some pomp and ceremony both the intellectual and emotional pre- by Annie Besant and her international suppositions of his audiences. In Kafka’s group of Theosophists in Europe. moving words, his books and talks served Intended for the great universities of as ‘an ice-axe to break the seas frozen Europe, Oxford, Cambridge, or Sorbonne, inside our soul.’ For him, theory and Krishnamurti’s academic record was practice were interdependent, meant to dotted with failures. By the time he left support each other: peace was a living Europe for America in 1922 he had spiritual presence, which had its own forgotten his native Telugu. In 1922, action. One might, following having abandoned his scholastic career, Abhinavagupta’s commentary on the he crossed the Atlantic and arrived at Dhvanyaloka, describe Krishnamurti’s the Western coast of the American understanding peace as an aesthetic subcontinent, in Berkeley. He was flavour (santarasa) that hangs over dazzled by the place, by its sheer beauty places where all life is welcomed, and as well as the sense of equality he whose inhabitants abjure violence, and perceived in the academic community. seek to live a life of dedicated to doing It seemed to him that the New World had the right thing. created a people who transcended all The role of culture in building identity ‘odious distinctions’ of class, race, and took several of our modern religious gender, so endemic in the Old World. The thinkers into the past. Unlike Swami young man’s thoughts travelling to India, Vivekananda and Sri Aurobindo, who he wrote, ‘Oh! For such a University of attempted to create an Indian California to be transplanted to India’. If renaissance through spiritual revival of his native country had something to give Hinduism, Krishnamurti distanced to such a place of learning, it lay in the himself entirely from the nationalistic gift of being able to ‘create the proper spirit they had espoused and from the religio-scholastic atmosphere.’ traditional vocabulary they used. Not long afterwards this visit to Instead, in an entirely new departure for California, the search for a place to locate a religious thinker, he embraced his educational institution led modernity — its sceptical spirit, its Krishnamurti to south India, to the little emphasis on everyday life, and its focus town of Madanapalle where he was born. on the individual as opposed to the Twenty-five kilometres from there, in a group. Holding on the one hand that the small valley carved out from the 34 Journal of Indian Education August 2007 scattered hills, on the edge of the Mysore herdsmen, descendants of the same Plateau, he located the landscape where people, but also by rattling lorries and he hoped to lay the foundations of the buses. A part of this road is paved. There ‘religio-scholastic atmosphere’ he had is a small row of peepal trees on either not found in California. The place was side of the road, but the virgin forests on dry scrubland prone to drought, even the hills are slowly disappearing; during famine, inhabited by stonecutters, the summer months goatherds trim shepherds and cattle farmers. these trees for their flock; local women Sacred shrines built by these ancient have to walk long distances for fuel. people stood scattered all over the valley. There are many bore wells belonging to Under the shade of neem trees, four thin the school and the more prosperous slabs of stone not more than a foot high landowners. The school and its urban are arranged to form a rectangular space population now dominate the valley. The that encloses mother goddess stones; the Valley telescopes time, modernity mingles goddess is propitiated with blood with many layers of tradition. As we shall sacrifice of cocks and, during prolonged see it represents in miniature the droughts, with goats. layering of cultures, which is a hallmark The goddess Gangamma has a larger of social development in the past. whitewashed temple. The majestic neem D. D. Kosambi, that doyen of Indian tree under which it stood was destroyed historians, more than fifty years ago by a storm a few years ago and replaced observed that the telescoping of time, in by a Durga seated on a lion. Her step- other words, the contemporaneous well, so beautifully lined with dressed existence of many stages of human stones, remains dry throughout the year. development from the past is a general A classical temple to Krishna situated but unique feature of India’s history. in the only traditional village Thettu gives According to Kosambi, India is a country the valley a hint of classical antiquity. It of “long survivals”: ‘People of the atomic was not the temple, however, that drew age rub elbows with those of the Krishnamurti to Thettu Valley, but a chalcolithic,’ he observed as he travelled three-hundred-year-old Banyan tree, on the Deccan Queen in the early fifties which dominated the stark scene and the from his home in Pune to the Tata wooded hills that stood like sentinels at Institute of Fundamental Research in the western end of the valley. The Bombay, (now Mumbai) and went on to disjunction between the primeval Thettu prove that the ancient Buddhist caves landscape from the urban vitality of a along the Western Ghats followed the great university in the New World could migratory patterns set out by older not have been more complete. generations of Neolithic tribesmen. In the 70 years, since the land was The school established in 1931, acquired for the school, the landscape consisted of English-speaking, fee- has changed. The track that encircles paying students from India’s successful the valley, where shepherds drove their middle classes. Gordon Pierce, the flock of sheep and goat to distant forests, principal of Rishi Valley and founder of is now broader. It is still used by the Public School Movement in India, Religion, Education and Peace 35 enlisted Rishi Valley into the elitist body Guha, 1995). The classification of India’s in the Fifties. Yet, from the very beginning population into omnivores, ecological the Rishi Valley landscape lacked some systems people and ecological refugees fundamental qualifications of Indian is based on the comparative residential public schools. It is not consumption patterns and access to located in the temperate zone, in hill resources of the urban and rural elite stations made fashionable during the and the urban and rural poor. Nearly four colonial period. Though standing at an fifths of the population of India are poor, altitude of 2500 feet, it was an area in either ecological people, dependent on Rayalseema, where drought turned the nature’s dwindling resources or surroundings brown, the bald granite ecological refugees forced out of their own rocks radiated the sun’s heat, and locality by the encroaching industrial villagers walked with their cows through civilisation. The majority of our fee-paying the school campus. India’s colonial past students and some of our teachers and was nowhere present in the landscape administrators belonged to Gadgil and Krishnamurti chose. And yet the Guha’s first category of omnivores. students who attended his school were The results of the urban-rural divide products of several generations that had are best described in a recently published benefited from the colonial presence. work by Guha — The consequences of educating India is in many ways an economic students in an ivory tower oblivious to disaster zone; marked by high rate of the world’s suffering remained with deforestation, species loss, land Krishnamurti as the school’s population degradation, and air and water pollution. in due course increased to roughly five The consequences of this abuse have hundred inhabitants, students born and been chiefly borne by the poor in the bred in the urban centres of India and countryside – peasants, tribals, well-educated teachers from some of the fisherfolk, and pastoralists who have best institutions in the country. seen their resources snatched away or Krishnamurti’s talks to students were depleted by powerful economic interests filled with sharp portraits of village life (Guha, 2006, p. 232). meant to challenge students. ‘Have you Narpat Jodha’s research in several ever’, he asked them, ‘observed the poor dryland districts of the country adds people, the peasants, the villagers, and another frame of reference to our view of done something kind—done it surrounding village life. On the basis of spontaneously, naturally, out of your comparative study of villages with vital own heart, without waiting to be told common property holdings, he concludes what to do?’ (LA, p. 29). that these shared resources support If we were to educate students between 15-25 per cent of income of the without regard to the poverty in the poorer farmers and shepherds in dry Valley we were in danger of falling under region. He makes out a strong case for the category of omnivores, as defined by governments to replenish Common the ecological historians Madhav Gadgil Property Resources in the countryside, and Ramachandra Guha (Gadgil and as they provide both food security and 36 Journal of Indian Education August 2007 additional employment. In a joint paper The realisation that the direction with Anupam Bhatia, the authors mourn Krishnamurti was setting for his school the systematic depletion of the commons went against the spirit of the present age, ‘closely associated with the depletion of against parents’ urge to get the best for social capital, i.e. the community spirit their children, against India’s aspirations and actions reflecting reciprocity, trust, to become a global player was all shared values, net working and group pervasive. The following quotation from action’ (Jodha and Bhatia, 1998). a very recent articulation of this trend, The above writers place our location by a blue ribbon education commission a certain perspective that we had to set up to re-think American education address if education is to stand for the reflects the educational policies in values of peace with justice. several countries, including our own. Krishnamurti, who did not by principle ‘There is this growing mismatch,’ the create a blueprint for any of his schools, report says ‘between the demands of the leaving the implementation of his visions economy and what our schools are to the school’s location and to the talents supplying.’ of the people running it, concentrated his If we continue on our current course, thought on the moral dimensions related the number of nations outpacing us in the to schooling. In typically metaphorical education race continues to grow at its and fashion he warned those in charge of the current rate, the American standard of school against the tendency of an living will steadily fall relative to those isolated educational institution nations, rich and poor, that are doing a becoming self-enclosed. ‘Don’t be a better job (The New York Times, December community,’ he admonished, ‘There is 15, 2006). something aggressive and self-centred The pervasive anxiety driving reform about them. Instead keep your doors was described earlier this year by the open.’ A community has to define itself; columnist Thomas Friedman: self-definitions set up boundaries Computers, fibber-optic cable and the excluding those who fall outside the Internet have levelled the economic playing defined essence. Krishnamurti wanted field, creating a global platform that more his school to keep its `doors open’. Closed workers anywhere can now plug into and doors and impenetrable walls are made play on. Capital will now flow faster than up of exclusive ideals, class and caste ever to tap the most productive talent prejudice. Its structures are held wherever it is located, so every country is together by comparison, and the desire scrambling to upgrade its human talent to dominate others; greed, envy and a base (New York Times, March 24, 2006). lust to dominate support group In such a climate of international consciousness. He made the question, competition, governments see invest- ‘how should we live?’ central to his ment in education largely as a way of educational enterprise. How should we enhancing the country’s GDP and by as individuals live and what should be individuals as commanding the best the school’s relations with its international jobs. Earlier ideals of neighbours? – these questions moulded liberty, equality and fraternity take a the school for the past several decades. back seat in the nation’s priorities. The Religion, Education and Peace 37 aims of education are dictated by the students ‘find an identity within that idea of a ‘knowledge society’ that caters culture.’ to the knowledge-based economy India may have the world’s largest towards which nations are racing. This illiterate population but the poor in India is a business model of education where do not lack culture – poets like Kabir, knowledge as a commodity is to be Tukaram, Jayadeva and the great epics traded. are not the exclusive preserve of the well The late Management Guru Peter educated; they are sung by poor weavers Drucker predicted more than a decade and itinerant bards; and the shadow ago that in a future world order puppeteers of Andhra Pradesh reflect the knowledge and information would be classical mural paintings at the paramount. Both the conception of what Lepakshi temple.Jodha additionally constitutes knowledge and the argues in favour of a critical role of yardsticks by which knowledge and traditional knowledge systems in the values are to be measured, will be placed management of forest resources, and the at the disposal of business. harm produced by ‘marginalisation of The acquisition and distribution of traditional knowledge, and imposition of formal knowledge will come to occupy the generalised solutions from above’ (Jodha, place in the politics of the knowledge 1998). society which acquisition and distribution Unfortunately, the pressures of of property and income have occupied modernisation with its global vision and in the two or three centuries which we its lumbering bureaucracies, its drive for have come to call the Age of Capitalism universal standards in elementary (Drucker, 1994). schools set to the drum beat of nationalist Peter Drucker readily acknowledged ideologies stamp out local, more ancient the dangers inherent in a future where cultures and, in the process, alienate business interests forge the yardsticks students from their ecologically sound of knowledge and its value. How difficult, wisdom, the complex patterns of he admits, it will be for ‘the knowledge protecting, sharing and conserving society to give decent incomes and with natural resources developed over them dignity and status to non- several hundred generations. knowledge people... After all,’ he Jodha’s point that peasant and acknowledges, ‘knowledge workers will shepherd communities are not rootless amount to no more than a large minority people, but could have a vital role in the of the workforce.’ (Ibid) unfolding scenario adds yet another We, in India, need to pay particular dimension to our thinking about our attention to Peter Drucker’s dismissive rural world, and helped structure the remarks about ‘non-knowledge people,’ direction of our work. given that India’s impoverished villages Prime Minister Manmohan Singh have a tradition steeped in culture, in is well-aware of problems in the stories, songs, drama, fiction that, in countryside, the fact that income ratio Jerome Bruner’s words, give cohesion to within the urban and rural India has a culture, and that help individual risen from 1:2 at the time of 38 Journal of Indian Education August 2007 independence to 1:4 today. (Reported ‘Rishi Valley is more than a school’, in the financial pages of Asian Age, the founder once declared long ago. In 18 November, 2006). In his address to this extended context of Rishi Valley’s Cambridge University worked through relationship with its neighbours the the consequence of a policy that has the Founder’s philosophy and the needs of a potential to ignore the basic interest of the drought area with marginal farmers and majority of India’s population, he stated: shepherds have converged to create a “The gap between the rich and the promising model of integrated poor is widening. This, coupled with the development through resource sharing. inability of the public sector to provide In this conception, the school is a adequate and quality services in health resource centre for the neighbourhood. and education, and cater to the needs of In what follows I shall try to outline a the poor, is causing resentment and case study of an educational project that alienation. This is nurturing divisive forces through its 75-year-old existence worked and putting pressure on the practice of towards a ‘global vision’ of an entirely democracy. These are real and palpable different order. concerns and they cannot be ignored. We have articulated the following Ladies and gentlemen, I suggest to you that aims for educating teachers and we address these vital concerns by students in our school. These goals making globalisation an inclusive process. derived from Krishnamurti’s philosophy, We need to work for inclusive globali- are consonant with the times we live in. sation. This calls for a new global vision”. ● To awaken a sense of responsibility The juxtaposition, which finds for the environment in teachers and graduates from the best educational students, by making them aware of institutions in the country living side by the fragility of their environment. side with ancient but impoverished ● To create in students and teachers village settlements, provides a unique a sense of responsibility for other opportunity to work through a new global human beings. vision based on J. Krishnamurti’s ● thought. For a start, our location in a To urge students to employ the degraded landscape brings to the people expertise they might acquire in at Rishi Valley, students and teachers science to ‘repair’ the damage done belonging to India’s urban middle to the environment. classes, the reality of India and presents ● To create a global outlook – the a challenge of a long-range agenda for environment does not respect regeneration through education. That borders. agenda has served to guide our efforts ● To cultivate a sane attitude to by teaching us to care for the earth, to India’s past. share our educational resources with our ● To orient students in cooperative neighbours, to conserve local species of learning, rather than in competition. plants, and to help them rebuild green ● To create a sensibility that prizes spaces in their villages. harmony and quietude. Religion, Education and Peace 39

● To convince students that going still characterise surviving cultures in against the tide of history is not different parts of India. Thus, even to impossible. relate meaningfully to the immediate Following through with these aims environs of Rishi Valley, students have and advancing Krishnamurti’s long-term to learn about an arid region inhabited perspective into the classroom required by shepherds and subsistence farmers, us to create our own study materials. We living in patterns that have existed since needed to create textbooks and Neolithic times. The universals in worksheets that opened student’s human nature are not neglected. Here, senses to nature, to the inter- Charles Darwin’s theory of human connectedness between plant and origins is brought in to destroy old animal life and between nature and prejudices about race and caste, by human livelihoods. It also meant seeking teaching that human beings have a a fuller understanding of Indian culture common descent. The lesson from in the larger context of human concerns. Darwin is explicitly brought out in the By extension, it meant creating a right topics about prejudice. relationship with India’s own pluralistic History is becoming a contested field heritage, and cultivating an informed in many nations of the world. The detachment from the past. In pursuit of education scenario in India today reflects some of these goals, Rishi Valley is this frantic search for roots. Our continuing to develop its own educational approach seeks instead to impress on materials in the areas of social science, students the fundamental principles of ancient history, mathematics, the historian’s methodology, that our environmental studies and rural knowledge of the past is never absolute, education. that new evidence can overturn the best The first major publication in this hypotheses. new series, Birds of Rishi Valley and Above all we eschew the chauvinism Renewal of their Habitats, highlighted in favour of the virtues of detachment. many facets of our new directions in In the context of history, this faculty, education. The book describes local and which Krishnamurti’s thought shares migrant birds in relation to the several with ancient ideals of life, can play a different habitats now found on campus. truly restorative role in situating It explains the ecology of habitat students and teachers firmly in the formation and renewal and it seeks to present. To orient students in a broader show how small scale conservation efforts historical context informed by present can make a difference, in the landscape realities, to free them from false views of and in the quality of our lives. A new the past, is not to strip them of their study on insects is now planned. culture but to enable them to The social studies texts have understand their present situation with overlapping aims: to show that human greater clarity. beings in travelling from the Stone Age Following Krishnamurti’s insight into modern times, have passed through that observation of nature has a stages of technological development that fundamental role in educational 40 Journal of Indian Education August 2007 practice, the school set up an Institute It is a Directive Principle in the of Bird Studies and Natural History. The Indian Constitution but for the Institute has a two-fold agenda: to inhabitants of the Valley it should become cultivate a close study of nature in the a central tenet. students of Rishi Valley and to heighten awareness of our natural heritage on the Rural Education national scene. Nature Studies have A new design for village education is become an important activity for being developed at Rishi Valley for the students. They keep track of migrant past twenty years. The programme is populations of birds, watch out for based on the premise that human newcomers and have documented the welfare demands a regenerated breeding biology, for instance, of the landscape, especially in a country where Great Horned Owl and Brown Fish Owl. the majority population lives at Research conducted by students and subsistence level, and where the produce teachers has revealed the following data: of the earth directly enhances human there are 200 species of birds in the well-being (Jodha, 2001). valley, 50 species of butterflies, some rare The ‘Satellite Schools’ RVIEC created like the Blue Mormon; and a variety of in the centre of hamlets around the reptiles, including the near extinct bridal Valley represent degraded landscapes snake. turned into green public spaces. A To promote a caring attitude towards typical Satellite School can host, beside nature and birds among students and an elementary school, a balwadi, adult residents Rishi Valley was declared a education programmes, puppet shows Bird Preserve in July 1991 and since and theatre. The schools are linked with then bird studies have gained each other and with government schools prominence. The oath we took on that through metric melas, where children occasion reads in part underlines our from neighbouring schools buy and sell resolve of ‘preserving, protecting and food, weigh themselves and their enriching the avifaunal wealth, habitat parents, compute averages and, in the diversity and flora of the Valley as a process, learn to play around with whole. numbers. Doctors from Rishi Valley take A love of nature, freedom from the responsibility for student health in these past, and a long vision, the basic schools. virtues embedded in Krishnamurti’s It is hoped that the grounds of the educational philosophy, are necessary if school, which are terraced to conserve our future citizens are to fulfil the water and planted with shrubs and constitutional obligations embodied in trees, will partially meet part of the food Article 51A (g) — and fodder needs of the village, and ‘It shall be the duty of every citizen to provide spaces for conservation of bio- protect and improve the natural diversity. One day perhaps the grain for environment including forests, lakes, rivers mid-day meals could be grown on the and wildlife and to have compassion for school premises. Our eventual hope is wild creatures’. that these schools will serve as the Religion, Education and Peace 41 nucleus for a recovery of the traditional sees herself moving onward (and commons, and the return of ‘social upwards!) through the subject. capital’: a wise use of natural resources The Ladder guides the organisation that is being lost to a competitive market of classrooms. It enables teachers to economy. divide the class, not according to ability The Rishi Valley Institute for groups but to different organisational Educational Research, located on the principles: fully-teacher Supported, Rishi Valley Campus, has created study Partly teacher-supported and peer- materials suited to the educational needs supported groups are clubbed separately of the village. A typical village school in irrespective of their ability. In an India provides one teacher to cater to arrangement where older students and students belonging to mixed ages and younger students are part of the same ability groups. The method of teaching group, a great principle adopted by RIVER is textbook-centred, with the teacher from J. Krishnamurti — ‘You are both the dominating the classroom. Failures teacher and the taught,’ is translated haunt these schools; most elementary into the classroom, but in different ways. schools count the largest numbers in It is sometimes thought that the their first grade. Ladder of Learning is a straightjacket into These educational materials break which all content is inflexibly strapped. down the learning process into a It has occasionally been described as a sequence of concrete and manageable system of ‘programmed learning’. The steps. This collection of cards in confusion that can be cleared away by elementary mathematics, environmental reflecting on the relationship between science and language are graded in ways grammatical structures and the use of that students can easily identify and language; the rules of language do not work through by themselves or with impede an individual from speaking minimum help from the teacher; creatively. The Ladder’s constraints are students are self-learners; teachers no more limiting than those imposed by merely facilitators. Respect and tolerance grammatical rules on speech – both for other cultures and concern for the poets and ordinary human beings are natural environment are values woven able to speak in sentences they have not into the material. learnt before. A graphic chart described as the Forty per cent of the spaces mapped Ladder of Learning in at the centre of the on the Ladder are left free, for teachers multi-grade programme. The Ladder, in to fill in with the help of local content: conjunction with the cards, charts the songs, riddles, local myths and mother’s progress of a student through stages of tales. Puppetry and surveys of local flora the learning process. It registers this and fauna are part of the enrichment progression in a simple visual display routine followed by each school. Local that gives the child a concrete sense of culture, in this way, finds its way into progress. It is a visual metaphor that the classroom. The school doors remain has proven to be a very effective open, and local potters donate their clay motivating factor, as each student clearly elephants and horses to beautify school 42 Journal of Indian Education August 2007 grounds. A Mother’s Committee takes alternative lifestyle. charge of mid-day meals, hosts metric Water is the Valley’s greatest melas and overseas the teacher’s work. problem. Monsoons are erratic and the A Rural Health Centre has been few natural streams flow only during the providing quality primary health care to monsoon season and swiftly grow dry. For the villages in the area. The success in most of the year underground water the immediate vicinity has drawn people drawn from wells is the only source of from as far as one hundred fifty kilo water. The ground water stood at one meters away. A unique feature of the hundred-thirty meters below ground centre is nurses trained in each village level, as a result of too many new wells to monitor that patients continue being dug by the school’s need to bathe treatment. A volunteer from each of and feed five-hundred inhabitants, these villages receives training from the maintain its dairy and by farmers who Health Centre on AIDS awareness. now grow paddy instead of the rain-fed These multi-grade, multi-level millet and peanuts. teaching and learning methodology has Serious water harvesting began in become a model for thousands of formal the seventies with the Centre donating and non-formal schools in several parts its own land for the construction of two of the country. Among the more percolation tanks, and supervising prominent adaptations of the projects financed by the Andhra Pradesh methodology are the famous Nali Kali government. The two tanks, the first experiment in the formal schools of HD called ‘Lost Lake,’ situated midway up the Kote block of Mysore Districts and the hills to the south of the campus helped Corporation Schools in Chennai. We regenerate one hundred-fifty acres of a have just signed an agreement with a once-barren hillside. The other, situated UNICEF and Sarva Siksha Abhayan in the valley, services wells three miles (SSA) supported programme for defining, downstream and has resulted in a much designing and developing ‘a holistic more prosperous farming community. quality package of essential Five more tanks were built more recently interventions for primary schools,’ in in the Valley. several states, including Gujarat, Beginning in 1988, under a grant Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Orissa, from the Wasteland Development Board, Bihar and Jharkhand. the Centre built small check dams and bunds along the contours of an 800- Conservation Work hectares hillside. This meant persuading The educational work of Rishi Valley is villagers to donate labour and allow nested in actual practice — water construction of bunds across their small conservation, soil and moisture holdings. Custard Apples, which goats conservation, reforestation, preserving avoid, were planted along the bunds to local species of domesticated cattle, use hold in soil. Large nurseries of jamun, of alternative energy are all part of our tamarind, peepal, red sander and neem work that benefits the inhabitants of the saplings were established. Several of valley and introduces students to an these were given away to farmers from Religion, Education and Peace 43 distant parts, and many others planted Government of India, Rishi Valley on hundred fifty acres of the bald hillside Education Centre has built a large gobar where Lost Lake is located. Over a period gas plant in its dairy which serves of twenty years this barren hillside is around 25 per cent of the school’s cooking now part scrubland and part dense needs. Solar heaters for hot water serve forest. For the local village community several dormitories. the hundred fifty acres hillside means fodder for its animal population and fuel Krishnamurti, the Deep Ecologist wood; the space is a kind of insurance Arne Naess the Norwegian philosopher against long periods of drought. The who coined the term ‘Deep Ecology’, campus that once consisted of dry lands distinguishes three types of ‘Deep and scrublands, now boasts of woodlands Ecologist’ in the following — and several wetlands. … within deep ecology you have those A survey of the flora on campus who specialise on a spiritual level, saying revealed many hundred species of plants, you have to change the way you are several of which have medicinal mentally, and others say no, all the properties. Following the survey a problems in deep ecology are political more flourishing Herbal Garden has been or less, you have to go into politics and established on six acres of land. Under the third one just utters “ah, wonderful the care of an Ayurvedic specialist, it now nature, wonderful nature, wonderful has two hundred species of local bushes nature.” For Naess himself, ‘ . . . ecological and trees that provide medicinal benefits science concerned with facts and logic to the local population. There is a alone, cannot answer ethical questions concerted effort to spread the plants and about how we should live. For this we restore the fast-vanishing knowledge need ecological wisdom. Deep ecology and faith in their healing properties to seeks to develop this by focussing on deep nearby villages, especially among the experience, deep questioning and deep women. commitment’ (Naess, 1997). The Rishi Valley Dairy is engaging in Krishnamurti properly fits Naess’ the task of breeding Ongole cattle, a first category of spiritual thinkers. The domesticated breed famous for the load main thrust of his thought was to awaken carrying capacity of the male. In the human beings from the ‘obstinacy’, a current economic climate where description used by the well-known breeding is almost entirely aimed at biologist Edward O. Wilson, in which they increasing milk yields, the species is near are sunk. ‘Human beings are adapted by extinction in Andhra Pradesh. We are Darwinian natural selection,’ Wilson concerned about the long-term explains, ‘to short-term decisions and implications of this practice for marginal focus on local concerns.’ Krishnamurti’s agriculture whose mainstay is the bull- analysis of the human condition took in driven plough. this destructive side of human nature, Mindful of the limited energy its incapacity to take a long view, and resources in the country and taking consider the wider implications of its own advantage of various subsidies from the actions. But Krishnamurti tempered this 44 Journal of Indian Education August 2007 recognition with a radiant sense of you talk, the way you behave, whether human possibilities. you are hard, cruel, rough, patient’ According to Wilson, if human (Krishnamurti, 1974, p. 76). The mirror consumption patterns continue at reveals what one is, but problems take present levels we will by 2100 need four hold when one begins to disapprove of more planet Earths to ‘sustain life as we what the mirror shows. ‘The mirror says, know it’. And it is fairly well-established this is the fact; but you do not like the that resource scarcity results in violence. fact. So, you want to alter it. You start Krishnamurti addresses these issues in distorting it.’ (Krishnamurti, 1974, p. 76). his philosophy of education. Attention is silently watching what the The aim of education, according to mirror reveals, without the desire to Krishnamurti, is to create good human change it. When this silent observation beings with an awakened sense of comes into being there is freedom from responsibility. The aim is not primarily anger, envy and the pettiness that clouds to mould them into slots created by the mirror. ‘Look’, he says, ‘not with your society: professional success, a mind but with your eyes’ (Krishnamurti, comfortable homes and a respectable 1974, p. 23). family life. These he dismissed as being Over and over again, distinguishing narrow, bourgeois and second-hand; as what is artificial or socially constructed locked into the short-term vision and from what is natural, Krishnamurti incapable of resolving the problems that directed students to nature and to the we as a species face. Instead he thought senses. The senses are tools for education should be dedicated to cleansing the mind: ‘Just look at the creating ‘good human beings’ with a long stars, the clear sky, the birds, the shape view. of the leaves. Watch the shadow. Watch The three main components of the bird across the sky. By being with Krishnamurti’s concept of goodness are yourself, sitting quietly under a tree, you freedom, intelligence and responsibility. begin to understand the workings of your And all three are the outcome of the right own mind and that is as important as kind of learning. Learning, for going to class’ (Krishnamurti, 1974, p. 47). Krishnamurti, is both a positive faculty Unlearning the emotions of envy, and a negating capability. Learning is greed, anger and ambition is the key that positive because it teaches you about opens the mind to a wider and deeper yourself and the world. It is a negating reality, away from its narrow, self-centred capability because it allows the darker vision. Unlearning frees the mind from impulses that guide human nature, greed its divisive actions, its tendency to look and violence, to dissolve. at others in stereotypical images: ‘You Krishnamurti’s response to a student are not a Russian or an American, you who asks him, ‘How can we know are not Hindu or a Muslim. You are apart ourselves?’ helps highlights both aspects from these labels. You are the rest of of this faculty. The first step in the mankind’ (Krishnamurti, 1987,72-73). process, as he explains very simply, is to Krishnamurti’s educational observe as one might in a mirror ‘the way philosophy sought to uncover the Religion, Education and Peace 45 individual’s relationship with society and behaviour that leads them to the right through that with nature. He held that habitat at the right time. Shouldn’t we human beings, despite being modern, are find some residue of that instinct in not really individuals in the truest sense human beings? … On some level, it is wired of that word; they are still driven by social into us to be around nature. We should forces, by the worldview derived from not let that instinct disappear’. their elders, peers, society at large and Krishnamurti puts his faith in the the times in which they live. These social human ability to free the mind from the forces are motivated by fear, ambition, negative emotions of greed and violence, and greed. Learning about the influences as a way of unlocking the shackles that that direct one’s life and shedding the bind individuals to self-interest. emotions of fear, greed, envy and anger Krishnamurti’s vision for humanity through learning about them clears the resonates with thinkers both from India’s way for compassion. ancient and more recent past. So the moral truths that His almost nihilistic radicalism is Krishnamurti sought came neither captured by the Buddhist Nagarjuna’s packaged as true belief, nor as knowledge tribute to the Buddha in the last stanza and theories, but were intrinsic to a of the Mulamadhyamakarika. spontaneously-born sensitivity to life: I prostrate before the Gautama, who, ‘Fear shuts out the understanding of grounded in compassion, taught the true life with all its extraordinary dharma in order to destroy all opinions (or complications, with its struggles, its all points of view). sorrows, its poverty, its riches and His great passion for nature with beauty—the beauty of the birds, and of Tagore’s idea of India’s civilisational the sunset on the water. When you are values. frightened, you are insensitive to all this’ Contemporary Western civilisation is (Krishnamurti, 1963). Krishnamurti built of brick and wood. It is rooted in the was convinced that our shortsighted city. But Indian civilisation has been instincts can be overcome and the right distinctive in locating its sources of kind of education can show us the way regeneration, material an intellectual, in to reclaiming the Earth for future the forest, not the city, India’s best ideas generations. have come where man was in communion Edward Wilson recognises that our with trees and rivers and lakes, away from species’ destructive instincts are unique; the crowds. The peace of the forest has they are not shared by other species with helped the intellectual evolution of man. whom we live on Earth. With The culture of the forest has fuelled the Krishnamurti, Wilson also recognises culture of Indian society. The culture that that science alone cannot solve the has arisen from the forest has been problem human beings have created. But influenced by the diverse processes of whereas Wilson invokes the lost instinct renewal of life that are always at play in we share with the whole of life as the path the forest, varying from species to species, to salvation — ‘Every species, right down from season to season, in sight and sound to nematode worms, has pretty elaborate and smell. The unifying principle of life in 46 Journal of Indian Education August 2007 diversity, of democratic pluralism, thus compatible with nature. This would became the principle of Indian civilisation. require a coalition of those in the peace Not being caged in brick, wood and movement, environmentalists, those who iron, Indian thinkers were surrounded support the campaign against poverty – by and linked to the life of the forest. The and the silent majority. They have to find living forest was for them their shelter, their voice. Unless they do, a hard rain’s their source of food. The intimate a-gonna fall (Edwards, 2006, p. 8). relationship between human life and If what Peter Drucker predicts is true living nature became the source of and the world is moving towards a knowledge. Nature was not dead and knowledge society then knowledge will inert in this knowledge system. The have to be harnessed to nurturing the experience of life in the forest made it Earth, not savaging it. Krishnamurti adequately clear that living nature was suggested this transformation would the source of light and air, of food and require that human beings unlearn the water (Quoted by Vandana Shiva, 1988, habits of thought bred by greed and p. 55). aggression. Krishnamurti’s idea of a school with “Indian society seemed to develop Open Doors recall Gandhi’s idea of more by successive religious Trusteeship, some of the basic principles transformation than by violence”, of which were codified under the Kosambi remarks, adding that society Mahatma’s direction: “failed to develop further for much the Trusteeship provides a means of same reason” (Kosambi 1956). India transforming the present capitalist order might have emerged as a more of society into an egalitarian one. It gives homogeneous society in the twentieth no quarter to capitalism, but gives the century, if its mode of development in the present owning class a chance of ancient world had been more like that of reforming itself. It is based on the faith European cultures — if overt violence that human nature is never beyond had been an instrument of subduing the redemption (Dantwala, 1986, p. 40). cultures of technologically less advanced people. Conclusion There was rarely the bitter, violent The urgent need of the hour is vividly conflict between the most primitive and the described by Mark Edwards, who has most developed elements of society in India been following environmental issues for that one finds in the devastating interaction close to forty years. in the devastating interaction of Spanish Humanity will have to put aside the conquistadors . . . with tribal cultures in deep divisions it has maintained for South America (Kosambi, 1956, p. 8). thousands and thousands of years and Kosambi’s attribution of a positive take practical steps to solve this problem. role to religion in India is intriguing, The prize will be to deflect military coming as it does from a historian with a spending, currently one trillion dollars of Marxist view of history. But then global taxpayer’s money a year, to pay to Kosambi was an historian for whom the reinvent the modern world so that it is relationship between theory and Religion, Education and Peace 47 empirical data was one of The statement is prescient despite interdependence; ideology did not take the hopes of Indian statesmen who precedence over evidence; history he said dreamed of erasing the hierarchical ‘is there for those who have the eyes to structures and hidden violence in India’s see it.’ ancient societal structure when the new Going on to illustrate with multiple constitution adopted after independence examples which need not concern us enshrined the concepts of liberty, here, Kosambi ended the first chapter of equality and fraternity. his An Introduction to the Study of Indian Education based on a spiritual non- History with a quotation from Marx divisive philosophy of J. Krishnamurti wherein he congratulated the can play a positive role that philosopher’s foresight into the D. D. Kosambi recorded in his historical consequences of British colonial rule for reconstruction of India’s past. J. the future of India. The colonial legacy Krishnamurti, as the following quotation ‘of railways, and machine production, a illustrates, defined the problems of new Indian bureaucracy, bourgeoisie, education in a holistic framework. proletariat, and army’, would certainly The world of nature and the world of remake the subcontinent, but would not man … are inter-related. Man cannot escape bring any change the material condition from that. When he destroys nature he is of the people. destroying himself. When he kills another India’s cultural pluralism, which he is killing himself. The enemy is not the began in the ancient world, was achieved other but you. To live in such harmony with at the cost of hidden violence that nature, with the world, naturally brings positioned caste groups into hierarchies, about a different world. This is one of the assigning strictly defined ecological responsibilities of the educator, not merely niches to each group. Jati, like species, to teach mathematics or how to run a in this pre-Darwinian enterprise, computer. Far more important is to have imitated nature. The post-industrial era communion with the world. The world may in India’s history has led the country into be too large but the world is where he is; what Gadgil and Guha describe as ‘a that is his world. And this brings about a cauldron of conflicts’. Economic and natural consideration, affection for others, educational policies of the state have courtesy and behaviour that is not rough, neither levelled the field for all individual cruel, vulgar. citizens nor provided opportunities for The world of nature and the world of advancements to the poor. The cauldron man are inter-related. Man cannot of conflicts is the result of competition escape from that. When he destroys and conflict over limited resources. The nature he is destroying himself. When Indian reality only reflects the larger he kills another he is killing himself. The picture in the world where nations enemy is not the other but you. To live in compete over resources and spend their such harmony with nature, with the wealth of weapons of power rather than world, naturally brings about a different on servicing the Earth. world (Krishnamurti, 1985). 48 Journal of Indian Education August 2007

The education project at Rishi Valley educational vision can be translated into demonstrates that Krishnamurti was a reality that is both relevant to our times more than a visionary; that his and to the future.

REFERENCES

ALEXANDER, ROBIN. 2006. Education as Dialogue. Hong Kong Institute of Education. Hong Kong. BRUNO, JEROME. 1986. Actual Worlds Possible Minds. Harvard University Press. MA., Cambridge. BRUNER, J. 1996. The Culture of Education. Harvard University Press, MA, Cambridge. DANTWALA, M.L. 1986. ‘The Moral Economy of Trusteeship’ in Trusteeship: The Gandhian Alternative. Gandhi Peace Foundation. New Delhi. DRUCKER, PETER F. 1994. ‘Knowledge Work and Knowledge Society: The Social Transformations of this Century’ (lecture given at Harvard University). http://www.ksg. harvard.edu/ifactory/ksgpress/www/ksg_news/transcripts/ drucklec.htm. EDWARDS, MARK. 2006. Hard Rain: Our Headlong Collision with Nature. Still Pictures and Moving Words, London. GADGIL, MADHAV and RAMACHANDRA GUHA. 1995. Ecology and Equity. The Use and Abuse of Nature in Contemporary India. Penguin Books, New Delhi. GUHA, RAMACHANDRA. 2006. How Much should a Person Consume? Permanent Black, Delhi. INGALLS, DANIEL et al. 1990. The Dhvanyaloka of Anandavardhana with the Locana of Abhinavagupta. Harvard University Press. MA, Cambridge. JODHA, NARPAT. 1998. ‘Community Management of Commons: Re-empowerment Process and the Gaps’ (lecture presented at “Crossing Boundaries”, the seventh annual conference of the International Association for the Study of Common Property, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, 1998), http://http// www.arc.cs.odu.edu:8080/dp9/getrecord/oai_dc/dlc.dlib.indiana.eduoai:dlc.dlib. Indiana.edu. ______. 2001. Life on the Edge: Sustaining Agriculture and Community Resources in Fragile Environments. Oxford, New Delhi. KOSAMBI, D.D. 1956. An Introduction to the Study of Indian History. Popular Prakashan, Bombay. KRISHNAMURTI, J. 1953. Education and the Significance of Life. Victor Golancz, London. ______1963. Life Ahead. Victor Golancz, London. ______1964. This Matter of Culture. Victor Golancz, London. ______1974. On Education. Orient Longman, New Delhi. ______1975. Beginnings of Learning Victor Golancz Ltd., London. ______1985. Letters to the Schools, Vol. 2. Krishnamurti Foundation, India. Chennai. ______1987. Krishnamurti to Himself. Victor Golancz, London. ______1987. The Collected Works of J. Krishnamurti. Krishnamurti Publications of America. Religion, Education and Peace 49

NAESS, ARNE. 1997. Interview- Radio National, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s national radio network of ideas. www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/8.30/ relrpt/trr9743. DE LA VALLE POUSSIN, LOUIS. 1931. Mulamadhyamakarika de Nagarjuna avec Pasannapada commentaire de Candrakirti. Bibliotheca Buddhica LV, St. Petersburg. SHIVA, VANDANA.1988. Staying Alive: Women, Ecology and Survival in India. Kali for Women, New Delhi. WILSON, EDWARD O. ‘Only Humans Can Halt the Worst Wave of Extinction Since the Dinosaurs Died’ http://raysweb.net/specialplaces/pages/wilson.html 50 Journal of Indian Education August 2007

Reinventing the Paradigm of Teaching Implication for Teacher Education

ANJALI KHIRWADKAR* Abstract

At every stage and development of education, quality has always been a great concern. The great Indian thinkers emphasised on developing inner potentials of individuals. The NCF-2005 states that the curriculum must enable students to find their voices, nurture their curiosity to do things, to ask questions and to pursue investigations, sharing and integrating their experiences with school knowledge rather than their ability to produce textual knowledge. ICT provides to play an active role to the students necessary for quality learning. The web-based teaching-learning practice is the art, craft and science of using network technologies. It provides to the students a wide range of scopes for integrating varied learning experiences and making learning a holistic one.

Introduction inner potentials of individual by reflecting on unique potential of individual. Getting The progress of any country depends educated is solely dependent upon the upon the quality of education offered and individual teachers role to set conditions, its practices. Indian education was well generate environments for learning. known for its Gurukul system of School education till 1976 was under education in the Vedic age. Education in the State control and centre would advice India has undergone various phases and state for policy issues. Latter the stages of development starting Vedic age Constitution was amended to include to post-independence period. At all education in the concurrent list. The stages of development there was a NPE 1986 recommended for a common concern for bringing in the quality core component in school curriculum education reflecting on the practical throughout the country and NCERT was aspects in education. The great Indian given the responsibility for developing thinkers also emphasised on developing National Curriculum Framework and

*Lecturer, Department of Education, Faculty of Education and Psychology, The M.S. University of Baroda, Vadodara, Gujarat. Reinventing the Paradigm of Teaching 51 review the framework at regular As per National Curriculum intervals. In spite of the various Framework–2005, “The curriculum must recommendations as per NPE 1986 the enable children to find their voices, school education remained to be exam nurture their curiosity – to do things, to oriented, bookish and information loaded ask questions and to pursue devoid of practical aspects. The recent investigations, sharing and integrating National Curriculum Framework–2005 their experiences with school knowledge focuses on the following issues: rather than their ability to produce ● Connecting knowledge to life textual knowledge”. outside. The most important aspect of learning ● Shift from rote learning to are developing capacity for abstract constructing knowledge. thinking, reflection and students learn ● Providing wide range experiences in variety of experiences like reading, for overall development of a child. experimenting, listening, thinking, ● Bringing flexibility in the reflecting, writing , expressing oneself in examinations. speech, etc. Thus, conceptual understanding can be developed by The development in technology has engaging students actively in learning changed the world outside the process. Active involvement involves classroom; it is more eye-catching and exploration, enquiry, questioning, interesting for a student than the discussion, reflection leading to creation classroom setting. As a result students of ideas. Hence, before the teacher the find classroom instructions as dull and challenge is process of active devoid of life and do not interest them involvement and learning various for learning. The information technology concepts. The curriculum framework has made learner WWW afflicted: emphasises developing critical thinking WWW Share discoveries and discussions. among students making them active WWW Continually provide students learners this can be made possible by with enrichment outside of class taking advantage of ICT and working on hours. multiple intelligence models. WWW Provide follow-up on weekly activity schedules. Emphasising Critical Thinking by WWW Maintain instructions for way of Multiple Intelligence in groups and individuals. Educational Practices WWW Encourage students to make The above mentioned discussion more efficient and intense use of indicates that the new curriculum computers. framework is very decisive about Teacher has a tough time to arrange developing critical thinking. Critical for different kind of learning experiences thinking emphasises the ability and for catching attention of students, tendency to gather, evaluate and use persisting their motivational level, information effectively (Beyer, 1985). energizing them to work in new situations The researches conducted in the area with limited resources. have identified several distinct skills 52 Journal of Indian Education August 2007 related to an overall ability for critical Intelligences’ it encourages educators to thinking. start thinking of intelligence as a set of Finding analogies and other kinds of many different abilities and skills that relationships between pieces of help an individual learner comprehend, information. Determining the relevance examine, and respond to many different and validity of information that could be types on content in order to solve used for structuring and solving problems or to make something that is problems. Finding and evaluating valued in one or more cultures (Checkley, solutions or alternative ways of treating 1997). Gardner notes that individuals problems. There are several generally do not necessarily have the same recognised “hallmarks” of teaching for strengths in each area and can improve critical thinking (Beyer, 1985; Costa, at each of the intelligences. Gardner 1985) like: makes it clear that his theory merely Promoting interaction among describes a learning behaviour and students as they learn – Learning in a should not be labeled as a learning style. group setting often helps each member He states that learning styles are “claims achieve more. about ways in which individuals Asking open-ended questions that evidently approach everything they do not assume the “one right answer” – do...You could say that a child is a visual Critical thinking is often exemplified best learner, but that’s not a multiple when the problems are inherently ill- intelligences way of talking about things. defined and do not have a “right” answer. On the contrary “here is a child who very Open-ended questions also encourage easily represents things spatially, and students to think and respond creatively, we can draw upon that strength if need without fear of giving the “wrong” be when we want to teach the child answer. something new.” (Checkley, 1997). Allowing sufficient time for students The passive way of learning fails to to reflect on the questions asked or engage student in his/her own learning. problems posed – Critical thinking hardly A learner-centred approach in which ever involves sudden judgments; students take a greater responsibility for therefore, posing questions and allowing what goes on in their own minds and adequate time before seeking responses hence are responsible for their learning. helps students understand that they are “The ways in which intelligences expected to deliberate and to ponder. combine and blend are as varied as the Teaching for transfer – The skills for faces and personalities of individuals” critical thinking should “travel well”. For (Edwards, 1995). Both student and this teachers should provide teacher must find active ways to tailor opportunities for students to see how a each individual’s multiple intelligences newly acquired skill can be applied to to best acquire new concepts, ideas, and other situations and to the student’s own knowledge. experience. The boon of technological Further, if we have a look at the developments should be taken in the Gardner’s ‘Theory of Multiple education process to promote learning. Reinventing the Paradigm of Teaching 53

TABLE1 Multiple Intelligence and Internet as a tool for learning (Edwards, 1995)

Bodily/Kinesthetic Navigating through software- or web-based scientific inquiries, dissections, and Web Quests with the use of a keyboard, joystick, mouse Interpersonal Collaborating online via list serves, chat rooms, newsgroups, and e-mail Intrapersonal Computer assisted instruction; simulations that only rely on the computer’s response, self-assessments, designing homepages, and word processing class assignments. Logical/Mathematical Generating database and spreadsheet programmes; Engaging in problem-solving software; Using online calculators; Utilising multimedia authoring programmes. Musical/Rhythmic Listening to *.wav, MPEG, or MIDI files associated on software and Web pages; Creating presentations that require the recording of sound(s). editing of video. Naturalist Using real-time images of the natural world as a basis of a comparison study; Digitize images or the natural world captured on videotape or digital camera. Verbal/Linguistic Comparing online articles from scientific journals, magazines, businesses, schools, and independent sources; desktop publishing, voice annotations, and speech output. Visual/Spatial Designing and interpreting graphical layouts; Using draw- or paint programmes; Charting data in spreadsheet applications; Capturing/manipulating images from a digital camera, video, scanner, or web page; Manipulating objects in three dimensions using JAVA script. Existential Art replica, planetarium, stage drama, classic literature, classic philosophy, symbols of world religions, virtual communities, virtual art exhibits, virtual field trips, virtual reality, simulations.

As technology provides a wide scope to intelligences necessary for quality cater to the individual differences as can learning. ICT applications open up a be seen from Table 1. whole new world of discovery and Thus, multimedia and internet is a learning. The Internet provides both an boon for teachers to structure lessons ideal resource and platform for that reach all students which are not met developing critical thinking by way of in the traditional classroom. ICT provides multiple intelligences. Not only planning a support to the student to take an active the lesson activities but also many of the role in the learning process and classroom activities may find a place on strengthen all of the multiple the Internet for student use. Even 54 Journal of Indian Education August 2007

TABLE 2 Internet Based Multiple Intelligence (MI) Activities (Sally Bergman, 1995)

Logical/Mathematical Analyse statistical historical data, create graphic representations of historical data, create hyperlinked timeline. Verbal/Linguistic Compose essays, poetry, etc. for publishing on web page, critique written resources through an annotated bibliography. Visual/Spatial Construct thematic web pages that include various visual images (e.g., posters, political cartoons, broadsides, photos, illustrations), construct hyperlinked timelines and maps. Musical/Rhythmic Analysis of song lyrics, composition of song lyrics, design and publish Power Point presentations which incorporate music and visual elements. Body/Kinesthetic Internet-based simulations, cooperative web searches or web quests, role-playing activities that incorporate Web resources, classroom presentations. Naturalist Design virtual landscapes; analyse computer simulated topographic cities, maps, etc. Interpersonal All of the above activities that might be designed to incorporate cooperative learning in groups. Intrapersonal All of the above activities that might be completed through reflective individual projects.

TABLE 3 Worldwide Web MI Resources (David G. Lazear, 1996)

Logical/Mathematical Charts, diagrams, government reports, statistical demographic and population data. Verbal/Linguistic Government documents, personal narratives, historical documents, letters. Visual/Spatial Maps, diagrams, illustrations, battlefield representations, historical timelines. Musical/Rhythmic Lyrics or audio files of patriotic, protest, period and other historical music. Body/Kinesthetic Illustrations and descriptions of historical costumes, cooking, dance, etc. for role-playing or simulation. Naturalist Illustrations, paintings, maps, personal narratives and photographs of historical and contemporary environments. Interpersonal All of the above resources that might be used in cooperative MI activities. Intrapersonal All of the above resources that might be used in reflective, individual MI activities. Reinventing the Paradigm of Teaching 55

Gardner believed the potential impact of intelligences and are essential for computer technology would not be felt understanding a given topic. until the next century, 2013 to be exact ● Fourth step the Subject Samplers (Howard Gardner, 1999). where teacher presents six to eight Table 2 and 3 depicts how Internet captivating Web sites organised could help teacher in preparing lesson around a main topic. Students plans with an entirely different develop a sense of connection with dimension. The promise of marrying the topic because they are asked technology with the pedagogy is one that to respond to Web-based activities can be realised today. The Internet based like to explore or compare pedagogy gives a scope to the teacher to interpretations of pictures, data, or incorporate flexibility to meet individual sounds and share (by posting needs. online) experiences they have had. ● Fifth step Web Quests help students Steps to Incorporate WWW in the go beyond learning basic facts. It Teaching-learning Process requires student to work in groups ● Step one would be to collect with a challenging task, provides multimedia Web sites. Generally access to an abundance of online referred as Hot list containing resources and scaffolds. bookmarked sites that are most Networked technologies add new useful, interesting, and/or peculiar dimensions in organising learning for a given topic and a variety of experiences: learners. ● ● Second step would be the collection Revealing the quality resources. ● of online newsletters, desktop slide Preparing students for the work presentations, and Hyper Studio environments of the future. ● stacks that would focus on Networking at various levels like providing links to a variety of among students, among faculty, subject-related multimedia and among students, faculty, and resources. All these can be grouped professionals beyond the University. together in a Multimedia Scrapbook Thus, web-based teaching-learning which is built around what the practice generally called as Webagogy is individual learner defines as the art, craft, and science of using meaningful and helpful. networked technologies. As it is rightly ● Third step to target specific-learning pointed out by Boettcher (1997) “Now behaviours using online multimedia that the Worldwide Web is providing a resources by posing questions that whole new context for teaching and motivate students and generates learning, we have the need to return to curiosity for learning. Treasure the core principles of teaching and Hunt as designed by teacher where learning, and create a new model of students are given a list of specific teaching and learning. Technology, sites that hold information that applied in conjunction with pedagogical appeal to several multiple concepts can create an effective student- 56 Journal of Indian Education August 2007 centred environment and enhance situation, while others will hesitate. Here Learning outcomes. lies the important role to be played by Carr (1997) agrees with Boettcher: the teacher to monitor, interpret and then ‘without appropriate pedagogy, use of to try to alleviate such situations. The High capacity communication services teacher’ s role in Web-based teaching has cannot provide significant Improvements already been identified as being very in learning outcomes. In general, it is the different from the teacher’ s role in formal pedagogy that provides for learning, not education, with words like facilitator, the technology or the software alone.’ referring to the person who is online and But there are various issues of web- interacting with the students in various based learning which needs to be taken ways. It may be the same person who care by the teacher like intellectual produces the materials. Also the on-line property. Using educational tools teacher will need to arrange range of appropriately and obtaining the activities in which they will engage necessary permissions from its owners students, and a range of roles which they would be essential. Another major will fulfill. In Web-based teaching the problem would be of security should to teacher would be engaged in preparation protect networked systems, login IDs and and organisation of the materials-based passwords should be kept private and on same kind of assumptions about the servers and scripts designed to learners as are done by the textbook preventing hacking. Every individual writer. learner on the net has a right to privacy In Web-based teaching the personal which must be respected. dimension can be taken care by teacher Pedagogy is primarily associated by way of discussion forums managed with, formal school education. There are and facilitated by the teacher. Of course significant differences between the two the Web also allows students to organise terms pedagogy and wabogogy in terms their own networks for support and of independence/dependence of the motivation without there being learners, resources for learning, management by the teacher. This is how motivation, and the role of the teacher. students learning can be made more Context of learning is important, as meaningful and connected to real life learning is context and situation-specific. experiences. Internet provides a wide Web-based teaching provides a range of scope for integrating varied materials-based educational experience, learning experiences and making which means that although it can be a learning a holistic one. Teachers need material-rich, and stimulating, learning to work out from the given topics in the situation it can also be a socially poor textbook that could be easily dealt in the and lonely, learning situation. (Kirshner manner shown above. All these and Whitson, 1997). Hence learning resources developed by an individual depends upon the will and the learning teacher could be shared in a web forum style Gardner, 1985 preference of the for further refining the lesson plans. learner. Some learners will undoubtedly According to Plato “The purpose of thrive in the new liberating learning education is to make the individual want Reinventing the Paradigm of Teaching 57 to do what he has to do” (Gardner, 1999). is possible with a more directive teaching Every good teacher has to find better method. One of the most important ways to motivate students and inspire practical thinking skills is knowing how quality learning in the classroom. to identify a problem. Problem finding is Students enjoy tasks in which they can an excellent group activity, particularly predict success. Thus, offering them if two or more groups work on the same different opportunities to draw upon their task independently and then come multiple intelligences strengths is an together to compare strategies. In this excellent way to ensure quality learning. way, each student has the benefit of Students should often be given (and exposure to several ways of solving the asked to memorize) explicit rules for problem. Enhancing the environment classifying information. Such active critical thinking in the classroom is learning typically results in better facilitated by a physical and intellectual understanding and better retention of environment that encourages a spirit of the concepts and related material than discovery.

REFERENCES

BEYER, B.K. 1985. Critical thinking: What is it? Social Education, 49. 270-276. BOETTCHER, J. 1997) (Florida State University) Pedagogy and Learning Strategies. Downloaded July1998 from the Web (). CARR, J. 1997. The Future is Already Here. A National Strategy For Australian Education and Training to Maximise Opportunities Offered by High Capacity Communication Services. () CHECKLEY, KATHY. 1997. The First Seven and the Eighth: A Conversation with Howard Gardner. Educational Leadership, Vol.55, No.1 COSTA, A.L. (Ed.) 1985. Developing Minds: A Resource Book for Teaching Thinking. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, Alexandria, VA. DAVID, G. LAZEAR. 1992. Teaching for Multiple Intelligences IN: Phi Delta Kappa Educational Foundation, Bloomington. KAREN, GUTLOFF (ed.). 1996. Multiple Intelligences. NEA Professional Library, West Haven, CT. DAVID, LAZEAR. Seven Ways of Teaching: The Artistry of Teaching with Multiple Intelligences. EDWARDS, JACK. 1995. Multiple Intelligences and Technology. Information Resource Network, Florida. <>. GARDNER, HOWARD. 1985. Multiple Intelligences: The Theory in Practice, 251. ______1999. The Disciplined Mind. Simon and Schuster, New York. P.52. KIRSHNER, D. and J.A. WHITSON. 1997. Situated cognition: Social, Semiotic and Psychological Perspectives. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, NJ. http:// 35.8.171.42/aera/pubs/er/er98ndx.htm. 58 Journal of Indian Education August 2007

KIRSHNER, D. and J.A. WHITSON. 1998. Obstacles to Understanding Cognition as situated. Educational Researcher, 27(8), 22-28. SALLY, BERGMAN. 1995. A Multiple Intelligences Road to a Quality Classroom. ISI/Skylight Publishing, Palatine, IL. LOUISA, MELTON and WINSTON PICKETT. 1997. Using Multiple Intelligences in Middle School Reading. Phi Delta Kappa Educational Foundation, Bloomington, in. DAVID L AZEAR. Seven Ways of Teaching: The Artistry of Teaching with Multiple Intelligences. SOARES, LOUISE M. 1998. “Structure, Content, and Process in Teacher Training: The Relevance of Copernicus, Gardner, and Dewey,” The Clearing House, 71, No. 4, 219. Web links DAVE, ALICK. 1999. Integrating Multimedia and Multiple Intelligences to Ensure Quality Learning in a High School Biology Classroom EDUC 685-Multimedia Literacy . D. ANTONIO CANTU. 2000. An Internet Based Multiple Intelligences Model for Teaching High School History. . A Study of Relationship between Environmental Awarencess... 59

A Study of Relationship between Environmental Awareness and Scientific Attitudes among Higher Secondary Students

PARAMANAND S INGH Y ADAV* and ANITA B HARATI**

Abstract

The present world is witnessing a number of environmental crises, which are the result of the unmindful exploitation of natural resources by human being. There is an urgent need to create environmental awareness among all human beings to conserve, protect and nurture our environmental resources. Consequently, environmental education is included in school curriculum right from the very beginning. The present study was conducted to study the environmental awareness among higher secondary students of Varanasi district of Uttar Pradesh. The findings of the study indicated that environmental awareness has positive relationship with scientific attitude among students and science students were found more aware about their environment as compared to arts students.

Introduction hence can not exert control over nature on the basis of his free-will. When he tries Environment is a broad term. It includes to break the natural laws of nature he is not only physical or material aspect but bound to face the serious consequences. psychological, social and cultural In the contemporary world, the aspects as well. Thus, environment healthy existence of human society is consists of material and non-material getting worse. This state of affair is due surroundings of human beings. to the unimaginably great volume of Nature provides a limited freedom to environmental maladies or problems man for conducting his exploitational which are pushing our planet almost to activities. Man is a part of nature and the brink of mass scale disaster of living

* Faculty of Education, (K.), B.H.U., Varanasi, U.P. ** Ex. Research Scholar, Faculty of Education, (K.), B.H.U., Varanasi, U.P. 60 Journal of Indian Education August 2007 beings or species on this good habitable United Nation Environmental earth. The wild storms of criminality and Programme (UNEP) while other the volume of unsocial passions are recommendations specially constituted dangerously corroding the vitality and the foundation of framework for integrity of the working people of the cooperative efforts on international level world. The harmony of heart has been which states that environmental damaged and the tribunal of conscience awareness may be adopted by: has been greatly demolished due to ● Identifying, analysing and unqualitative environment on this earth. understanding the needs and This state of environmental conditions problems of personal life including in which the modern man lives can bring healthy vocation, etc., into existence unlimited ugly situations ● Social life at different levels, viz. and conditions, which can devour much family, caste, community, religion, of the potentials of creative and healthy town or village life, state and lives of the human society. country, and Environmental crisis or maladies are ● National life including civic, the foremost and the most persistently economic etc.1 challenging problems which are ready to To quote Sir Edmund Hillary, “It is devour the glories of human existence people who create a bad environment and are ready to wipe out the human and a bad environment brings out the civilisation from this earth. The present worst in people. Man and nature need century is witnessing such problems of each-other and by hurting one, we environment crisis which are nothing but wound the other. There is so much that the creation of a greedy human society needs to be done to halt the destruction which wants to exploit nature beyond of our world environment, so many any reasonable limit. Dominantly prejudices and so much self-interest to operative environmental maladies today be overcome”.2 are always active in informing man to There is a folk song by Ghanshyam think seriously and choose a way Shilani which starkly portrays the between creative and progressive conditions of forests- existence or be ready for annihilation. “Brothers and Sisters! Wake up, Efforts are being made to educate forest has been clean-shaved by the and to solve environmental problems. Government and the contractors, hug the Environmentalists have taken up an trees, don’t allow them to be cut, don’t environmental protection aspects in a allow the wealth of the hills to be serious way. It has taken a very strong plundered”.3 position after the United Nations Environmental Education is a way of Conference on Human Environment at implementing the goals of environmental Stockholm in 1972, which was a major protection. Environmental education is event for those concerned with the not a separate branch of science or quality of the world’s environment. One subject of study. It should be carried out of the recommendations of the according to principle of lifelong integral conference resulted in the creation of education”. A Study of Relationship between Environmental Awarencess... 61

The environmental education The rationality, sense of curiosity, conference at Tbilisi (USSR) in 1977 open mindedness, etc. seem to be identified its ultimate aim as “creating meaningfully related with awareness in awareness, behavioural attitudes and general and environmental awareness in values directed towards preserving the particular. It was, therefore, decided to biosphere, improving the quality of life study in-depth the nature and extent of everywhere as well on safeguarding environmental awareness among higher ethical values and cultural and natural secondary students and to determine heritage, including holy places, historical how it is affected by scientific attitudes. landmarks, works of arts, monuments and sites, human and natural Statement of the Problem environment, including fauna and flora The problem chosen for the study may and human settlements”.4 be stated as follows: National Environmental Awareness “A study of Relationship between Campaign (NEAC) 2000-2001, started in Environmental Awareness and Scientific 1986 for creating environmental Attitudes among Higher Secondary awareness at all levels of the society, was Students of Varanasi City”. continued during the year with the main Definition of the Terms Used theme as ‘Keep our Environment Clean Environmental Awareness and Green’.5 ‘The ministry (2000-2001) interacted Environmental awareness is the actively with the UGC, NCERT and the characteristic quality of man to Ministry of Human Resource understand and know the ins and outs Development (MHRD) for introducing and of working forces and conditions of the expanding environmental concept, environment. themes, issues etc., in the curriculam of Environmental awareness is schools and colleges’.6 indicative of one’s conscious state of The problem can be best tackled if being towards one’s own environment. In proper awareness and attitude towards the present study environmental environment is developed in man and awareness includes both factual society both. familiarity and personal variables as a Systematised, organised and composite whole. However, it has been awakened social mind can be developed defined operationally in the present only through right type of education and study as follows: it is through right type of education that Environmental awareness is an appropriate awareness can be created to attitude towards environment which make life and its environment creative, manifests itself in terms of the awareness constructive and progressive. To bring towards: such state of mind, fostering of scientific 1. Physical pollution attitude among individuals for the growth 2. Psychological pollution and the development of environmental 3. Social pollution awareness is essential. 4. Cultural pollution 62 Journal of Indian Education August 2007

Scientific Attitude modification in present social In the present study, scientific attitude economic and political conditions. has been operationally defined in terms F. Suspended Judgement of the following six components: 8 1. Unwilling to draw inference before A. Rationality evidence is collected. 1. Tendency to test traditional beliefs. 2. Unwilling to accept things and facts 2. Seeking for natural causes of events that are not supported by and identification for cause-effect convincing proof. relationship. 3. Avoidance of quick judgement and 3. Acceptance of criticism. conclusions. 4. Challenge of authority. Research Questions B. Curiosity The main research problem was to examine the relationship of 1. Desire for understanding new environmental awareness with scientific situations that are not explained by attitudes. The following were the main the existing body of knowledge. research questions which the study 2. Seeking to find out the “why”, “what” attempted to answer. and “how” of an observed phenomenon. (1) what is the nature and extent of 3. Giving emphasis on the questioning environmental awareness among approach for novel situations. higher secondary students? 4. Desire for completeness of (2) which factors contribute to the knowledge. development of environment awareness among higher C. Open-mindedness secondary students? 1. Willing to revise opinions and (3) what is the relationship between conclusions. the environmental awareness and 2. Desire for new things and ideas. scientific attitudes among higher 3. Rejection of singular and rigid secondary students? approach to people, things and Objectives of the Study ideas. The following were the main objectives D. Aversion to Superstitions of the study: 1. Rejection of superstitions beliefs. (1) to study the nature and extent of 2. Acceptance of scientific facts and environmental awareness among explanations. higher secondary students and factors affecting it. E. Objectivity (2) to study the relationship between 1. Observation free from personal environmental awareness and judgement. scientific attitudes among higher 2. Interpretation without making any secondary students. A Study of Relationship between Environmental Awarencess... 63

Hypothesis of the Study (ii) Scientific Attitude The following were the research In this study the scientific attitude is hypotheses of the study: measured with the help of Kriya

HR1: Demographic variables like age, Bhavichar Shailly Prashnawali – religion, sex, place of residence, family designed by Singh, P. N. (1988). status, parent’s occupation and parent’s income affect the environmental Relationship among Variables awareness of higher secondary students. At the initial level, the study was

HR2: The educational variables like concerned with the measurement of course of study, grade, parent’s level of variables, selection of sample and the education affect the environmental description of the sample. At the later awareness of higher secondary students. stage, the study was concentrated on

HR3: Environmental awareness has relationship between the independent relationship with scientific attitudes and dependent variables, i.e. scientific among higher secondary students. attitudes and environmental awareness respectively. Measurement of the Variables of the Study Population The independent variable of this study Population for this study consisted of is scientific attitudes of higher secondary science and arts students of higher students while dependent variable is secondary schools of Varanasi City environmental awareness. affiliated to U.P. Board. From review of related literature it Sample was evident that although a lot of work has been done on environmental In many research situations it is not awareness and scientific attitude feasible to involve or measure all separately, but the researcher could not members of the population under study. find any study which dealt with these two A sample is, therefore, selected and variables together. This study is an research is conducted only on those attempt to highlight the relationship members selected in the sample. A between environmental awareness and sample is defined as a representative scientific attitudes. part (or subset) of the population selected for the observation and analysis. On the (i) Environmental Awareness basis of characteristics of the sample, In this study the environmental inferences can be made about the awareness is measured with the help of characteristics of population in ‘Environmental Awareness Test’, general. designed and administered by the The researcher selected a simple researcher. Scores obtained on this test random sample from the population. This were taken as measure of awareness of type of sample is the best representative the higher secondary students towards of the population whose characteristics environment. are unknown. 64 Journal of Indian Education August 2007

The random sample consisted of After scoring, the scores were science and arts students of higher presented on two scoring sheets, one in secondary schools of Varanasi city respect of environmental awareness affiliated to U.P. Board. The sample of the scores and other for scientific attitude present study consisted of 360 science scores. and arts students of higher secondary F-test and t-test at 0.05 level of schools of Varanasi City. significance were applied to study the effect of various demographic and Statistical Treatment educational factors on environmental In addition to general descriptive awareness and the contribution of statistical analysis, other treatments scientific attitude in the development of such as F-test, t-test, correlation and environmental awareness among multiple regression analysis were used students at higher secondary stage is to realise the objectives of the study. The estimated through regression analysis. contribution of scientific attitude on environmental awareness was estimated Findings of the Study through regression analysis. The objective wise findings of the study (1) Environmental awareness test was are as follows- developed by the researcher himself Objective I to measure the environmental awareness among higher To study the nature and extent of secondary students of Varanasi city. environmental awareness among higher secondary students and factors affecting The final form of the test consisted of it. 62 summated rating scale type items. Each item has five response category viz. Hypothesis Tested strongly agree, agree, undecided, HR1: Demographic variables like age, disagree, strongly disagree. For religion, sex, place of residence, family favourable and unfavourable items 5, 4, status, parent’s occupation and parent’s 3, 2, 1 and 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 scores were given income affect the environmental respectively. awareness of higher secondary students. The reliability of the test was found HR2: The educational variables like to be 0.92 by split half method. The course of study, grade and parent’s level content, construct and intrinsic validity of education affect the environmental of the test were also established. awareness of higher secondary students. (2) Scientific attitude test developed by The mean was about 74.8% of the Singh, P.N. (1988) was used to maximum score possible in this test. It assess the development of scientific means that there is more concentration attitudes of higher secondary towards upper half of the test. school students. Split-half The mean scores of environmental reliability of this tool was found to awareness were found to vary among the be 0.85 and test-retest reliability sample according to some demographic was 0.54. and educational variables. A Study of Relationship between Environmental Awarencess... 65

The relevant statistical hypotheses awareness. The mean score of science were tested at 0.05 level of significance students is higher which shows that they according to age, religion, sex, place of have more environmental awareness. residence, family status, grade, course 2. There is no significant difference of study, parent’s level of education, between the environmental parent’s income and parent’s occupation. awareness scores of higher The findings related with hypotheses secondary students belonging to testing of the environmental awareness different parent’s income groups. are described below: The findings of the study are as 1. There is no significant difference follows: between the environmental From the table, it is evident that awareness scores of the science t-value is significant at 0.05 level of group and arts group of higher significance. Therefore, it may be said secondary students. The findings of that the above two groups do differ the study are as follows: significantly in their environmental From the table it is evident that awareness. The mean score of students t-value is significant at 0.05 level of whose parent’s income is in between significance. Therefore, it may be said ‘Rs. 2,000 to below Rs. 4,500’ is higher that Arts and Science students do differ which shows that they have more significantly in their environmental environmental awareness.

Course of N M S. D. t – value Level of Significance Study

Arts 180 226.09 28.75 3.86 0.05 Science 180 237.68 28.26

(i) Below Rs. 2,000/ Rs. 2,000 to below Rs. 4,500

Parent’s Income N M S. D. t- value Level of Significance

Below Rs. 2,000 102 221.49 33.03 2.61 0.05 Rs. 2,000 to Below Rs. 4,500 101 232.53 24.96

(ii) Below Rs. 2,000/ above Rs. 7,000

Parent’s Income N M S. D. t – value Level of Significance

Below Rs. 2,000 102 221.49 33.03 4.66 0.05 Above Rs. 7,000 91 241.37 26.48 66 Journal of Indian Education August 2007

From the table, it is evident that From the table, it is evident that t-value is significant at 0.05 level of t-value is significant at 0.05 level of significance. Therefore, it may be said significance. Therefore, it may be said that the above two groups do differ that the above two groups do differ significantly in their environmental significantly in their environmental awareness. The mean score of students awareness. The mean score of students whose parent’s income is in between having parents in government service is ‘above Rs. 7,000’ is higher which shows higher which shows that they have more that they have more environmental environmental awareness. awareness. Therefore, the null hypothesis that From the table, it is evident that course of study, parent’s income, t-value is significant at 0.05 level of parent’s occupation have no effect on significance. Therefore, it may be said environmental awareness of higher that the above two groups do differ secondary students, are rejected at 0.05 significantly in their environmental level of significance.

(iii) Rs. 2,000 to below Rs. 4,500/ above Rs. 7,000

Parent’s income N M S. D. t- value Level of Significance

Rs. 2,000 to Below Rs. 4,500 101 232.53 24.96 2.58 0.05 Above Rs. 7,000 91 241.37 26.48 awareness. The mean score of students Objective II whose parent’s income is in between To study the relationship between the ‘above Rs. 7,000’ is higher which shows environmental awareness and scientific that they have more environmental attitudes among higher secondary awareness. students. 3. There is no significant difference H : Environmental awareness has between the environmental R3 relationship with scientific attitudes awareness scores of higher among higher secondary students. secondary students having parents Environmental awareness and in government service and private different dimensions or areas of scientific service. The findings of the study are attitude were positively correlated and as follows:

Parent’s Occupation N M S. D. t- value Level of Significance

Government Service 190 238.33 25.89 4.57 0.05 Private Service 170 224.69 30.74 A Study of Relationship between Environmental Awarencess... 67 significant at 0.05 level of significance. dimensions of scientific attitude could be Coefficients of correlations between them studied with the regression equation in were found as: the form:

Environmental awareness/Aversion to Y = 156.6346 + 0.1759 X1 + 1.2481 X2 – 0.4641 superstition = 0.51582 X3 + 0.4851 X4 + 3.6171 X5 + 2.2324 X6 Environmental awareness/Suspended Where, judgement = 0.40380 Y = Predicted value of environmental Environmental awareness/Open-minded- awareness score. ness = 0.33653 X1 = Curiosity X4 = Rationality

Environmental awareness/Objectivity = X2 = Objectivity X5 = Aversion to 0.28972 superstition

Environmental awareness/Rationality = X3 = Open-mindedness X6 = Suspended 0.24175 judgement Environmental awareness/Curiosity = 0.12474 Discussion of the Results It was found that aversion to The findings of the study revealed that superstition, suspended judgement, 33.09 % of environmental awareness open-mindedness, objectivity, rationality may be attributed to the scientific and curiosity were significantly related attitude. Remaining portion of variance in sequence with environmental may be accounted for by other awareness. Hence, environmental variables. awareness has significant relationship Out of various educational variables, with aforesaid dimensions of scientific only course of study is significantly attitude of students. related with environmental awareness Further, multiple regression analysis and scientific attitude. Science group suggested six independent variables viz. students are more aware to their aversion to superstition, suspended environment as compared to arts group. judgement, open mindedness, This may be due to the fact that science objectivity, rationality and curiosity subjects are more objective, rational and combined in least square sense in the related to physical environment of the regression equation did in fact accounted surroundings as compared to arts for 33.09 % (R = 0.5753, R2 = 0.3309) of subjects. the predicted variable, i. e., Scientific attitude is a must for environmental awareness. It was enhancing environmental awareness significant at 0.05 level of significance. among the students. This fact has been Therefore, the null hypothesis that emphasised by the finding that scientific there is no relationship between the attitude is higher among the students environmental awareness and scientific who have offered science as a subjects attitudes among higher secondary in their studies. Thus, it becomes students is rejected at 0.05 level of imperative to include the elementary significance. study of science specially related to The relationship between environment, in the course of studies in environmental awareness and different the arts subjects. 68 Journal of Indian Education August 2007

Contributions of parent’s occupation Conclusions of the Study and income factors seem to be significant On the basis of the findings of this study, in the development of environmental it will be too ambitious to arrive at any awareness and scientific attitude as well, definite conclusion. The findings of the but the contribution of other demog- study are revealing and indicating raphic variables like age, religion, place towards some conclusions. Environ- of residence are insignificant. This mental awareness has positive naturally leads one to think that better relationship with different dimensions of the economic conditions of the family scientific attitude of higher secondary greater the environmental awareness students. This means that students with and scientific attitude. In other words, better scientific attitude are more aware poverty is detrimental to the towards environmental awareness and maintenance of healthy environment vice-versa. and development of scientific attitude. About 33.09 % of the environmental Thus, it appears that science awareness scores of the students may education, parent’s occupation and be accounted for by the scientific attitude income are significantly related in the scores of higher secondary students. development of environmental aware- It also indicates that higher ness. Poverty is a significant cause of secondary students of Varanasi city have environmental pollution and anti- developed a considerable amount of scientific outlooks. environmental awareness among About 33 % of the variance of themselves. Science students, students environmental awareness may be having parents belonging to high income accounted for the independent variables. group and students having parents in Scientific attitudes, viz. aversion to government service have developed more superstition, suspended judgement, environmental awareness as compared open-mindedness, objectivity, rationality to their counterparts in other groups. and curiosity are important in the prediction of environmental awareness Educational Implications of the of higher secondary students. The Study environmental awareness is positively On the basis of a single study it will be correlated with the scientific attitude of bold to suggest some educational the students. implications of the present study. In the last, it may be concluded that However, on the basis of the findings of science education, parent’s occupation the study a few educational implications and income, aversion to superstition, of the study may be indicated as follows: open-mindedness, suspended judge- ment, objectivity, rationality and (1) Educationist, educational adminis- curiosity are potent factors for developing trators, and teachers must environmental awareness among higher acquaint their pupil about pros and secondary school. cons of environmental pollution. A Study of Relationship between Environmental Awarencess... 69

(2) Formal system of education should (4) It would be more beneficial and also incorporate in its curriculum, effective if special programmes are some elements of environmental launched to develop environmental awareness programmes. This awareness among the students. should be a compulsory part of the This is possible only through curriculum. inclusion of special courses on (3) With the help of various mass media environmental education in the and modern means of schools. communication the concept of (5) Value-oriented education in the environmental and its protection light of environmental pollution and should be published and environmental awareness should be popularised viz. news paper, radio, provided. TV, film, etc.

REFERENCES

AMBASHT, R.S. 1990. Environmental and Pollution – An Ecological Approach, Student’s Friends and Co., Varanasi. First Edition, p-4. Annual Report 2000-01. Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India, New Delhi. pp. 149-150. Annual Report 2000-01. Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India, New Delhi. p-16. MISHRA, ANURAG. 1995. “Environmental Awareness” Research paper, Kashi Vidyapeeth, p. 3. REDDY, G. RAM. 1995. Higher Education in India – Conformity, Crisis and Innovation. Sterling Publication. p-104. ______1995. Higher Education in India – Conformity, Crisis and Innovation. Sterling Publication. p-102. SINGH, P.N. 1988. “Construction and Standardisation of Test of Scientific Attitude”. A Ph.D. Thesis, B.H.U., p.10. 70 Journal of Indian Education August 2007

Teachers’ Expectations from their University A Study in the Context of University of Lucknow

M. VARMA*, M.S. SODHA** and RASHMI SONI*** Abstract

Teachers’ Expectations from various dimensions of the University of Lucknow were studied by descriptive method and classified. Teachers were engaged in open conversational interview which was recorded and afterwards subjected to content analysis which yielded 27 categories of expectations which were further classified on the basis of similarities and dissimilarities into ten broad classes of expectations which have been discussed in this paper. Findings showed that the university teachers expected reforms in admission and examination system. Also, they suggested modifications in the methods of teaching, dealing with indiscipline and the present activities of associations of teachers, students and the employees. They expected upgradation of infrastructure and resources in the university especially in the areas of library, laboratory, hostel, teachers’ residences and facilities in the departments. Results indicated the expectations of university teachers’ to redefine the role of university in present global scenario and to review the role of vice chancellor, other officers of university, administration and duties of teachers. Several conflicting expectations were also obtained which have been discussed in the paper. The study of Teachers’ Expectations from university has indicated need of reforms in the university on which the policy-makers and the stakeholders should focus their attention. The paper has suggested that periodically the study of expectations from the university should be undertaken if the stakeholders desire to make the University of Lucknow capable and useful in the fast changing scenario of Higher education in India and abroad.

A University can obviously not fulfill its the universities to fulfill their destined role if it is not aware of definite role. Since the teachers are probably expectations of the society. This makes the most enlightened class of the a study of expectations of stakeholders stakeholders, and are essential of the University important for enabling ingredients in the functioning and

* Professor, Department of Education, University of Lucknow, U.P. ** Professor, Ex-Vice Chancellor, University of Lucknow, U.P. *** Lecturer, Mahila Vidyalaya P-G College, Lucknow, U.P. Teachers’ Expectations from their University 71 development of the University, it is constituencies focus on outcomes and appropriate to study their expectations. products. Both these studies have Such a study may provide insight for valuable implications for the research on guiding the university into future Universities in India. operation because Teachers are the key individuals associated with the Sample and Methodology development of the university not only The data for this exploratory study was as mentors of students but also as the collected from a group of 20 teachers of custodians of academia. This study the University of Lucknow. To make the presents a pilot investigation of the sample broad based, teachers belonging expectations of the teachers of university to different faculties and holding of Lucknow from their University. different offices were included in the Till now, in India, no systematic sample. There were 09 professors, 07 analysis has been done of the extent to Readers, and 04 lecturers of whom 3 were which the expectations of its internal Heads of the Departments, and 05 held members, for example, teachers have some office of the University and two been met. Even internationally, a little respondent teachers were the office work has been done in this crucial area. bearers of University’s teachers’ Expectations from the college System association. Teachers’ sample was has been studied by Blenda (1978) and drawn from 13 Departments belonging the obtained expectations have been to 03 faculties of the university. compared with the present achievements The objective was to explore the of the Virginia Community College expectations of academicians and System when it completed 10 years of life. teachers belonging to various university The study yielded prognosis for the disciplines and areas of administration. future of the college system as highly The respondents were contacted on positive changing community conditions, individual basis to find out their industrial sector and demography. Jones expectations from the University of (2002) conducted research on the Lucknow. The respondent-centred, open, Perceptions of University image of East free and unstructured conversation was Tennessee State University. The preferred for collection of data to tap universities themselves keep on the original ideas of the respondents. surveying the perceptions of their image Whole proceedings of the conversation held by the stakeholders. The focused were tape recorded for subsequent groups of select members of the internal content analysis through which the academy and the external communities conversations were converted into audio were interviewed to examine the extent and written transcripts, which were of congruency between and within two qualitatively studied with the help of constituencies. Results showed that in inductive content analysis technique. congruencies existed between external This led to the distilling out of the major and internal stakeholders concerning ideas of each respondent pertaining to their emphasis on University image. The the expectations. When these individual academy focuses on process and external expectations were thoroughly and 72 Journal of Indian Education August 2007 inductively studied and compared develop social imagination in all its together, 27 major categories of teachers’ constituents, i.e. teachers and its expectations from University of Lucknow students. University education should emerged, which were regrouped on the develop skill of analysis, skill of seeking basis of similarities and differences. truth beyond immediate, and to dream The juxtaposition, comparison, of things which seem impossible right regrouping and synthesis of 27 now. University, the soul of the society, categories of expectations led to 10 broad should be a place for lot of self-critical classes of expectations. While growth and not just a technocratic synthesising the divergent expectations, managerial model of trying to create every care was taken to safeguard the people who will fit into the group and originality of the idea expressed by the deliver the goods. Liberation of mind is respondents. The act of synthesis of the goal of the university. expectations only attempted to bring Social Function of University of similar ideas together and to link them Lucknow with each other to make a text using simple conjunctives. This was done as Expected Social outcome of the University reliably as possible and the original intent of the respondents was The main objectives of the University maintained. should be the creation of knowledge, students’ character building and Results training of manpower. Universities are The findings of the present study have not only organs of change but also an been stated in terms of the modifications organ for developing the attitude of and reforms suggested by the society and the citizens for a better respondents. Area-wise expectations of future. University should take up the the teachers, which have been challenge of bringing desirable social synthesised into 10 broad classes, as change. University should take up follows, have been discussed in this extension and awareness programmes so section. that the public at large can be served. University needs to interact with public Idea of the University as well as with industry. University The University should be a place for should provide leadership to the society. learning, largely connected with the rest The major social outcome of the of the world, helping itself in a more university should be to maintain the concentrated way to think cohesively, culture. Social implications of research coherently, imaginatively and creatively need to be explored. and then contributing to the society back University–community interaction and forth by helping everybody to reap the benefits. University should also help It is the social responsibility of University people to think critically in the sense to address the needs of the community about issues that concern them. So and to improve the quality of life of its university’s prime purpose must be to people. The students can be used to Teachers’ Expectations from their University 73 survey and enlist the problems of the and disinclined students. University community and should be mobilised to should provide for the counselling of the work for them. There should be some aspiring entrants to various classes and forum for University-community faculties. interaction. Students from every Examination department should be involved in some kind of compulsory social service and Conduct of examinations need to be extension services. Parents should be decentralised and the departments equally involved in the affairs of the need to be entrusted to conduct the University. examinations for the courses and programmes they run. The departments Employment Generation should adopt a scientific and objective It was opined by some respondents that way to evaluate the abilities and skills of Higher Education should not be made a their students. Printing of question pre-requisite for jobs. Other respondents papers should be done in proper manner emphasised that the students should be and effort should be made for their safe so educated that they definitely get a and secure upkeep. Printing should be placement in the society and is given economic; question papers should look recognition. Companies should be attractive and crisp. They should be well invited by the university to give campus edited and moderated. For this, the placements to the students. U-G and P-G, University should have its own printing courses need to be developed according press and elated infrastructure. to the requirements of the job market. Appointment of examiners should be Others felt that University should gear done according to the declared policy of itself to the advancement of knowledge the University and the whole system has and not just for the production of to be very transparent and fair. The employment. Generation of jobs university authorities should hold should be the concern of vocational meetings twice a year to have proper institutions. patterns of examinations, which should be changed as per the requirement. The Admission pattern could be like 100 to 60 questions To avoid undue wastage of money and in 3 hrs. It could be a speed-cum-power manpower, the whole admission process test. Some subjective questions should of the University should be completed also be there to judge the knowledge, within one month. It should be planned skills, language, expression and artistic one year before. University should be and creative skills. objective in admitting the students and Some respondents advocated for a should not yield to political pressures. well-controlled and properly Interview should be introduced administered centralised evaluation somewhere in the admission process. In system. University administration should order to maintain the quality of ensure secrecy, security and efficiency education, some mechanism should be in the central evaluation of the answer involved for filtering out the disinterested scripts. Whole process should be strictly 74 Journal of Indian Education August 2007 monitored and all infrastructures-cum- if possible also with, national libraries of academic support should be available to India as well as great libraries abroad. the examiners involved in central There must be electronic sharing and evaluation. Students’ evaluation by the pooling of documents so that duplication teachers who teach them should be can be avoided. The old book issues encouraged and the answer scripts of the should be preserved in a separate store. first three merit holders should be placed The whole library should be in the library where anybody can see computerised. New journals and them. There should be a good discussion e-journals should be subscribed in the of the teachers with students after the libraries. There must be an information declaration of examination results. bureau in the library to help students get all information regarding study and Infrastructure facilities employment at home and abroad. Library University should have centrally subscribed journals, which will not only Library should be well decorated, reduce the cost of research but also will comfortable and supplied with the entire contribute in updating the research and infrastructure required for academic the researchers. The library should be work and study. Libraries should be the divided into three components – arts, centres for exchange of knowledge science and commerce at separate between scholars. The university servers. Departments should be departments should transfer some part encouraged to participate in the library of their funds to the library. Books for management system. The personnel and particular subjects for various courses staff in the library should be should be there in the departmental professionally trained and be more library in enough number and variety. cooperative. There is a need for The departmental library should fulfill counselling of the library personnel to the local demands of teachers and help them develop positive attitude students. The general and reference towards academics. Overall reading books, research literature, educational culture needs to be developed in teachers journals should be there in the central and students. library. All the departmental libraries should be networked together through Hostel local area network and ultimately they should be linked to the central library of There is a need to increase the number the University. A significant part of the of hostels in proportion to the students. funds generated from the self-financing In order to restore and maintain courses needs to be siphoned out for the academic environment in the hostels, development and upgradation of the library facility, with more recreative university libraries. Central library literature and books should be arranged should also have networking with the in the hostels. Proper nutritious food libraries of the constituent and should be provided to the students in the associated colleges of the University and hostel mess. Students should get things Teachers’ Expectations from their University 75 at subsidised rates. Every hostel room should keep pace with the technological should have a computer and Internet advancements of the nation. While connectivity. Fees submission, mark expanding the buildings or constructing sheets, degrees all these facilities should new ones the aesthetics should be kept be available in the hostel itself so that in mind. The infrastructure can be the students do not have to run and divided into three parts – as per the waste time. Some outdoor and indoor requirements of U-G, P-G and research activities should be there to make the students. There should be proper youths more active and energetic. enlistment of all the instruments in To avoid any misuse of hostels by various laboratories and it should be unwanted elements and students available to everyone. disinclined in studies, rooms should be Sports facility needs to be attended allotted at the very day of admission on to. Minimum infrastructure should be the basis of merit-cum-requirement. ascertained for each department, for Within a week after the examination, example, Lecture hall, conference rooms, hostlers should vacate the hostels. etc. There is a need for local and wide Proper and professional management of area computer networking in the the hostels will decrease half of the crime university. Hostels, departments, and violence in the campus. It should be teachers’ residences, administrative made compulsory for the students to offices, library and canteen all should be complete hostel dues, before they are networked and connected with the server. given the degrees. There needs to be a drastic scrutiny of non- teaching employees because there Residential Facility is too much overstaffing. The procedure for allotment of teachers’ The university should keep pace with residences should be open, fair and just. the revolution in Information Technology. Priority needs to be given to the Publishing work of the university should improvement and maintenance of the be done through its own state of art residences. Quarters for Class IV modern technology based publishing employees should have at least house and press. All the departments, 2-bedroom facility. Lastly, every year one units and beneficiaries of the university flat should be built in the campus and need global networking, Information every month at least 2-3 houses should Technology, Internet, intranet, and be renovated and maintained. Every computers. residence should be provided with a Vice Chancellor garage facility. Every block of residences should have a small park for children, a A Vice Chancellor should be an library, canteen and a community room educationist and an academician, a for ladies and children. person with a vision and a mission to give a direction to the society. Vice Chancellor Other Infrastructure Facilities should be bold and an intellectual person As far as the infrastructure facilities and with good administrative qualities. He services are concerned, university must be a person who is dedicated and 76 Journal of Indian Education August 2007 committed, one who believes in the University’s records. Nature of his work philosophy of simple living and high is administrative not academic. thinking. He should be concerned with Registrar should be a person who can the welfare of university’s teachers, advise the Vice Chancellor regarding the students and employees and must make university’s traditions, culture, rules, them realise that he is working for their laws, etc. He should be a person who is benefit. permanent so that a sense of Vice Chancellor should be belongingness is developed. The respectable and work to create such respondents suggested that there should congenial environment, where all be scheduling of activities of the teachers and students can work freely university, elections should be reformed, and comfortably. He must appreciate students should be made more good work done by the teachers. accountable to organise certain Resource generation is also an important activities, networking of teaching and function of the Vice Chancellor and for non-teaching staff and accountability of that he must have new projects, plans teachers, heads, non-teaching staff to and programmes. In order that the Vice perform different activities. Chancellor can perform the above functions smoothly, it is important that Associated Colleges the society and politicians take the The University should play the role of appointment of the Vice Chancellor as a guide for its associated colleges and the most serious matter. The incumbents the two should work as one community. should be invited to make presentations The basic purpose of affiliation is that of their vision for the university the colleges are to be fed by the university concerned and his plans for the for all purposes not just for examination improvement of the university. or degree purposes. Some respondents held the view that in order to maintain Administration the quality of education, University Members from different walks of life should only run post-graduate and should be members of the governing body research programmes. The under- of the university. There should be proper graduate courses should be either given checks and balances in governance, to the colleges or any parallel university administration and accounting. in the city may be established to affiliate University administration is the area U-G. colleges. where people respect and appreciate Since the university has associated others and their growth. There should colleges in the city of Lucknow only, it be proper utilisation of resources and would be better to have some governing rules and University Act should be body empowered to check, supervise and followed strictly. monitor the standard of under-graduate Only the persons well-versed with the education in affiliated colleges. There University’s activities should be made the should be proper interaction and members of Executive Council. The exchange of ideas between university registrar is the custodian of the and college teachers. University should Teachers’ Expectations from their University 77 frequently run refresher courses and universities should not be made career enhancement programmes for accountable to a dictator but to a larger college teachers. The office of Director, community of people itself. The College Development Council (DCDC) university should guard against being should be strengthened. The university subservient to the total undemocratic should remain in touch with college political parties alone. State interference teachers through monthly meetings and should be less. The government should other academic programmes. avoid red tapism to deal with the university. The University should follow University Departments a clear-cut policy of financial autonomy. Respondents expected to have some Either the model of purely private system in the university for assessing its universities with high fees or the model departments on the basis of the of state funded university with moderate academic progress made by the teachers. fees should be adopted. In case of Every department must arrange at least University of Lucknow, there should be one seminar every month. Every year, more financial freedom along with each department should be encouraged accountability. Autonomy and financial to come out with some published work autonomy are interrelated. Autonomy in the form of book, monograph or report. will deliver better goods if the University Departments should have a guidance cell is able to generate more resources and not only to counsel their own students the students’ fees are decreased. but the school students also. Self-financing Courses Head of the Department should not be purely an administrative officer but Self-sufficiency should be the only goal he is a teacher, professor and behind running Self-financing courses academician first. The post of the Head in University of Lucknow. These should not be given merely on seniority programmes should not be taken as a basis, rather it should be work and milch cow. Self-financing courses are academic output based. Head of the important means to raise finances and Department should have a vision, thereby bringing financial autonomy if should be a person who has the liability funds generated are controlled and to carry on the department well. This managed judiciously for the general should be made a selection post as some benefit and development of the University Indian Universities are presently doing. by the Vice-Chancellor. Other alternative practices should also be employed to Autonomy generate funds. A part of funds In addition to the external autonomy, generated by self-financing courses autonomy within the university is also should be utilised in strengthening essential. The universities are also infrastructure of the university expected to set the limits and ethics of departments. For example, upgradation their own autonomy. What is required of laboratories, purchase of equipments is autonomy with accountability and required for high profile research, office transparency with social justice. The supplies and infrastructure like 78 Journal of Indian Education August 2007 computers, air conditioners, books, CD’s, drastic information explosion. Quality of etc. The university should also take steps work should be given more importance. to discontinue self-financing courses, Only then can the teachers work with which are unpopular, obsolete or motivation and commitment. Every useless. teacher must get his/her due timely without complaints. Teacher, Teaching and Research The university teacher should University Teacher maintain the dignity of his role. Teachers should set an example for students, The university should engage itself in an should maintain punctuality and should ongoing debate on what makes a good be capable of maintaining the decency university teacher. How he or she should and decorum of the class. He must be be different from a school/college able to creatively interact with people teacher or an industry executive? and exchange ideas. Selection procedures of teachers should Quality of Teaching and Teaching be rigorous. He/she may be included in Methods the faculty after a week or months observation after evaluation of his vision, The University and college teachers must academic credentials and his idea of the contribute to the Higher Education sector academic and examination reforms. The and all available information should be prospective teacher should be required conveyed to the students in a proper to make presentation of his vision for his manner. Along with the lecture method, discipline and the university along with there should be presentations, his academic work, pedagogy, and discussions, and interactions. There publications before the selection should be more classroom discussions. committee. The new topics should be linked with the Teachers should be updated and traditional topics. Some guest lecturers must have a broader vision. Orientation from abroad should be invited and and Refresher Programmes should be in- students must be given opportunity to built in the professional enculturation interact with them. Interactive and case and development of the teachers. The method of teaching and learning should teacher must share with the students be adopted. his new knowledge and exposure of the Application aspect of learning should world. Benefit of the presentations and be given more importance to make the lectures from outside experts should be students practical and to help them continuously extended to the University’s compete in the outside job market. There teachers. Seminars, conferences, should be long hours of reading, long workshops, such opportunities should be hours of stay and leaflets and handouts given to the teachers. The university should be given to the students. must be liberal in giving sponsorship to Students should be motivated to read the teachers to go abroad to attend journals and e-journals. Curiosity and workshops and conferences so that they inquisitiveness of students should be may update themselves in this age of reinforced. University by its nature is an Teachers’ Expectations from their University 79 academic place and the faculty must try autonomy is required to generate to strengthen this aspect because knowledge and research work. students will not be able to enter good Universities generally emphasise vocations or jobs until their academic fundamental research, applied and base is strong. Academic aspect should action research. Some longitudinal supersede the vocational education in studies solving institutional problems the university. need our attention. There is an absolute The IIM model of pedagogy should be need to conduct theme-based followed. The content should be researches. Possibility of open-ended transformed into cases and case studies researches must always remain. by the teacher and then presented in the University should arrange more funding class. This will make the subject for research. Published research work application-oriented. Prior to teaching, should constitute an important the teacher should give a list of component of teachers’ evaluation. recommended reading material as well Research is a part and parcel of the as pre-planned case studies and university and there should be quality handouts/ brief synopsis. Students research on new aspects. Teachers from should be recommended books at the end different faculties need to collaborate in of every topic. The teacher is responsible studies and researches of for developing the reading material if it interdisciplinary nature. is not available for any topic, chapter, paper or subject. Teacher should also Collaborations teach what is not available in the Interactions and collaborations are textbook. Internal motivation has to be important for the growth of University. aroused in the students. There should First the university must enter into inter- be more and more tutorials to ensure university and intra-university more interaction with teachers and the collaborations. Sciences and humanities overall development of the students. should collaborate more. Related Of the two functions, for example, disciplines like Sociology and social work teaching and research the University of should collaborate more. Longitudinal Lucknow should emphasise more on collaborations should also be done. teaching. Curricula need to be revised Most respondents expected inter- and updated. University should help to departmental collaborations. Collabora- provide opportunity for both students tions of university with different research and teachers to enrich from global and professional institutes are essential. experiences and increased connectivity. University-college collaborations should also be attempted. Every department Research has a lot to learn from other departments Research is the most important function in the same as well as other universities. of the University. Research must Mutual exchange programmes should contribute to the growth and take place in the departments covered development of individual and body and by UGC’s Special Assistance Program- knowledge. It is believed that complete mes. Groups of the departments 80 Journal of Indian Education August 2007 may conduct Inter-departmental to be provided like parks, canteens, quizzes and cultural programmes and public libraries, etc. Development of a other pogrammes of inter-university good work culture in the University will nature. There should be more sharing contribute to a rich campus life. A culture and exchange of views and information. of teaching, research, academic freedom, congenial student-teacher relations New Courses and Departments need to be emphasised for a better The respondents expected the University campus life. There should be cultural of Lucknow to establish and run engagements outside the university for several new departments/centers/units, teachers and students to create positive for example, Department of culture, environment for teacher community. Department of Human Rights, Value Enhancement of infrastructure with a education, Gandhian studies, sense of aesthetics will also contribute Department of Fashion technology, and to a better campus life. Communication and Personality development cell. Students’ Welfare and Student- teacher Relationship Discipline Students’ Welfare Services The problem of indiscipline can be tackled by adhering to the admission An information bureau is must for policy-based on the sanctioned student students from where the students, strength and selectiveness and devising parents and teachers all can get methods to filter out the undeserving important information at one place. and disinclined students. Indiscipline Secondly, there should be an can be checked by encouraging the Occupational Information cell where the faculty to have rich and sufficient student can update himself with all the interaction with students through information regarding the vacancies in various co-curricular and tutorial the job market. There must be a activities and providing dynamic ‘Psychological and Career Counselling leadership to students. Students should Cell’ to help the students. Separate be motivated to develop reading habits. common room, browsing room with The university should be very particular computer and Internet facility, cafeteria in religiously ensuring that all the and gym for girls in the supervision of classes are arranged regularly. any senior lady professor should also be University should also find out the social provided in the university campus and and political roots of indiscipline and in women’s hostel. devise means and methods to cope with Student-teacher Relationship the situation. More interaction should be there Campus Life between students and teachers. Many For a good campus life students should problems of the University can be solved be made to believe that the campus is if student-teacher relationships are safe and secure. Basic amenities have desirably strengthened. Teachers should Teachers’ Expectations from their University 81 know their students’ interests, a check on the student leaders and if aspirations, strengths and weaknesses. any illegal behaviour found, they should The gap between the two has to be be disqualified. University students may reduced. The cooperation between the try to get acquainted with various two needs to be reinforced. Teachers political ideologies but they should enter should present themselves before the active politics only after completing their students with gravity and they should studies and after knowing the needs of take the students’ viewpoints seriously. the society. University should not be used as a political arena. Election of Political Aspect teachers and students should be free Politics and Political Interference in the from political interference and they Campus of the University should be based on the consideration of Being headquartered at the State capital interests of students and teachers. of a big north Indian State, the University Unions and Associations of Lucknow should guard itself from becoming playground for politicians and The unions and associations in the bureaucrats. For this the University university are independent democratic must not yield to the undue demands agencies and must work for the welfare and pressures of the politicians and their of its members, i.e. teachers, students interference in its routine affairs. The and employees. Their energies should be university should discover ways and channelised towards the betterment and means to use politics constructively and improvement of the system. Teachers at what levels students should get Union should be fairer and should be involved in politics. Therefore, in this sensitive towards teachers’ genuine context, there is a need for a sincere needs and must have a constructive and political thought and a proactive role of suggestive role to play. the University. Political awareness In order to stop political interference should be such which can make in the university the students’ students realise what is good and bad associations should not be allowed to for them. Students should be taught to become local offices of the political think about serving the society and parties and leaders. Student unions community, instead of getting entangled should be made more accountable by with some political party. some awakening sessions by the University students must be made teachers. There must also be a provision aware of good corporate life under the to induct in the student unions a few supervision of teachers who are hostel students who are good in studies. The provosts and those involved in students’ employees’ association should also be welfare activities. A legal system for made more accountable. A creative election of students union has to be suggestion was given by one respondent developed after a careful thought and that the university should have only one discussion of university administration association to safeguard the interests of with the civic authorities. There must be teachers, students and employees. This 82 Journal of Indian Education August 2007 will balance the antagonistic interests of to be the matter of concern of the the unions of teachers, students and respondents. employees. Neglected Areas Discussion No expectations were expressed on the Following generalisations, trends, gaps role of University of Lucknow in the and conflicting ideas were obtained from national economy and the development the study of the findings in terms of of economic values in the students. The teachers’ expectations from their function of the University to provide university. placements and training in Entrepreneurship has not been reflected. Trends in Teachers’ Expectations University education is also from University something beyond academics, not just Most of the respondents expressed meant to infuse bookish knowledge in the expectations from the University by minds of the students. It also has a role being highly critical of the poor to develop overall personality of the infrastructure of university of Lucknow students (Sodha, 2000; and Varma and in the areas like library, labs, hostels, Soni, 2005). The respondents did not residences and computerisation and properly address this expectation campus life and facilities. But they could Teachers have no doubt talked a lot not give concrete ideas as in what way about their expectations regarding the University should manage to meet different important aspects, such expectations. Most of the administration and authorities of expectations were routine type. The University of Lucknow, but no body as progressive and modern characteristic such tried to throw light on what were was missing in the expectations of the their expectations from themselves. What teachers from University of Lucknow. In was their vision about their own role and some areas like functions, curriculum, responsibility as a university teacher, examination, admission, research, role and what targets, aspirations and of teachers, Vice Chancellor and contributions they fixed for administration, no striking expectation themselves? was observed. Nobody gave any new and creative Most of the expectations appeared idea regarding the schemes, modus dominated mostly by the local operandi and the management of considerations. The respondents did not Orientation and refresher courses for import ideas from the great universities transforming the teachers of University and institutions of higher learning in into effective professionals. The India and abroad. This might be either responding teachers have not due to the limited exposure and highlighted the concrete steps the interaction of the responding teachers of University is expected to follow to make University of Lucknow or the issues the atmosphere more positive and full of relating to the university did not appear energy, which can infuse the students, Teachers’ Expectations from their University 83 teachers and other authorities with for professional courses or providing jobs motivation and power. or be market driven. It was also felt by Neither the respondents expressed some that there is an urgent need to dissatisfaction over the old and transform the University by restricting unrevised university curricula nor did the University to only PG studies and they suggest upgradation of courses and research. The undergraduate courses programmes in the light of recent should be totally confined to the affiliated changes and researches and explosion colleges. However, many of the teachers of knowledge triggered by the ICT conflicted on this view and said that the revolution. Also the expectations University being located in technically regarding innovative admission and educationally backward region procedure, which may ensure the intake should cater to students from all of willing and motivated students, were strata and must continue with not touched upon. Teachers also did not undergraduate, postgraduate and expect from University of Lucknow any research studies. wholesome examination reform; rather a Reflections from the disturbing and few respondents expected some indiscipline role of student leaders and patchwork reforms. their supporters who are disinterested students made some respondents feel Conflicting Expectations that the elections for the unions of Some conflicting ideas emerged in the teachers, students and employees views of the teachers regarding some should be totally banned in the campus aspects, for example, examination and whereas the others strongly rejected this evaluation system in University. It was view saying that these associations and felt by some teachers that semester unions are important for the welfare of system of examination would be good and the different groups and are necessary a continuous evaluation system should in a democratic setup. be followed. Some questioned the objectivity of this system. Another area Conclusion where the conflict in the views of the This study on a typical north Indian teachers came forward was that some residential University yielded twenty- preferred objective types of questions in seven categories divided into ten broad the examination but others were of the classes of teachers’ expectations from opinion that true knowledge can be University of Lucknow. Implications of judged only through subjective the results for the University’s questions. stakeholders are that the expectations Some teachers held the view that have created the need for refinements in there should be an employment and the University in the near future so that market orientation of the courses taught the University becomes capable in in the university. However, some others addressing to the positively changing believed that University is meant only for conditions of the community, academic and knowledge pursuit and not undercurrents of globalisation of 84 Journal of Indian Education August 2007 economy and technological revolution, University. The model developed for the changes in the State and industrial University of Lucknow may prove useful sector and changing characteristics and for other similar Indian Universities, with size of the population served by the some modifications.

REFERENCES

JONES, JANES MYERS. 2002. University Image: Perceptions held by internal and external stakeholders of East Tennessee State University. Dissertation Abstracts International, 62 (11), p 3710-A. SODHA, M.S. 2000. Education Plus. University News, 38 (20), pp 1-4. The University of Lucknow Act, 1920 The University of Lucknow First Statutes, 1977. The U.P. State Universities Act 1973. Eastern Book Company, Lucknow, p. 5 WOODARD, BLENDA ANN. 1978. An Analysis of the Expectations and Achievements of the Virginia Community College System after its First Decade of Operations 1966-67. Dissertation Abstracts International, 38 (9). p. 5291-A. VARMA, M. and M.S. SODHA. 2005. Audio Recordings of Open Conversations with Teachers of University of Lucknow. VARMA, M. and SODHA. 2005. Transcripts of Open Conversations with Teachers of University of Lucknow. VARMA, M. and RASHMI SONI. 2005. Higher Education beyond Academics, University News, 43 (44), pp 8-14. A Study of the Present Scenario of Early Childhood Education in Bhubaneswar 85

A Study of the Present Scenario of Early Childhood Education in Bhubaneswar

G.N. PRAKASH SRIVASTAVA* and RANJEATA S INGH** Abstract

The various policies and programmes of education place emphasis on Early Childhood Education (ECE). In this regard, NCERT has also come out with a ‘Minimum Specifications for Pre-schools’ to ensure that every school is equipped with the necessary requirements to cater to early childhood education. The present study covers ten ECE centres in Bhubaneshwar in its study to see if they meet these specifications of NCERT. The finding is hardly encouraging with most of the centres wanting in various aspects of the NCERT norms. There is an urgent need for the quantitative as well as qualitative improvement of these centres.

Introduction National Curriculum Framework (NCF, 2005) states that young children be The Early Childhood Education (ECE) provided care, opportunities and has received special attention in the experiences that lead to their all-round national education policies and development – physical, mental, social programmes especially after the adoption and emotional, and school readiness of National Policy for Children (1974). (NCERT, 2005). National Policy on The Integrated Child Development Education (MHRD, 1986) recommended Services (ICDS) scheme launched in a holistic approach for the development 1975 as a sequel to children’s policy is of the child. It also emphasised that the an important milestone in the growth of introduction of 3 R’s and formal methods ECE in the country. It got further of teaching and learning ought to be impetus with the adoption of the discouraged at this stage (prior to National Policy on Education (1986), 6 years. of age) and the entire ECE which viewed it as a crucial input in the programme should be organised around strategy of human resource development, play and child’s individuality. as a feeder and support programme for The NCF (2005) observes ‘‘the early primary education. Consequently the childhood stage, until the age of 6-8 years

* Head, Department of Education, (NCERT) Regional Institute of Education, Bhopal 462 013. **Professor (Education), RIE, Bhubaneswar. A Study of the Present Scenario of Early Childhood Education in Bhubaneswar 87 and Central Welfare Board took steps The Study to open pre-school centres in the name Keeping in view the above observations of Balwadis and Anganwadis. The a study was conducted in 2005-06 to find number of these institutions are out the present status of ECE in increasing day-by-day. Three Balwadi Bhubaneswar entitled “A Study on the Training Centres at Bhubaneswar, Present Status of Early Childhood Baripada and Koraput have also been Education (ECE) in Bhubaneswar” opened for pre-service and in-service which encompasses the physical training of teachers. Most of the Balwadi facilities including out-door and in-door and Anganwadi centres have been equipments content and methodology, established in rural, tribal and slum teachers’ qualification, language skill areas. At these centres, children get free development, cognitive skill develop- education and are supplied with play ment, creative and expressive art (music materials and Mid-day Meals. and dance, drama and dramatic plays), In urban areas, English medium Pre- physical education including hygiene, school Centres are predominant though health care and nutrition and provisions they charge high fee, particularly for for social and emotional development at running such centers as they do not get ECE centres. any financial assistance from the The present study was an attempt Government or any other agency. Among to put forward the prevailing conditions these Nursery and K.G. schools, convent of ECE centres in Bhubaneswar in schools, Steward Schools, D.A.V. accordance with ‘Minimum Specifica- Schools, Institutes of Integral Education tions for Pre-schools set by NCERT are quite prominent in Bhubaneswar. (1996), list of activities designed to assist Apart from English medium they also the development of child as a whole with impart instruction in Hindi and Oriya. reference to the ‘Early Childhood They provide ample facilities for Education Curriculum’ (NCERT,1996) emotional, intellectual and aesthetic and to know about the teachers basic development of children through knowledge of child development. curricular and co-curricular activities. Indian Association of Pre-School The Objectives Education have opened a Model Oriya 1. To study the physical facilities Medium Pre-School Centre in prevailing at ECE centres of Bhubaneswar. Some other organisations Bhubaneswar. like REACH are also working to provide 2. To find out the minimum Pre-School Education to Tribal and qualification of teachers in these Rural Children in Oriya medium. It is a centres. good sign that many institutions and 3. To study the equipments and persons are now showing interest to materials used at these ECE open pre-school centres. International centres. organisations are also coming forward to 4. To study the content and assist for the cause of Pre-school methodology adopted by these ECE Education in the State. centres. A Study of the Present Scenario of Early Childhood Education in Bhubaneswar 89 done for each item of interview schedule Table 1: Availability of Equipment for and observation schedule. For the Out-door play questionnaire a descriptive analysis was done. Equipments No. of ECE Available centres Major Findings Flying disc 3 ● 20% of ECE centres currently Ball 8 running in Bhubaneswar fulfill the Skipping 1 NCERT norms, i.e. the catchment Cycle 2 area of ECE centres without Rope Ladder 1 transport facility is ½ to 1 kms. and Slide 3 with transport facility is 1 to 8 kms. Sand pit 2 ● As precautionary measures, 90% of Water Play 1 ECE centres have school boundary. Bat 2 ● In 40% of ECE centres the Clay 1 classroom area for 30 children is Ring Ball 2 more than 35 sq.mts. The norm set See-Saw 1 by NCERT is 35 sq.mts. for a class Swing 1 of 30 children. Thus, out of 10 ECE centres only 4 ones fulfilled the ● As in-door equipments, 50% of norm. ECE centers provided building ● All ECE centres have toilet, 70 % of blocks to children. Other materials centres have veranda and only 10% available at these centers were as have food storage and cooking per Table 2 given below. facility in addition to classrooms. Table 2: Equipment for In-door play ● 80% of ECE centres display children’s work on classroom walls Equipment No. of ECE at children’s level. Available centres ● Though 60% of centres provide Sand 1 aquaguard facility but mostly Paper 3 children use their own water bottle. Colour 1 ● All the ECE centres have Indian Beads 2 type toilet with regular water supply Clay 3 and 80% of them provide soap and Water 1 towel as sanitary facility to children. Building Block 5 ● Only 20% of ECE centres have out- Toys 1 door play area of 300 to 450 sqr.mts. Puzzles 3 ● For outdoor play, 80% of ECE Card Boards 1 centres provide ball to children Picture with broken pieces 1 whereas other play materials are Seriation 1 hardly found as shown in Table 1 Matching 1 given here. A Study of the Present Scenario of Early Childhood Education in Bhubaneswar 91

Content and Methodology ● Though the medium of instruction in all the institutions was English The content and methodology was found but Hindi, Oriya and Bengali were child-centred and process-oriented. also used in different institutions. Activities like rhymes, action and asking questions to individual child were done in all the 10 ECE centres. In 9 Table 6: Daily Activities for Physical institutions activities like singing, and Mental Development dancing and drawing were done; in 8 Activities No.of institutions activities like paper folding Institutions was performed; 5 institutions gave emphasis on mini sports; in 4 Mass P.T. 1 institutions children were asked to tell Yoga 2 and narrate stories; 2 centres provided Puzzle 1 Jumping 1 opportunity for clay modelling; and Drilling 3 teachers had free talk with children in Questioning 2 2 institutions. Most of the ECE centres Running 1 conducted activities organised at these Playing 3 centres. Dancing 1 Preparation of Craft-work 1 Table 5: Child-centred and Process- Simple exercise 2 oriented Activities Problem-solving activity 1 Aerobic 1 Activities No.of Institutions Meditation 1 G.K. 1 Paper folding 8 Singing 9 Story-telling by students 4 According to NCERT specification the Dancing 9 activities for physical and mental Clay Modelling 2 development of children should be as per Asking questions 10 their age and developmental stage. In Free talk 2 the study it was not found so, and Conducting Debate 1 activities were performed as per Table 6. Drawing 9 Fancy Dress 1 Activities for Parent-teacher Contact Mini Sports 5 Computer Games 1 It was found that out 10 ECE Centres 8 Narration 2 institutions conducted parent-teacher Mono-acting 1 meeting; 4 institutions used to have Rhyme with Action 10 formal talk with parents, in 3 institutions teachers used to maintain ● 80% of ECE centres, conducted student diary, in 2 institutions parent-teacher meeting to discuss counselling session was organised for about the child’s progress in the parents and in other 2 institutions class. parents were contacted through phone A Study of the Present Scenario of Early Childhood Education in Bhubaneswar 93 songs and rhymes; in 1 institution Table 9 students were taught about different Activities related to develop No. of ways of greeting their elders and friends; eye-hand-coordination Institutions and in 2 institutions simple reading was followed. However, no importance was Training 2 given to role play activity at any of the Writing 2 ECE centre. Colouring/drawing 9 Reading Skill Development Thumb/Vegetable printing 2 Puzzle solving 1 Table 8 shows the strategies used for developing reading skills of kids: Finding odd man out - Making association 1 Table 8 Block Building 2 Strategies No. of Joining of dots 1 Institutions Paper tearing/folding 2 Picture Reading 6 Stringing the beads 2 Sorting/Matching/Pairing 1 Catching balls 1 What is wrong - Letter Recognition 8 other activities as mentioned in Table 9 Developing Association - related to eye-hand-coordination were adopted in other ECE Centres. According to ECE curriculum, Development of Cognitive Skills activities to be done in class for developing reading skill in children such Simple comparison, copying different as picture reading, sorting, matching, shapes, pair formation, identifying pairing of objects, finding what is wrong, things, puzzle solving, explanation by letter recognition and development of teachers, chart/model showing were associating abilities by providing various used at these ECE centres, 30% of ECE objects. centres only gave, importance to explanation by teachers and simple Development of Writing Skills comparison of objects. Teacher’s Table 9 shows various activities responses were that for promoting performed at ECE centres to develop cognitive skills. Activities like playing eye-hand-coordination in kids. through educational aids, memory According to NCERT, ECE games, putting questions through curriculum activities like tracing and stories, playing the game odd-man-out, simple writing were emphasised only in puzzles, block building, manipulation two institutions. The coordination of materials, nature-talk and walk between eye and hand through tracing and explaining by showing some and simple writing lead to the materials, etc. were used at these development of writing skill. Various centres. A Study of the Present Scenario of Early Childhood Education in Bhubaneswar 95

Table 10 played alongwith children, in another 2 schools dance practice was given, Activities No.of Institutions whereas in 1 school children were Painting 6 assisted by the teacher in various games. Print making 3 ECE specification (NCERT….) suggested Tracing 1 that teachers in ECE centres should try to involve themselves more and more in Moulding 3 classroom activities, which may enhance Craft 3 muscle coordination in children. Group work 2 Building Blocks 2 Other Findings ● Story-telling, Role play, Puppet show, Fancy Dress Competition and For the development of creative drama were used for expression of thinking ability in children ECE children’s feeling into action. In curriculum gives importance to any type order to allow students express their of activity which involves application of feeling without teaching different student’s brain. The above mentioned actions, single symbols were used. practices were going on in 1 to 6 centres ● For imparting new information to whereas rest 4 institutions were not children free talk, CDs, story-telling, doing anything for this. Play-way-method, Presenting Music and Dance Picture and charts, drawing, tape- recorder Field trip, New Paper Songs/rhymes, imitating songs, playing Reading and Book Reading by the on musical instruments, presentation of teacher were used. recorded music and dance were practiced ● Physical Development Programme in 7 to 10 institutions. It was useful for was taken-up through Yoga, the development of coordination between Laughing, Dancing, Playing rhymes. thinking and action. According to ECE ● Health, Hygiene, Care and Nutrition specification coordination between Programme was done through toilet thinking and expressing that in action training, uniform checking, nail can be well-developed by providing checking, hair checking, shoes practice in dance and music to children. checking and training for good manners, developing the habit of Development of Muscle Coordination using handkerchief/napkins, In this reference, in 1 school teacher inviting doctor at the centre for participated in developing children’s health checkup and developing the muscle coordination by encouraging habit of brushing the nutritional children to play, in 7 schools simple problems in children and exercises were demonstrated to children, instruction on food habits and in 1 school annual sports day was advising parents. conducted, in 4 schools drill practice was ● Social and emotional development used, in 2 schools the teacher herself related activities included training A Study of the Present Scenario of Early Childhood Education in Bhubaneswar 97

MOHITE, P. 1990. Review of Researches in Early Childhood Care and Education : A Trend Report. M.S. University of Baroda. Fifth Survey of Educational Research, Vol. II. MURTHY, V. 1992. An investigation into the scholastic readiness of pre-school children, University of Bombay. Fifth Survey of Educational Research, Vol. II. NCERT. 1996. Minimum specifications for Pre-Schools. NCERT, New Delhi. ______1996. Prarambhik Bal Shiksha Karyakram. NCERT, New Delhi. ______1992. Prarambhik Bal Shiksha : Prashikcharthi Pustika. NCERT, New Delhi. PATTANAIK. A. 1991. Effects of Pre-school Education on Cognitive Development of Primary School Children. Utkal University. Fifth Survey of Educational Research, Vol. II. ROBINSON, H.F. 1977. Exploring Teaching in Early Childhood Education. Allyn and Bacon, Inc., New York. SETH, K. and K. AHUJA. 1992. Minimum Specifications for Pre-schools. National Council of Educational Research and Training. Fifth Survey of Educational Research, Vol. II. SHUKLA, R.P. 2003. Early Childhood Care and Education. Sarup and Sons, Ansari Road, Darya Gunj, New Delhi. SOOD, N. 1992. Pre-school Education in the ICDS : An appraisal. New Delhi : National Institute of Public Cooperation and Child Development. Fifth Survey of Educational Research, Vol. II. SPODEK, B. 1982. Handbook of Research in Early Childhood Education. The Free Press, A Division of Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., New York. SRIVASTAVA, S. 1992. A short-term longitudinal study of the impact of exposure to the science-oriented educational toys on the concept and language development of the pre-school children. Indian Council for Child Welfare, Madras. Fifth Survey of Educational Research. Vol. II. YASODHARA, P. 1991. Attitudes of parents and teachers towards various aspects of pre-school education. Psychology. Utkal University of Educational Research, Vol. II. 98 Journal of Indian Education August 2007

Participation of Scheduled Castes Children at the Primary Stage in India

RAJESH T AILOR*, SANDEEP KUMAR S HARMA** and RITESH T AILOR***

Abstract

This paper discusses the participation of Scheduled Castes children at primary stage of school education in India according to Seventh All India School Education Survey (7th AISES). Among Scheduled Castes children, girls participation is specially focused. Present status has been compared with past data to know the improvement in their participation and it is statistically analysed. This paper will provide the base for the assessment of the development of educational status of Scheduled Castes children at primary stage of education after Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) as the commencement year of SSA programme and year of information collection under Seventh All India School Education Survey is same.

Introduction India (Kambley (1982), pp. 31). Many great Indians like Mahatma Gandhi, Education is the key factor for the social Mahatma Fuley and Dr. Bhim Rao development. It plays very important role Ambedkar worked for the welfare of SC in making social status and social and they have given enormous mobility. But a large section our contribution to bring them in main- population could not get opportunity to stream of the society. After be a part of educated society due to Independence, lots of efforts have been various reasons. The section of made by the Government of India and scheduled castes is one of them. The State governments to improve their social expression Scheduled Castes was first and economic status. Article 46 of the coined by the Simon Commission and Constitution states that, “The State shall embodied in the Government of India Act promote, with special care, the education of 1935. While these castes were listed and economic interests of the weaker systematically in the 1931 Census of sections of the people, and, in particular

* Lecturer in Statistics, DES&DP, NCERT, New Delhi. ** Research Associate, DES&DP, NCERT, New Delhi. *** Assistant Professor of Statistics, Lokmanya Tilak Mahavidyalaya, Ujjain, M.P. Participation of Scheduled Castes Children at the Primary Stage in India 99 of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled occupations such as scavenging, Tribes, and shall protect them from flaying and tanning to be made social injustice and all forms of social applicable from Class I onwards. exploitation”. Articles 330, 332, 335, 338 All children of such families, to 342 and the entire Fifth and Sixth regardless of incomes, will be Schedules of the Constitution deal with covered by this scheme and time- special provisions for implementation of bound programmes targetted on the objectives set forth in Article 46 (GOI, them will be undertaken. 2005,v). These provisions need to be fully ● Constant micro-planning and utilised for the benefit of these weaker verification to ensure that the sections in our society. Despite all these enrolment, retention and success- efforts it needs some more attention and ful completion of courses by SC efforts to bring them completely in the students do not fall at any stage, main-stream. and provision of remedial courses This paper is an effort to present to improve their prospects for status of participation of Scheduled further education and employment. Castes children at primary stage with ● Recruitment of teachers from consideration of schemes for the Scheduled Castes; development of their education. For this ● Provision of facilities for SC purpose the data of the Seventh All India students in students’ hostels at School Education Survey (7th AISES) district headquarters, according to (Reference Date: September 30, 2002) a phased programme; have been taken. To know the ● Location of school building, development in last decade, the data of Balwadies and Adult Educations the Sixth All India Education Survey centres in such a way as to (Reference Date: September 30, 1993) are facilitate full participation of the considered. Scheduled Castes; ● The utilisation of Jawahar Rozgar Programme of Action (PoA), 1992 Yojana resources so as to make National Policy on Education, 1986 was substantial educational facilities modified in 1992 and a new Programme available to Scheduled Castes; and of Action (PoA, 1992) was prepared. As ● Constant innovation in finding new per PoA, 1992, following are the major methods to increase the initiatives to be taken for the educational participation of the Scheduled development of Scheduled Castes. Castes in the educational process. (GOI, 1992: 11-12) Special Provisions made by the ● Incentives to indigent families to Government send their children to school regularly till they reach the age of After independence, the Government of 14; India has taken a number of steps to ● Pre-metric Scholarship scheme for develop education level of SCs/ STs. children of families engaged in National Policy on Education (1986) and 100 Journal of Indian Education August 2007 it’s modification in 1992 have also stated Availability of Educational Facility measures to be taken as priority. In at the Primary Stage in Habitations pursuant of NPE 1986 and the According to the Seventh All India School Programme of Action (1992), Government Education Survey, there are 12,09,521 of India has incorporated some special rural habitations with a population of provisions in the existing scheme (GOI, 77,72,17,623. Out of total, 6,23,498 2006-07). These are: (51.55%) habitations are served by primary ● Relaxed norms for opening of stage within the habitation, which cater primary /middle schools; a primary 78.17% of the rural population of the school within 1 km walking distance country. As regards habitations served from habitations of population up within a distance of one kilometer, it is to 200 instead of habitations of up observed that 10,35,764 (85.63%) to 300 population. habitations covering 94.17% population ● Abolition of tuition fee in all States of the rural area, are served. in Government schools at least up There are 1,74,700 habitations to the upper primary level. In fact, predominantly populated by the most of the States have abolished Scheduled Castes. Of these, 42.50% tuition fees for SC/ST students up habitations, covering 68.05% of the to the senior secondary level. population living in these habitations, ● Free textbooks, uniforms, have education facility at primary stage stationery, schools bags, etc. within the habitation and 86.07% ● The Constitutional (86th Amend- habitations, covering 92.84% of the ment) Bill, notified on 13 December population living in the habitations 2002, provides for free and predominantly populated by Scheduled compulsory elementary education Castes, have the facility within one as a Fundamental Right, for all kilometer. children in the age group of 6-14 If the availability of primary years. education facility in the habitations ● In addition to aforementioned predominantly populated by Scheduled steps, many other Programmes like Castes is analysed in different population Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), slabs, it observed that out of 22,739 District Primary Education habitations with population below 500, Programme (DPEP), Janshala, only 26.18% are served within the Mahila Samakhya (MS), National habitation and 81.71% habitations are Programme for Education of Girls at having access to primary education Elementary level (NPEGEL), within a distance of one kilometer. This Shiksha Karmi Project (SKP), etc. indicates that 18% habitations do not were launched by the government. have the facility of primary education All these programmes gave special within a distance of kilometer. It has been attention to education of Scheduled found that more than 95% habitations Caste children. with population slabs 1000-1999, Participation of Scheduled Castes Children at the Primary Stage in India 101

2000-4999 and 5000 and above are According to the 6th All India served within one kilometer. Table 1 Educational Survey (1999), 1,90,35,297 presents primary stage education facility scheduled castes children were enrolled in habitations predominantly populated which was 19.62% of the total enrolment. by Scheduled Castes in different This has gone up to 21.07% in the 7th population slabs. AISES i.e. share of SC children has increased by 1.45% in comparison to the Enrolment of Scheduled Castes th Children at Primary Stage 6 Survey. Girls enrolment percentage in scheduled castes children was At primary stage 12,29,15,301 children 41.66% in the 6th survey which has gone are enrolled, out of which 46.82% are up to 46.69%. Hence, in comparison to girls and 53.18% are boys. There is a the 6th Survey, SC girls enrolment difference of 6.36% in the enrolment of percentage has increased by 5.03%. girls and boys at national level. Rural and SC girls enrolment percentage has urban areas have 46.73% and 47.10% increased by 6.06% and 1.38% in girls enrolment respectively. Enrolment rural and urban areas respectively. of scheduled castes children at primary Table 2 compares the enrolment of stage is 2,59,03,832, which constitutes scheduled castes children in the 6th and 21.07 percentage of the total enrolment. 7th surveys. Percentage of scheduled castes children From Table 2 it is observed that SC against total enrolment of rural area is girls percentage has increased 22.42 where as this percentage in urban significantly in rural, urban and overall area is 16.87, which show that in rural areas. In comparison to the 6th survey area SC has bigger share as compared to the urban area. In rural area, total the enrolment of scheduled castes th enrolment of scheduled castes children children has gone up by 36.08 in the 7 is 2,08,74,716. In this enrolment, 46.53 survey. In rural and urban areas this per cent are girls and 53.47 per cent growth has been 40.14% and 21.49% boys. It shows that SC girls enrolment respectively. percentage is almost same as overall girls Picture 1 depicts the increase of SC percentage. This is an achievement of children enrolment percentage in total the efforts made by central government, enrolment rural, urban and overall areas state governments and various non- in the 7th Survey as compared to the 6th government organisations working for Survey. It is to be noted that there is gain the education of the scheduled castes of only 0.01% in urban area. This picture children. In urban area, 50,29,116 shows a gain of 1.87% in rural area and scheduled castes children are enrolled 1.45% is overall. Picture 2 depicts the in which 47.35% are girls and 52.65% trend of share of scheduled castes boys. It is observed that in urban area children. From this picture it is clear that girls percentage of SC children is little in the Fourth Survey (1978), SC bit higher than overall girls percentage percentage was only 14.73, which has in urban area. Over all girls enrolment reached up to 21.07% in the Seventh percentage of SC is 46.69. Survey (2002). 102 Journal of Indian Education August 2007

Perce ntage of Scheduled Cas tes Children in Tre nd of Share of Sche duled Castes Children Total En ro lm e nt at Prim ary Stag e in Total Enrolment at Primary Stage 25 22.42 21.07 25.00 20.55 19.62 21.07 20 20.00 16 .86 16.87 17.12 19.62 15 15.00 14.73 10 10.00 Percentage SC PercentageSC 5.00 5 0.00 0 Fourth Fif th Sixt h Seventh Rur al Urb an Total Survey Su rv ey Survey Survey Area (1978) (1986) (1993) (2002) 6th Survey Surveys 7th Survey Series1

Picture 1 Picture 2

Managementwise Position Participation of Scheduled castes children in Different States In Primary schools, total enrolment is 8,09,00,653 out of which 47.38% are girls Table 4 shows statewise position of SC and 52.62% boys. In total enrolment, population percentage, SC enrolment 53.55% are enrolled in government percentage and percentage of girls in SC schools, 30.69% in local body schools, enrolment at primary stage in rural, 5.75% in private aided schools and urban and overall areas in India. 10.01% in private unaided schools. It is It is observed that Punjab has observed that out of total enrolment of maximum SC population percentage scheduled castes children in primary 28.85 where as Lakshdweep, Nagaland schools, 56.51% are in government and A & N Islands have minimum zero schools, 31.99 % in local body schools, per cent. National SC population 4.73% in private aided schools and percentage is 16.20. Twenty-two States/ 6.77% in private unaided schools. It is Union Territories are below this national also clear from Table 3 that in rural, figure whereas 12 states/union urban and overall area the maximum territories are above it. Karnataka is percentage of enrolment of SC children equal to national figure. Punjab has is in government schools. In Table 3 maximum percentage of SC enrolment, managementwise distribution of which is 48.09% and A & N Islands scheduled castes children enrolled in minimum zero per cent. Out of total primary schools is given. enrolment at primary stage, national Participation of Scheduled Castes Children at the Primary Stage in India 103

SC enrolment percentage is 21.07. There primary stage within a distance of are 28 States/Union Territories below one kilometer. this figure and only 7 States/Union ● Around 19% of all habitations Territories above it. In rural and urban which are predominantly populated areas national SC girls percentage are by Scheduled Castes with 46.53 and 47.35 respectively. In rural population slab below 500 are still area, Lakshdweep has maximum SC girls unserved within a distance of one percentage which is 100 and minimum kilometer. zero in A & N Islands. There are 23 ● In the period of 24 years (1978- States/Union Territories have SC girls 2002), that is the period between percentage above the national fourth survey and seventh survey, percentage in rural area and remaining there has been a remarkable 12 States/Union Territories below it. In improvement in participation of SC urban area, maximum SC girls children at primary stage as their percentage is 54.57 of Sikkim and share in total enrolment has gone minimum zero per cent of Lakshdweep up to 21.07 from 14.73. and A & N Islands. Nineteen States/ ● The percentage of SC girls in rural Union Territories are above the national and urban area is almost same as percentage of SC girls whereas sixteen overall percentage of girls in States/Union Territories are below the respective areas. national percentage. Considering the ● During the intervening period overall area, the national percentage of between 6th survey and 7th survey, SC girls is 46.69, which is approximately the increase of 36.08% in the equal to that of rural area. In rural area, enrolment of SC children has been twenty-three States/Union Territories recorded which tells success story are above the national percentage of SC of the different schemes/ girls and twelve States/Union Territories programmes launched for the are below it. development of education of scheduled castes children. Conclusions ● Some States namely, Bihar ● More than 95% of all habitations (38.80%), Jharkhand (41.63%) and predominantly populated by Rajasthan (44.42%) have SC girls Scheduled Castes with population percentage below 45% in rural area. slabs 1000–1999, 2000–4999 and So, these states need special efforts 5000 and above are served by to bring SC girls to school.

REFERENCES

KAMBLEY, N.D. 1982. The Scheduled Castes. Ashish Publishing House. New Delhi. Government of India. 1992. National Policy on Education-1986 (With modifications undertaken in 1992). Department of Education, Ministry of Human Resource Development, New Delhi. 104 Journal of Indian Education August 2007

Government of India. 2007. Annual Report (2004-2005). Department of School Education and Literacy and Department of Higher Education. Ministry of Human Resource Development, New Delhi. ______2005. Educational Development of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. Department of Secondary and Higher Education, Ministry of Human Resource Development, New Delhi. NCERT. 1999. Sixth All India Educational Survey – Main Report. Department of Educational Surveys and Data Processing. NCERT, New Delhi. ______2007. Seventh All India School Education Survey – Schooling Facilities in Rural Area. NCERT, New Delhi. ______2007. Seventh All India School Education Survey – Enrolment in Schools. NCERT, New Delhi. Participation of Scheduled Castes Children at the Primary Stage in India 105 174700 64068787 87408680 2699695 9632717 11844220 94152716 Below Below Total 1311206 8653193 979524 10533014 5892452 2578566 121129 Population Slabs 2832 4215 10405 6158 16563 24333 Item Item 500– 300– 100– 5056 14830 24013 15061 12781 1897 14678 74244 5389 17123 34424 30044 46003 16750 62753 150367 5482 17744 37256 34259 56408 22908 79316 241323 787968 1869005 1575747 1879821 331682 2211503 6744036 14973290 23602498 25799421 13075729 13891157 19931918 17028192 14731967 22814530 23930416 11499982 5000 2000– 1000– 4857558 above 4999 1999 999 499 299 100 300 BC 4625373 D 94.25 95.22 92.23B 92.77 83.58C 4799068 84.45D 64.45 98.60 66.00 43.96 98.80 98.30B 45.06 22.66 98.39 96.50C 24.48 8.28 96.66 58490 D 92.40 9.24 18.51 1.40 92.76 87.70 22.79 1.20 42.50 87.95 1.70 81.55 68.05 1.61 82.15 73.12 3.50 74.70 79.12 3.34 81.33 86.07 7.60 92.84 7.24 12.30 12.05 18.45 17.85 26.88 25.30 20.88 18.67 13.93 7.16 Item 1234567891011 A- Number of Habitations; B Total population; C- Percentage Habitations served. D-` Percentage of Population served Distance Category 1 km. Table 1: Primary Stage Education Facility in Habitation Predominantly Populated by Scheduled Castes Habitations Total Population Note: Within Habitation A 606 Within a Distance of A 634 More Than 1 Km. ATotal No. of 9 93 621 643 106 Journal of Indian Education August 2007

Table 2: Comparison of Scheduled Castes Enrolment in the 6th and 7th Surveys

Area 6th Survey 7th Survey Growth in Girls Total Girls Girls Total Girls Girls % % Percentage

Rural 60,27,912 1,48,95,737 40.47 97,12,770 2,08,74,716 46.53 6.06 Urban 19,02,761 41,39,560 45.97 23,81,061 50,29,116 47.35 1.38 Total 79,30,673 1,90,35,297 41.66 1,20,93,831 2,59,03,832 46.69 5.03

Table 3: Management wise Percentage of Children Enrolled in Primary Schools

Management Rural Urban Total All SC All SC All SC

Government 59.13 60.03 28.33 36.92 53.55 56.51 Local Body 31.70 32.69 26.13 28.10 30.69 31.99 Private Aided 3.33 2.98 16.66 14.48 5.75 4.73 Private Unaided 5.83 4.30 28.89 20.49 10.01 6.77 Participation of Scheduled Castes Children at the Primary Stage in India 107

Table 4: Statewise SC Population Percentage, Enrolment Percentage and Girls Enrolment Percentage at Primary Stage

SC Population SC Enrolment SC Girls Percentage Sl. State/Uts Population in Percentage in No. Total Population Total Enrolment Rural Urban Total

1 Andhra Pradesh 16.19 19.93 49.18 49.34 49.21 2 Arunachal Pradesh 0.56 1.05 46.07 39.95 44.56 3 Assam 6.85 10.6 47.48 47.96 47.56 4 Bihar 15.72 17.09 38.35 45.9 38.8 5 Chhattisgarh 11.61 14.69 47.83 48.79 48.01 6 Goa 1.77 2.52 50.06 46.74 47.77 7 Gujarat 7.09 8.14 47.01 49.46 46.79 8 Haryana 19.35 26.51 46.52 49.37 47.01 9 Himachal Pradesh 24.72 29.21 48.70 46.72 48.59 10 Jammu & Kashmir 7.59 9.16 46.09 45.87 46.05 11 Jharkhand 11.84 13.41 40.68 47.11 41.63 12 Karnataka 16.2 19.99 48.36 48.20 48.32 13 Kerala 9.81 10.35 48.27 49.43 48.49 14 Madhya Pradesh 15.17 18.37 46.02 46.84 46.24 15 Maharashtra 10.2 14.44 48.33 48.20 48.19 16 Manipur 2.77 3.28 45.46 49.83 47.99 17 Meghalaya 0.48 1.85 48.03 54.52 51.27 18 Mizoram 0.03 0.65 34.78 46.06 45.76 19 Nagaland 0.00 2.78 45.87 46.14 46.05 20 Orissa 16.53 20.4 47.17 48.29 47.28 21 Punjab 28.85 48.09 47.61 49.21 47.9 22 Rajasthan 17.16 20.34 44.10 45.72 44.42 23 Sikkim 5.02 7.13 49.90 54.57 50.18 24 Tamil Nadu 19.00 25.54 48.65 48.41 48.56 25 Tripura 17.37 19.47 48.72 48.3 48.65 26 Uttar Pradesh 21.15 30.69 46.57 45.05 46.38 27 Uttarakhand 17.87 25.04 49.23 47.97 49.02 28 West Bengal 23.02 28.42 48.51 48.94 48.56 29 A &N Islands 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 30 Chandigarh 17.5 17.2 44.4 47.13 46.56 31 D & N Haveli 1.86 1.96 47.7 47.75 47.72 32 Daman & Diu 3.06 3.95 50.68 46.84 48.6 33 Delhi 16.92 13.28 48.07 45.11 45.32 34 Lakshdweep 0.00 0.03 100.00 0.00 50.00 35 Pondicherry 16.19 18.2 48.43 49.4 48.84 INDIA 16.20 21.07 46.53 47.35 46.69 108 Journal of Indian Education August 2007

Strengthening the role of State in School Education vis-à-vis the Private Initiative

PH. NEWTON SINGH* Abstract

The paper pleads for a strong and a more pro-active role of the State in view of the growth of the private schools especially in primary education sector. Most of the private schools, as many of the findings confirm, mostly cater education for the children of the wealthy families. In a developing country like India where illiteracy rate and also the never-enrolled rate is relatively high, giving a free hand to private players to deliver a primary public good like education will not portend well for the country. Moreover, fulfillment of the much desired objective of universal elementary education would remain a distant dream if the state withdraws itself from its responsibility and allows the government school system to deteriorate further till it dies a silent death.

A recent instance of a child being denied school system today has become more of admission in one of the ‘elite public an agency of social and class schools’ in Delhi despite meeting the reproduction than the transmitters of required percentage of mark has exposed knowledge and values. Cultural capital, the myths associated with these schools. comparable to economic capital, is The only reason that deprives the child transmitted by inheritance and invested her otherwise deserved admission is her in order to be cultivated. And through poor family and social background, the new type of private schools emerging, which the school administration thinks the existing social and class divide tend does not meet the eligibility criteria set to perpetuate further, creating a new for these schools. There are such similar form of cultural capital exclusively for a instances happening in these so-called few section of the population. This elite public schools. It is in fact reproduction of social and class divide paradoxical with the term ‘public’ when is less a result of direct reproduction these schools are in fact serving only a based on inherited wealth and incomes, few section of the society. In fact, private and has more to do with the mediated

*Research Scholar, 001 Extn. Brahmaputra Hostel, JNU, New Delhi. Strengthening the role of State in School Education vis-à-vis the Private Initiative 109 patterns, for example, access to well-paid What if the government remains a silent employment. This would be true if we see spectator while at the same time allowing the portrayal of private schools as its own system to wither? What are the markers of excellence or merit and also consequences on the issue of equity if the alleged higher market value of the the private schools overhaul the persons with private schools background. government school system and what Private schools have now almost should be the response from the state? reached a proportion we can no longer The subsequent sections of the study afford to ignore. They have grown up so would seek to understand some of these rapidly to become a kind of substitute for, issues pertaining to private schools vis- rather than supplement to government à-vis government schools. schools. This could be attributed to many factors among which the deteriorating Tracing the Genesis of Private condition of the government schooling Phenomenon system and parental demand of a Children’s education in the beginning differentiated kind of education are was a matter of family, the kinship group important. However, the promotion and or the local community. In several expansion of private sector may further countries, education became a task for accentuate existing social divisions and religious institutions, and during the reduce commitment towards quality nineteenth century only, the State made improvement in government schools. education a public responsibility. Further, what is significant as Vimala Education was until then private in the Ramachnadran (2004) argues is that, sense that it did not belong to the State; the growth of new private schools ‘is it was decentralised and national giving rise to a new trends of hierarchies curricula were very rare (Mallison, 1980). of access, whereby paradoxically, the The private initiatives in education democratisation of access to schools in India could be traced in the ancient seems to be accompanied by a child’s and medieval period in various forms caste, community and gender in defining such as the Ashram schools, Gurukuls, which school she or he attends’. Andre Pathsalas and Madrasas which catered Beteille also argues that the “family education to small section of the society. among middle class and upper middle In ancient India, almost all schooling was class Indians is changing its orientation conducted by religious bodies or by away from lineage, sub-caste and caste tutors employed on an individual basis to schools, college and office they attend by families with sufficient means. In fact to’*. the view that government has responsible Furthermore, the private for education of their citizens has been phenomenon in school education has widely held only since the 19th century also posed serious questions on the policy in Europe and since the early 20th implications on the part of the State. century in most other parts of the world

* Quoted in Anne Waldrop, The meaning of the Old School-Tie: Private Schools, Admission Procedures and Class Segmentation in New Delhi, pp.203-27. 110 Journal of Indian Education August 2007

(Bray, 1998). Before that we had religious to mention that some of the schools are institutions directly engaging in the established and even registered under sphere of education. This is in the the commercial establishment and shops process of secularisation that religious act (Panchamukhi, 1989). Even among control over education and educational the private schools there is a broad institutions was challenged and the classification of private schools as private state became a public provider of aided and non-aided or self-financing education. schools. The present study shall primary However, the modern fee-paying focus on the private unaided schools private schools in India owe their origin which are either formally recognised to to the Wood’s Dispatch of 1854 (Tilak, transact educational business or not 1990) which made elaborate provisions necessarily recognised. for grants-in-aid to private schools. It is pertinent here to mention that Under the provisions of the Dispatch, the Constitution of India allows educational institutions were allowed to establishment of private schools run privately for profit. By this provision irrespective of whether they are or are for grants-in-aid for the private schools not recognised and aided by the State was not only able to reduce financial (Anuradha De, 2002). Article 30 of the burden on the public treasury, but also Indian Constitution also clearly could introduce elitist character into the mentions the Right of Minorities to educational system providing education establish and administer educational of the kind the upper classes desired for institutions. Private schools thus, have their off-springs, without a large a legal and constitutional sanction to expenditure by the government. This is establish and operate in India. in fact a reflection of a capitalist ideology However, the major concern is the where the role of the state is greatly pace of the growth of the private schools reduced. The present system of private which if not checked could overthrow the school unfortunately, is a continuation government schools. Placing such a of this system. large stake as education on private Defining private schools is also a sectors cannot be a good proposition. painstaking exercise. There are various Moreover, in a country like India where types of schools under the nomenclature the dropout rate and the never-enrolled of private. The private schools are not a students is still high, the State has also homogenous lot. There are different types to play a more pro-active role. It is in this of private schools in the country but are context that the Constitution 93rd generally clubbed together and are Amendment, 1992 has placed a stronger labeled as private schools. The private view of the State by making elementary sector includes actors with varying education a Fundamental Right by motivations, resources and the ranges inserting Article 21 (A) stating that, the extend from voluntary organisations, State ‘shall provide free and compulsory missionary schools and schools founded education to all children of the age of 6 on philanthropic venture to clearly to 14 years in such as the State may by commercials set ups. It is important here law determine’. Strengthening the role of State in School Education vis-à-vis the Private Initiative 111

Making elementary education a to the children of higher income strata fundamental right by this amendment and generally the elite class in the has reinforced the role of the State in society. It is also found that private achieving the goal of free, universal schools are concentrated mostly in the elementary education as envisaged in the urban areas. However, their spread has Directive Principles of State Policy. The now even penetrated in the rural areas increasing responsibility entrusted by also. Gender bias is also witnessed the Act on the one hand and the though less pronounced, taking into increasing growth of private schools on consideration the income level of the the other, pose a question on the role and families. For example, parents unable to the credibility of both the State and the afford sending both their children to private actors. private schools will prefer their male ward to be sent to the private school. If Understanding Private Schools: A these assumptions of the private school Sociological Perspective hold true, and as some of the findings Education, like health is primarily a even show and if they remain an public good. The public good ethos is exclusive domain of a few children of the linked to socio-democratic ideals of affluent families, then it will do more opportunities and access for many. Since harm than good in education and the fundamental assumption that achievement of universal elementary education would help erode the socially education will remain an illusion. inherited structural inequities and Anuradha De et at. (2002) findings provide opportunities for social on the percentage distribution of the advancement through equity of access primary and upper primary students and opportunity, it would continue to be from two polar groups in 1993 reveal two regarded as public good (Levin, 1987). different worlds of education if we take And in a country like India where into consideration two extreme cases of majority of the population is below rural, female SC/ST students of India poverty line and belong to the lower and urban, male forward caste students income strata and also where of the same country. Only about 2 per educational achievement compares still cent in the primary and 5 per cent in low with other developed countries of the the upper primary students of the former world, education should not be limited category are taught in the private by financial considerations. unaided schools. And the evidence that While analysing private schools in private school enrolment is biased education, it would be appropriate to towards males is more straightforward. take into account the available evidence Dreze and Gazder (1996) in their about locational distribution, social study in Uttar Pradesh also reveal that reach by looking into the class and social school attendance in private schools is composition of these schools to assess ‘significantly male dominated as parents the nature of clients of private schools. are more willing to pay for male children’. The general assumption is that the This could be attributed to parents’ more private schools cater education mostly willingness to permit a male child to 112 Journal of Indian Education August 2007 travel the location where private schools Are Private Schools Really Better are established. Implicit in it is that these than the Government Schools? private schools are located far from the A true comparison between private rural areas. Tilak and Sudarshan (2000) schools and the government schools is study also reports similar findings. While crucial. In terms of infrastructure, examining the trend in private enrolment teaching methods, pupils’ achievement they report that nearly a half of the and teacher competence, the private growth in enrolment in urban areas and schools are better than the government a sixth of the growth in rural areas of schools. Many of the studies report the India were accounted for by the private same. However, the PROBE Data differs unaided schools between 1986 and 1993. in terms of teacher competency. It says They also find biases favouring urban, that teaching skills for primary level male and non-scheduled caste and children were not superior to those found tribes. What explains these biases then? among the government school teachers. The higher cost of sending children to However, these perceived advantages private schools and in-affordability of the of private schools in education may be parents could be one. The private attributed to many factors. The parents institutions, according to Tilak (1990) and students’ cultural capital very much practice exclusiveness through charging influence the client composition of the high tuition fees and alarmingly large private schools. There are differences capitation fees or donations and through between the students when they enroll selection of children on the basis of in private and government schools intellectual aptitude defined by the respectively. Those students opting for parental and familial background. private schools have higher motivation Another factor that explains the and more cultural capital and privileged locational bias could be the parents choose these schools over the concentration of more affluent parents government schools. The client in urban than the rural areas and hence homogeneity of the private schools, its the larger concentration of these schools consideration for profit which ensures in these areas. managerial efficiency and the element of Based on their findings, they monopoly rent which its products enjoy conclude that private schools may due to its small share in the market are aggravate the already existing the major factors which put private inequalities along lines of gender and schools above the government schools in caste. Looking at the considerable biases their comparison (Varghese, 1993). in the clientele of private schools, However, Tilak (1990) gives a Anuradha De et al. also conclude that scathing critique of the private schools, ‘private schools are more for boys, for terming the so-called of excellence of the upper caste, and for urban areas than private schools as myth. He argues that government schools, and also attending the quality of private schools is not these schools has become a mark of necessarily superior. Not only are private social privilege’. schools inferior in quality, they also Strengthening the role of State in School Education vis-à-vis the Private Initiative 113 contribute to the decline in the quality dominating feature in education, it could of public institutions and thus to the lead to decay of educational standards deterioration on the overall quality of besides class conflict in the country education. He sees profit as sole motive (Ruhela, 1993). In this context the State behind the mushrooming private has to renew its legitimacy as public schools. This is the result why they grow authority in education. The existing more in cosmopolitan urban areas than government schools need to be improved the rural areas, ‘to satisfy the needs of and new curriculum introduced so as to the gullible parents’. And some of the counter the private schools. The schools state governments support their need to be equipped with proper expansion as long as they serve the infrastructures and learning materials. vested interest. This, he thinks would And most importantly, there should jeopardise the objective of equal emerge a proper mechanism to regulate opportunities for education and the the existing private schools. Until now, overall effect would be to convert state has not been doing much to education into a force for reinforcing the regulate these schools and many of them existing stratification of the society. spring up in many states even without the government’s knowledge. Renewing State’s Legitimacy The absence of regulation has also The new legislation after the 93rd facilitated the growth of these schools, Amendment making elementary creating a dual system of education with education a Fundamental Right has the government schools deteriorating imposed a strong obligation on the state further. Therefore, giving private players to play a pro-active in providing a free hand especially in areas of public education. It is also true that with the good like education will not be a healthy increased demand of education, the state development. The case of Himachal cannot be the sole provider of education Pradesh’s success story in transforming in India. There are both theoretical and a mass illiteracy to near universal practical limitations. Taking into primary education almost entirely with account the limitations of the state, the the government schools with relatively Tenth Five-Year Plan also suggests a little contribution from private synergetic partnership between the institutions during a short time could be private and the government sectors in replicated in other states. achieving universal elementary Moreover, unless the effectiveness of education. the government school system improves, However, the recent surge in the there are little prospects of growth of private schools especially as a universalisation of elementary education result of the falling quality of the in India by 2010 as promised in the government schools seems to have Constitution of India. The experience of changed the equation between the the now industrialised countries government and the private schools. If demonstrates that while private sector the private schools become an alternative could play supportive role, it is the state to government schools and become a which plays a more dominant role. The 114 Journal of Indian Education August 2007

Indian state will need to be much more Education Programmes (DPEP) schools pro-active in reforming the public school that the presence of a good quality system. At the same time, the quality of government school, which functions schooling in the private sector could regularly, can indeed surmount many improve of the state were to take a more obstacles of the prevalent social and pro-active regulatory role. The Kothari economic barriers to schooling. As Commission (1964-66) also stated that Vimala Ramachandran (2004) rightly ‘the growing educational needs of a says ‘special strategies are also necessary modernising society can only be met by to reach out elementary education to the the State and it would be a mistake to people who not only belong to the most show any over-dependence on private deprived sub-groups of scheduled castes enterprises which is basically and tribes but are also the people with uncertain’. This concern also finds almost no voice in the society’. This can echoed in the overwhelming message be fulfilled only when there is a strong emanating from the District Primary state, supplemented by the private players.

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