1. Education As Tritya Ratna

JOURNAL OF INDIAN EDUCATION Volume XXXV Number 2 August 2009 CONTENTS Editor’s Note 3 Education as Tritya Ratna Towards Phule-Ambekarite Feminist Pedagogical Practice 5 SHARMILA REGE Participation and Consequences of Education of 37 Scheduled Castes in Andhra Pradesh P. ADINARAYANA REDDY and E. MAHADEVA REDDY Teaching of Social Science 52 A Situated Cognition Perspective SANDEEP KUMAR Translating Social Constructivism into 64 English Language Teaching Some Experiences A.K. PALIWAL Curriculum Implementation in Rural Schools 71 Issues and Challenges SHANTOSH SHARMA Acquisition of Concept of Conservation of Length in 83 Elementary School Children through Piagetian Teaching Model REENA AGARWAL Helping to Learn Science 97 A.B. SAXENA Resilience in Promotion of Schools as Learning Organisations 104 Reflections on Karnataka Experience RASHMI DIWAN Examination and Assessment Principles 114 Integrating Assessment with Teaching-Learning Processes RAVI P. BHATIA Evaluation of Inclusive Education Practices in 125 Sarva Siksha Abhiyan (SSA) Primary Schools AMITAV MISHRA and GIRIJESH KUMAR Some Problems of Human Rights Education 139 SHANKAR SHARAN Book Review 150 Growing Up as a Woman Writer by JASBIR JAIN REVIEWED BY KIRTI KAPUR EDITOR’S NOTE Ever since India got Independence, the search for quality in school education has been on the agenda of policy-makers and authorities at all levels. Institutions like NCERT, SCERTs and DIETs have been continuously making efforts for that. The NCERT has been engaged for years in curriculum designing and development process for school education along with various stakeholders including policy-makers. The Journal of Indian Education in this issue highlights various aspects pertaining to the curriculum implementation and also different approaches of teaching and learning in rural and urban areas. ‘Children are the pillars of the Nation’ is a common phrase but in order to fulfil this slogan we need to build a constructive approach. Sharmila Rage in her article ‘Education as Tritya Ratna: Towards Phule-Ambedkarite Feminist Pedagogical Practice’ emphasised for the needs of equality based education irrespective of which caste he/she belongs. Her article also profoundly provokes the readers regarding the prevalent issues of gender bias in education and the relationship between teachers and students. Next in this series, an article by P. Adinarayana Reddy and E. Mahadeva Reddy ‘Participation and Consequences of Education of Scheduled Castes in Andhra Pradesh’ brings out the progress in terms of enrolment in the school and their participation amongst scheduled caste. The study also finds out that parents do realise the usefulness of education. Once students enrol and start their study in schools, the issue of learning and understanding stands before us. In this regard, Sandeep Kumar highlights how the knowledge and understanding of children develop. His article ‘Teaching of Social Studies : A situated Cognition Perspective’ demonstrates various methods of teaching and learning. Further, A.K. Paliwal in his article ‘Translating Constructivism into English Language Teaching: Some Experience’ discusses how constructivist approach leads children towards better learning of language. Efforts to design new curriculum, syllabus and textbooks to improve teaching-learning process and address diverse groups of students are continued in many countries including India. An article by Santosh Sharma, ‘Curriculum Implementation in Rural Schools : Issues and Challenges’ authentically pointed out the loopholes in the implementation of curriculum in rural areas. For effective implementation, she emphasises the need for number of interacting factors which can influence each other. The study conducted by Reena Agarwal on ‘Acquisition of Concept of Conservation of Length in Elementary School Children through Piagetian Teaching’ reveals on the designing and development of appropriate teaching-learning strategy for children. She uses Piaget’s work where explanations are based on the process of assimilation and accommodation. Each subject has its own pedagogy. Teachers need to realise this fact. In this regard A.B Saxena’s article ‘Helping Learn Science’ briefly explains pedagogy of science for teachers and teacher-educators. ‘Resilience in Promoting of Schools as Learning Organisations : Reflections on Karnataka Experience’ by Rashmi Diwan is an article that provides an idea about the learning experiences and the activities that can be carried out within the curriculum. She also emphasised the need for the educational institutions to be free from the bureaucratic framework. People who are concerned with the education of country’s children feel that unless Assessment and Examination system will change education reform will not take place smoothly. Taking up this very aspect of school education Ravi P. Bhatia in his article ‘Examination and Assessment Principles — Integrating Assessment with Teaching-Learning Processes’ reminds us the need to go beyond the traditional examination system based on assessing the student’s performances. India is a country with an extraordinary complex cultural diversity which requires a curricular vision which promotes flexibility, contextual and plurality. The attempt to improve the quality of education will succeed only if it goes hand in hand with steps to promote equality and social justice. Amitav Mishra’s and Girijesh Kumar’s article takes an analytical look at the progress towards Indian education system. Their case study shows us how the school children got benefitted from the government-sponsored educational schemes like Sarva Siksha Abhiyan. Democratising education is fundamental to addressing the diversity in optimistic way. Wherever issue of diversity emerges, it joins with the issue of Human Rights. Shankar Sharan in his article ‘Some Problems of Human Rights Education’ explores some of the Human Rights issue in Indian educational system. Finally, the issue of Journal of Indian Education concludes with a review essay by Kirti Kapur entitled ‘Women who Write’ in which she has highlighted the potential of women in literatures which many of the developing countries including India normally ignore. We believe that this issue will enlighten our readers to critically re-examine education system, and also motivate them to contribute their ideas in the endeavour of educational reform in India. Academic Editor Education as Tritya Ratna Towards Phule-Ambedkarite Feminist Pedagogical Practice* SHARMILA REGE** Abstract It is now well-accepted that colonial knowledges in India were structured on binaries that distinguished India from the West, Orient from the Occident, thus homogenising the Indian experience into a Hindu brahmanical one. The nationalists too, imagined alternate knowledges within these binaries, reversing them to claim over the West, a civilisational superiority located in the Vedas. This normalisation of knowledge as Hindu and brahmanical structured by both the colonial and nationalist binaries had/has implications for curricular and pedagogical practices in our classrooms. In this lecture, with an apology to the innumerable modern day Shambhukas and Eklavyas, and to students reduced to cases of suicides on campuses, I shall map some of the hidden injuries caused by the violence of these pedagogical practices. In the last decade and more, there has been a welcome change in the gender, caste and class composition of students. But this, as we know, is happening in a context constituted by the conflicting demands of discourses of democratic acceptance of social difference, conservative imposition of canonical common culture and of marketisation of higher education. Invoking Phule-Ambedkarite feminist perspectives which envision education as Tritya Ratna and are driven by the utopia of ‘Educate, Organise, and Agitate’, I seek to dialogue with fellow teachers on the different axes of power in our classrooms; more specifically to explore modes through which inequalities of caste are reproduced in metropolitan universities and classrooms. How may we as teachers and co-learners address questions of pedagogy and authority, pedagogy and transformation by throwing back the gaze of the ‘invisible’ and ‘unteachable’ students in our classrooms on our pedagogical practices? * This is the written text of a lecture delivered during Savitribai Phule Second Memorial Lecture Series at SNDT Women’s University, Marine Lines, Mumbai on 29 January 2009, published by NCERT. ** Sharmila Rege is the Director, Krantijyoti Savitribai Phule Women’s Studies Centre, University of Pune. 6 Journal of Indian Education August 2009 Education as Tritya Ratna sincere thanks to the faculty, staff Towards Phule-Ambedkarite members and students at Krantijyoti Feminist Pedagogical Practice Savitribai Phule Women’s Studies Centre ‘‘O learned pandits wind up the selfish and the Department of Sociology at the prattle of your hollow wisdom and listen University of Pune, as also the Phule- to what I have to say” Ambedkarite, Left and feminist (Mukta Salve, About the Grief of community for providing meaningful Mahar and Mangs, 1855) contexts for the practice of critical Let me ask you something oh Gods!... You pedagogies. are said to be completely impartial. But This lecture in many ways is a wasn’t it you who created both men and collection of ‘stories’ of our classrooms, women? relationships between students and (Tarabai Shinde, A Comparison of teachers and the political frameworks Men and Women, 1882)1 which constitute these stories.

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