India's education conundrum

The Annual Status of Education Report -2012, published by Pratham, a community building organisation, shows a sharp decline in children’s reading levels over the last three years. This has raised serious questions about the RTE (the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education) that employed continuous and comprehensive evaluation of students, freeing them from the burden of exams through primary education. In most developed countries, whose model is followed by the RTE, primary education is free from the burden of exams. 

What was meant to release the burden of stress from children has turned out to be releasing stress of the teachers. The ‘constant process of evaluation’ was treated by primary school teachers, in their parlance, freedom from the extra work of conducting exams. As a result, the study found that class V students were unable to comprehend a reading test for class II. Certainly, what the RTE meant was the students needed constant monitoring. This kind of approach works fine when parents are educated and can constantly monitor the progress of their ward and can also take the teacher to task if they find tardiness in the progress of the child. For the children of illiterate parents, this meant they were at the mercy of teachers, who felt free of the scrutiny of showing ‘results.’ 

Before overhauling the system, the government should have made its teaching staff undergo rigorous training to change their mindset of fear- based education into creating a system where children enjoy learning. Removing fear of education should not mean downgrading education. Also, politicisation of the process of selection of teachers, (aka recent Haryana scam judgment) has put the institution of teachers at greater scrutiny. The government should take primary education with greater seriousness, by putting in a system of monitoring the performance of teachers.