ICT in School Education and its Implications for Teachers

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has entered almost every part of our lives: retrieval and sharing of information, storing data, business purposes, travel, entertainment, sale and purchase of materials, so on. In the last few years, education sector has also realised that ICT has the potential to be the foundation of a modern society and is essential for youth of the nation to match steps with the developing world. In the following document, I have explored the existing policy regarding ICT in School Education in India and its implications for teachers. I have also made some suggestions so that teachers can effectively use ICT-enabled teaching-learning environment.

Role of ICT in Education

Whenever a reform or a new method of education is introduced, one of the most important goals is to increase learners’ outcome, in other words, student achievement. ICT on the other hand is aimed mainly at making education accessible to all. Regardless of the social, economic and cultural contexts, ICT is believed to reach out to a large number of students, who were earlier unable to access education. This inaccessibility could be due to a number of reasons: they live in rural and remote-rural locations, are differently-abled which restricts them from going to school, have left schools for personal reasons or do not find the existing education system interesting.

ICT provides an engaging learning environment by means of multimedia devices such as computers, television, radio, dvd players, etc. Students and teachers both get the advantage of using different sources of information which may not be available in the textbook or other material used by them. Not only can they retrieve information, but also exchange it with people all over the world. Technologies like video-conferencing and distance learning bridge the gap between teachers and students across geographical regions. ICT encourages active participation by the students and gives them the liberty to create knowledge and learn on their own with little intervention by the teacher. Collaborative activities involving both teacher and students helps in reducing the hierarchy usually present in classrooms.

History of ICT in Education in India

• With the launch of SITE (Satellite Instructional Television Experiment) in 1975–76, ICT was introduced in education. The main objective was to educate the rural population about issues like family planning, agriculture, etc., but one of the aims was also to make education accessible to teachers and students in the villages of India through satellite.
• Indian National Satellite (INSAT) launched in 1980 initiated the setting up of a Central Institute of Educational Technology (CIET) and State Institutes of Educational Technology (SIETs) in 1984-85.
• CIET is the central organisation responsible for utilising television and radio for educational purposes. It also conducts training and research to improve the quality of education at school level.
• SIETs in Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Kerala, Uttar Pradesh, Odisha and Maharashtra are the branches of CIET and are responsible for the planning, research, production and evaluation of educational softwares like video, audio programmes and computer multimedia (Policy draft, 2008).
• During 1984-85 the Computer Literacy And Studies in Schools (CLASS) Project was introduced which was later closed down during 2000s.
• The National Policy on Education 1986 which was modified in 1992 also emphasised the use of educational technology in school education.
• National Task Force on Information Technology and Software Development set up in 1998 made recommendations to provide computer systems to all educational Institutions up to Higher Secondary/Secondary Schools.
• Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan Framework (2011) also directs the BRCs to provide ICT kits to schools.
• The Digital Library projects help in preserving literature and other artefacts from all over the country by digitising them. This is made available on public platforms so that anyone across the globe can access them for educational purpose.
• EDUSAT (2004) was the first Indian satellite built to serve educational sector. It has helped in enhancing the satellite based distance education system in India.
• The National Curriculum Framework 2005 has also pointed out that integration of ICT with core curricular subjects is essential for students to succeed in the advanced age.

While reading about the initiatives, I realised that most of them ‘provided’ the content of education instead of encouraging the construction of content by teachers and learners. The National Policy on Information and Communication Technology in School Education (Revised in 2012) addresses this issue to some extent. Let us look at some of the plus points and some of the problems with regard to the role of teacher in ICT-enabled classrooms in this policy:

1. The vision of the policy states that it aims at preparing youth for all-round development of nation. The omission of the role of teacher in preparing the students and thus the need of preparing the teachers first cannot go unnoticed.
2. The policy goal indicates that the focus of the policy is on students’ achievements and the expected outcome of efficient workforce. This again ignores that teachers have a significant part in shaping the lives of students and therefore they are also a part of the community which should utilise ICT and contribute to nation-building.
3. One of the challenges faced by the education system in India is accessibility and ICT is seen as a solution to this problem. While it is true that ICT has greater reach, this is not the only function it can be used for. Along with student education, it can be efficiently used for teacher training which will consequently reduce the problem of accessibility since even a few number of trained teachers can take up the responsibility of teaching a large number of students.
4. The section on ICT Literacy and Competence Enhancement describes how ICT will be implemented in school and what comes out is that even though both teacher and students are expected to go through a 3-level training, finally it is the student who has to appear for exam in ICT and prove his/her competence. This point undermines the importance of the competence required by the teachers as well.
5. At the implementation level, the focus is more on ICT literacy which is separate from ICT-enabled learning, i.e., integrating ICT with curricular subjects. This is problematic since teachers will not be interested in taking training for an extra subject apart from the ones they teach.
6. A glance at the levels of training brings to one’s notice that instead of ICT, the curriculum mainly relates to computer education. This is strengthened by the fact that a ‘dedicated’ teacher will be employed to teach this subject. This in itself defeats the purpose of integrating ICT with other subjects as teachers will think of it as a separate subject with separate teacher.
7. The policy describes ICT-enabled teaching-learning as comprising of various tools, techniques, content for effective education. Resources are made available to teachers instead of giving them the opportunity to develop the resources. Thus, ICT becomes a tool for centralising the education process and does not allow teachers to innovate the methods of teaching as per their requirements.
8. The policy promotes creation of localised digital resources by teachers and students. This is important for the upgradation of digital repository which needs literature from all over the country in different languages. This step will also encourage development of resources by teachers in collaboration with other teachers, review each others’ work and improve their own work.
9. ICT will also be used for capacity building of teachers. This means that they will be trained in ICT to enable them to integrate it with other subjects. But a study of teacher education institutes in Kerala found that ICT curriculum addresses only computer related knowledge and there is no connection between ICT and other subjects (Swamy, 2012). This is the situation throughout the country. Thus a strict implementation of ICT is required in the teacher education institutes too and not just in schools.
10. The policy advocates use of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) for digital resource creation and sharing. This is a positive shift from the policy’s earlier draft which proposed outsourcing of software to private parties. Software under public ownership gives the users liberty to access, modify and share resources on the public domain. The content is not controlled by any private authority thus widening the range of areas teachers and students can explore.

Some suggestions to address these issues:

First it is essential to identify one of the most significant problems in the context of ICT in School Education: ICT is seen as an alternative to teachers in classrooms. I agree that there is scarcity of ‘quality’ teachers but the solution for this problem is not depending on ICT but to put more efforts in teacher capacity building. This policy also emphasises teacher education but through ICT. While ICT can be used in variety of ways like introducing them to different classroom settings, techniques for teaching, educational materials, etc., ICT cannot replace humans. So, there is need for teacher educators (for example, students of M.A.Education) to be competent in the use of ICT as a tool for integrating teaching subjects like philosophy, sociology, etc., with the school subjects like maths, english, science, etc. This is essential because often the teachers cannot deal with the real classroom setting where each child’s personality is different and has different needs.

Proficiency in use of technology itself is not enough for teachers to develop useful educational resources. They should be engaged in the current educational debates and make their views heard so that policy makers and educationists take into consideration the experiences and problems faced by teachers in the school classrooms. For this, online platforms connecting teachers all over the country to each other and to educationists should be provided by organisations like NCERT and SCERTs. Schools should arrange for regular workshops and seminars for teachers during the school working days (such workshops during vacations are the reason teachers are not interested in any such training) to update them with the recent trends in education sector.

The National Focus Group on Teacher Education for Curriculum Renewal brings out a very significant use of ICT in teacher education. Not only they can develop projects and problems for engaging students in critical thinking through ICT, they can also get exposure to various socio-cultural classroom settings by means of other teachers who will share their stories on public platform. This will ensure that teachers are getting trained continuously both in theory as well as practice. I also believe that the recommendation made by the group about increasing the duration of Teacher education programme to 5 years is worth considering. In this programme, ICT should be utilised from the beginning for teaching and teaching the students how to use ICT in school classrooms. To conclude, ICT should be seen as a tool for effective education mediated through teachers and not as a substitute for teachers in classrooms.

References

1. Department of School Education and Literacy. (2011). Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan Framework for Implementation. Ministry of Human Resource and Development, Government of India.
2. Department of School Education and Literacy. (2012). National Policy on Information and Communication Technology (ICT) In School Education. Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India. Retrieved from http://mhrd.gov.in/sites/upload_files/ mhrd/files/revised_policy%20document%20ofICT.pdf
3. National Council of Educational Research and Training. (n.d.). Position Paper National Focus Group on Teacher Education for Curriculum Renewal. New Delhi: NCERT. Retrieved from http://www.ncert.nic.in/new_ncert/ncert/rightside/links/pdf/focus_group/ teacher_edu_final.pdf
4. Swamy, R.N. (2012). Towards Improving the Quality of Education by Integrating ICT in Teacher Education. Retrieved from http://www.csi-india.org/c/document_library/get_file? uuid=c5061f9c-ae7c-4447-8570-bef3edb2eaf4&groupId=10157

Emergence of Early Childhood Education in India: Journey till 1980s

The concept of formal pre-primary schooling in India came from the Western countries in the late 19th century. Till then, the indigenous Indian school was responsible for educating children in a non-formal way as decided by the teacher. Learning from the environment and using the knowledge in everyday activity was the core of such education. Families had a big part in imparting various kinds of qualities in children. Large joint families consisted of many children of the same age who would play and learn together under the supervision of parents, grandparents, older children and other relatives. The need of a formal school system for young children in the age group of 0-5 was not felt.

The Scottish and Christian missionaries established nursery and kindergarten as a part of schools in the mid-nineteenth century (Sood, 2003). Following this, the British Government attached an Infant class to primary schools to prepare 4-5 years old children for entry to Std. I. Reading, counting up to 100, reciting poems and story-telling constituted the curriculum. But the formal test at the end of the school year showed that such a formalized education system for pre-school children was not conducive to their development, as large number of children failed and dropped out.

This was the era when a number of child-development theories emerged in the Western countries which had already become aware of the shortcomings of pre-school education. Philosophers like Froebel, Piaget, Dewey and Maria Montessori revolutionized the education system which still continues to influence the educators throughout the world. Tagore, Gandhi, Aurobindo, Gijubhai Badheka, Tarabai Modak were also inspired by these philosophers and were one of the first few educationists in India who realized the importance of early childhood education. In order to understand the efforts made by them in this field, it is important to be briefly acquainted with the various child development theories and ideas about early childhood education.

Friedrich Wilhelm August Frobel (1782-1852): He was a German philosopher who developed the concept of kindergarten. He was the first to apply to apply the theory of evolution to education as he believed that humans are ever-developing, self-evolving and progressing from one stage to another (Lascarides & Hinitz, 2011). He regarded preschool years as the most significant period of education since child begins to use his physical and sensory activity to show his thoughts and feelings. He was against the conventional education given at home by parents and especially mother because according to him this restricted the child’s experience. For the moral and social development of the child between three and seven years required a larger group of equal-aged children.

He believed that play enables the child to explore his abilities and develop them and for this he should be given freedom to move and act. In this system, the teacher will not interfere or restrict the children but inculcate discipline by means of love, sympathy and goodness instead of physical punishment. In 1837, the first kindergarten was established by him in Blankenburg near Keilhau.

John Dewey (1859-1952): He was an American philosopher and an educational reformer who is mainly associated with the philosophy of pragmatism. He emphasized meaningful activity in learning and participation in classroom democracy. Use of irrelevant material instead of children’s interests and their experiences was the drawback of school systems according to him. He developed the concept of experiential education where students’ past experiences would help them build knowledge and apply it in real life. In 1896, he opened the Laboratory School which was designed to test his ideas of education where students were grouped on the basis of community-interests and general intellectual capacity (Lascarides & Hinitz, 2011). He viewed the school as a social institution and thus tried to relate the curriculum to real life so that it is not isolated from life of children outside school. It constantly addressed the changing needs and interests of children and was community-oriented so that children are able to deal with new situations in their personal and social life.

Jean Piaget (1896-1980): He was a Swiss developmental psychologist mainly known for his theory of cognitive development. Out of the 4 development stages given by Piaget, the pre-operational stage between the ages two and seven are important since they are not able to reason logically but are curious about everything around them. Play becomes an important activity for them through which they learn many things. It develops qualities such as curiosity, exploration, divergent thinking, symbolic transformation, conservation, classification and perspective-taking. Piaget’s principles led educators to adopt a child-centered point of view in the development of curriculum and teaching practices (Lascarides & Hinitz, 2011).

Maria Montessori (1870-1952): She was a physician and educator born in Italy. She gave importance to each child as an individual with different abilities and thus asserted that education should guide the children in proper growth and development at their own pace. She believed that education begins at birth and the first 6 years of life are the most important years for the physical, cognitive and affective development of the child. From birth to 3 years, the sensory and motor skills develop leading to intellectual and personality development by the age of 6 years. Thus sensory training and muscular training for enabling writing, drawing, speaking, etc. are important parts of Montessori approach. Her methods were based on scientific observations of behaviour of children in an adaptable environment.

She distinguished between work and play and believed that make-believe is an escape from reality. Children are just the passive recipients of this play created by adults (Lascarides & Hinitz, 2011). In Montessori approach, the child is free to choose whatever interest him/her and do real work. In 1907, she opened The Children’s House (Casa Dei Bambini) in Rome which was unlike any other school of its time. It had large open classrooms, child size furniture and shelves for material at a height accessible to children. She devised learning games and devices called as “didactic materials”. These helped the children in developing sensory and motor skills as well as academic skills. Just like Dewey, Montessori also advocated self-activity and freedom of learning for the child.

Situation in India

As mentioned earlier, Tagore and Gandhi both were in favour of child education. Tagore believed that the school environment was an arrangement to give pre-decided lessons whereas nature is the best teacher for children under the age of 7. He said that children have a natural instinct to learn and they should be allowed to learn on their own from their natural surroundings. Tagore’s theory on education focused on individual differences and demanded that curriculum should address the needs of children. He claimed that music, art and poetry are essential to the overall development of children and thus they should be facilitated with these in the early years of school (Vittachi, Raghavan & Raj, 2007). He established Patha Bhavana, a school based on these ideals, in Shantiniketan which was later expanded to become the Vishva Bharati University.

Gandhi’s views about education of children under the age of 7 resembled those of Tagore’s. He also believed that education can be best imparted in the natural surroundings and that it should be contextualized with the child’s background. He developed the concept of Nai Taleem which was the first major initiative towards early childhood education in India. He was against the textbook culture and exam-oriented approach to education. Thus, he asserted that craft should be the centre of teaching-learning process. The local craft should be chosen so that children become self-supporting and find learning through crafts interesting. By making children independent from young age, giving instruction in mother tongue and stressing on the culture of India, feeling of strong nationalism was to be inculcated through basic education. In a speech given on 17th February, 1946, he said that a child starts learning from the time of conception itself and so he said that pregnant women should be taught as a part of adult education till the child is born (NCTE, 1998). Till 2 and half years of age, parents will be responsible for the child’s education. By that time, children are able to use their sensory and motor skills. Thus, formal pre-basic education will start at 2 and half years where children will learn through play and group activities. The education will teach them to be constructive and creative. From 4 to 7 years of age, first knowledge about history and geography of their region and dharma according to the Hindu scripts will be given to them. Then, arithmetic, multiplication tables and finally reading-writing skills will be taught. Along with craft-work, agriculture, cooking and cleaning related activities were also included in order to make the children self-sufficient.

The schools which were set up by him in Champaran, Sabarmati and Wardha followed these principles. Gandhi asserted that only a mother can fulfill all these responsibilities since she is aware of children’s abilities and limitations. Two training schools, one in Wardha and other in Segaon were established in April 1938. By the autumn of 1939, there were 247 basic schools and 14 training schools scattered over nine Provinces and States (Sykes, 1988).

By this time, Maria Montessori’s ideas had already influenced few social workers in India. Darbar Gopaldas, king of Dhasa was from Vaso in Baroda district and he had joined Gandhi’s no-cooperation movement. He focused on the development of his princely state and started provided free education to all. Motibhai Amin, a teacher from Vaso was very influenced by Montessori’s methods of teaching and thus in 1915, with the financial help of Darbar Gopaldas, he established a Montessori school at Vaso (“About Vaso”, n.d.). In 1920, Gijubhai Badheka, a High court lawyer from Bhavnagar, Gujarat opened Bal Mandir, a school in which Montessori methods were Indianized. There was considerable emphasis on “religion (Hinduism), language (Gujarati) and culture (traditional music, art, dance), along with Montessori materials and activities” (Prochner, 2002, p.441). Later, along with Nanabhai Bhatt and Harbhai Trivedi, Badheka expanded this kindergarten to Shri Dakshinamurti Vinay Mandir which is presently known as Shri Dakshinamurti Vidyarthi Bhavan. It includes a primary and secondary school and a pre-primary teacher training college.

In 1922, Tarabai Modak who was the first Indian Principal of the Barten Female College of Education at Rajkot, resigned from the post and joined Badheka as she was also inspired by Montessori’s work in pre-school education. They together established the Nutan Bal Shikshan Sangh (NBSS) which was responsible for evolution of a preschool system which devised Montessori’s principles suitable to Indian context. They also used Froebel’s methodology with Montessori’s methods and developed innovative techniques of story-telling and handicrafts making (Naik, 1978). Gijubhai had different ways of teaching history, geography, language and other subjects through stories and rhymes making it interesting for the children. They also prepared literature to make parents and teachers aware of the importance of early childhood education (Vittachi et al., 2007).

In 1936, at first she conducted a pre-school in a Scheduled-caste locality in Bombay after which she established the Shishu Vihar Mandal in Dadar which conducted pre-school centers and trained pre-school teachers. Although this popularized the child education movement in urban areas, Tarabai had realized that the poor and deprived children from rural areas were in need of pre-school education as the practices in the schools mostly reflect the middle class. Also the materials needed for the Montessori methods were very expensive for the rural setting. Even Gandhi was not in complete adoption of the Montessori approach as it was not suitable for the Indian socio-cultural milieu. His letters to Tarabai Modak and Saraladevi Sarabhai (President of NBSS) , written in 1945 show his disagreement by mentioning the above concerns and also that the teachers trained under Montessori were unable to deal with the rural children as they were not aware of the child’s background (NCTE, 1998).

In 1945, Tarabai moved to Bordi, a small coastal town about 160 kms from Bombay and established the Gram Bal Shiksha Kendra (GBSK) - Center for the Education of Rural Children. Anutai Wagh, a social worker working with the Kasturba Gandhi Trust joined Modak and they started the preschool in Bordi. The usual routine included cleaning the school compound, singing prayers, story-telling, drawing, clay-work and playing with the learning materials. But the denial of caste Hindus to send their children to mix with Harijan children in the preschool posed a problem for GBSK (“Tarabai Modak”, n.d.). The concept of Balwadi developed during this time in 1946. Two types of Balwadi- a central Balwadi which would be open for all children in the regular school hours and the angan Balwadi which was conducted in different courtyards of Bordi by the Gram-sevikas trained by the Kasturba Gandhi Trust, so that children and their parents of any caste can realize the significance of the preschool and do not get deprived of it. Modak worked in Bordi for twelve years and then shifted her entire institution to the tribal area of Kosbad in 1957 where she tried her methods on the most neglected tribal children under the Vikaswadi project. The tribal Anganwadis which cater to millions of children in India today are an extension of these angan balwadis (Naik, 1978). Thus, the contribution of Tarabai Modak, Anutai Wagh and Gijubhai Badheka among others is worth mentioning in the history of early childhood education.

In 1934, George Arundale, husband of Indian dancer Rukmini Devi, became president of the Theosophical Society, Adyar. He invited Maria Montessori to take charge of the Besant Theosophical High School. Montessori came to Adyar in 1939 and worked as a teacher at this school for three years. Rukmini Arundale also helped Montessori setup a teacher- training center at Adyar. Around the same time in 1937, Dr. V.N.Sharma and his wife Ellen Sharma founded The Children’s Garden School in Mylapore, Chennai. Similar to Bal Mandir, this preschool also integrated Froebel’s and Montessori’s methods and modified them to suit Indian context (Prochner, 2002). They provided free education, subsidized mid-day meals, health care and accommodation to poor children (“Roots”, n.d.). This was the first preschool initiative in South-India.

Role of Public Sector

Till now, I have discussed about the efforts made by the voluntary organizations and social reformers in the field of early childhood education in India. Let us take a look at the Government initiatives in this field. In 1944, the Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE) presented a post-war educational development proposal known as the Sargent Plan. This was the first official document which recommended pre-primary schools for children of the age group 3-6 so that one in every 21 children is provided with basic education. It even gave an estimate that 32,000 Rs. Per year expenditure will be needed for this (Naik, 1965). But, there is no record after this which shows that this plan was implemented. The significant contribution of this report was that it recommendation of free and compulsory education for children of 0-14 years of age was included in the Article 45 of the Constitution.

After independence, the first government initiative for inclusion of pre-primary school in the existing primary school system as suggested by the Committee on early Childhood Education came in 1953. The Central Social Welfare board started grant-in-aid scheme for voluntary organizations. The Committee on Child Care (1963-1964) suggested that the various philosophies about child development and preschools from Western countries should be adjusted to suit the Indian society. This committee also recommended the introduction of midday meals in preschool programs. In 1964, the Kothari Commission of India recommended the establishment of state-level pre-primary education centers.

The National Policy on Children (1974) integrated the aspects of care and education in early childhood education which got reflected in the Fifth Five Year Plan in 1975 (Sood, 2003). The Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) was launched with 33 pilot projects providing healthcare services to children of 0-6 years of age, pregnant and lactating mothers. The objectives of the ICDS include promotion of child and maternal health, nutrition and preschool education for children aged 3–6 (Department of Women and Child Development, 1995, cited in Prochner, 2002). In the rural and tribal areas, Anganwadis were selected as the centers for conducting the health and education programmes to give 3 month training to the Anganwadi workers. The Government of India’s Integrated Child Development Services included more than 350,000 preschool centres (Anganwadis), serving approximately 10 million children in the age group 3–6 by the year 2002 (Prochner, 2002).

The National Policy on Education (1986) emphasized early childhood care and education (ECCE). It suggested that programmes of ECCE should be focused around play and takes into account the individual differences of child. It warned against the introduction of 3 R’s at the initial stage of education. Participation of local communities in each of these programmes was encouraged. Provision of day care centers to support education of young girls who are otherwise unable to attend schools because of responsibility of siblings was recommended. After 1990, most of the programmes concerned with early childhood have focused more and more on the health and nutrition aspects along with education. These include the National Nutrition Policy (1993) which recognized children below the age of 6 as highly vulnerable, National Policy on empowerment of women (2003) which supported provision of day care facilities for children of working women, National Plan of Action for Children (2005) considered care and protection of children under the age of 3 essential for their development and integrated health and education facilities for children between the age of 3-6, Convention on the Rights of the Child (1992) by India prepared a National Charter for Children which again put stress on the nutrition, health care and education of children (NCERT, 2006). The National Curriculum Framework (2005) says:

Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) requires that young children be provided care, opportunities and experiences that lead to their all-round development — physical, mental, social and emotional, and school readiness.  A holistic and integrated perspective views the health and nutritional needs of children as integrally related with their psychosocial/educational development. (NCF, 2005, p.65)

Thus, the efforts made by the Government in ensuring holistic development of children till the age of 6 have been praiseworthy. The post-independence era witnessed the shift of perspective regarding child’s development. It began with Early Childhood Education (ECE) which focused only on the education of children between the ages of 3-6, changed to Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) involving the care component and is often called as Early Childhood Development (ECD) which is a more comprehensive term reflecting the overall development of child with respect to healthcare, nutrition and education (Kaul & Sankar, 2009).

Problems for ECE

In spite of all these initiatives, there are few issues which are obstacles in the complete accomplishment of the aims of Early Childhood Education. Today, we see a number of pre-schools run by private sector. These schools lure middle-class parents with well-built infrastructure, alien methods of teaching, expensive materials, etc. From the beginning of the school year, they start advertising heavily all over the place. Instead of giving importance to the core philosophy of early childhood education, they are only focused on making money out of this. Parents, who are already busy with their own work, find it an easy way out to get relieved of the responsibility of taking care of the child and quickly get trapped in the business of education. All this creates serious problems for the child as not only he/she is getting distanced from parents but also the basic right of receiving quality education in the early years.

Let us assume that the curriculum is well-designed and appropriate for the children, it is the responsibility of the teacher to transact it properly in the classroom. Although, all the policies have given emphasis to early childhood education, most of the schools do not take into account the critical role of teacher and employ unqualified teachers to reduce their expenditure. Teachers with Bachelor’s degree specialized in Early Childhood Education should be appointed after giving them pre-service training (National Research Council, 2000). They should also be prepared to deal with multicultural classrooms so that children who come from diverse backgrounds do not find it difficult to learn because of cultural differences. The inadequate number of qualified teachers in this field is mainly because of the low salary given to them. The qualified teachers in the pre-school level should also be paid on the same scale with that of elementary school teachers.

There is one more noticeable aspect in the field of early childhood education- lack of male teachers. This is not only because of the low salary offered to the teachers but also because of the stereotyping my male being incapable of caring and nurturing children as good as women. This stereotype was reinforced by Gandhi when he emphasized that only women can be the best teachers in the early years of school. We should try to get rid of this proposition by encouraging more and more number of male candidates for the pre-school teacher posts. They should not be expected to be authoritarian and less sensitive as in contrast with women who are expected to be loving, caring and sensitive to children’s needs. Only when this is done, we can be sure that children will not develop the existing prejudices for gender roles and create an open-minded society of their own.

Reforming the Normative Child in School: A Glimpse at the Existing Notion of Normative Child

Going back in memories of school days is so amazing and refreshing for me always. The neatly dressed, disciplined girls and boys in the assembly, the obedient students during the classes, the noisy classrooms in lunch-break, the dirty clothes in games period, the friends who fought while playing, going back home hand in hand at the end of the day, all these are just a part of those beautiful recollections.

Since I performed well in academics, teachers always encouraged me to do better and appreciated when I succeeded. I come from a well-to-do family so I never faced any financial hindrance in accessing the best possible resources for studying. I studied in a private English medium school and having decent English communication skills helped me in clarifying my doubts in class as well as outside class from my teachers. I was inactive in extra-curricular activities but that never bothered me and my teachers because for them (and that time, for me too) studying and scoring good marks was more important than anything else. I can say that my school days were really wonderful and one of the best part of my life. But how many people have such good experiences to share when we ask them about their school life? Not many actually.

    

The description that I just gave about my experience in school will be similar to anyone else’s who is called a “normative child”. For the society, a normative child is one who is not bound by any religion, caste, class and cultural boundaries to make attempts for and reach his/her destination. S/he does not have to face discrimination on the basis of the above mentioned factors and is not looked down upon by society for such reasons. A normative child does not have any disability which may become an obstacle in his/her way of success and affect his complete life. S/he has a social status which is acceptable and considered as legitimate by the society. His/her language is the language of the dominant section of that particular region. This concept of normative child rules the schools in every society across the globe and deeply affects the lives of children from both the sides, i.e., normative and those who are not so.

 

School has a structured way of functioning right from the management committee to the classrooms. It has its own set of rules and regulations which are to be followed by teachers and students alike. Whereas teachers become the instructors and decision-makers of the rules at one point of time, students are always at the receiving end. In a classroom, it depends on the teacher how s/he treats and looks at children who come from various backgrounds. This also decides how children will behave with each other.

    

A child who comes from a low-socioeconomic background often faces discrimination at school by teachers and peers both. Poverty is one of the main reasons for which s/he is not considered equal to her/his economically more-advantaged counterparts. The teachers neglect him/her which leads to less intellectual stimulation. These children already face many adversities at home such as family conflicts, violence, less family support, crowded and noisy vicinity along with unhygienic environment. This has a negative impact on their minds and the ill-treatment meted out to them at school makes a permanent damage to their personal as well as professional lives.

  

Caste is another factor which affects the way a child is looked upon at in school. A lower caste child is vulnerable to unjust practices in school as well as outside the school. We are not unaware of the truth that still in many parts of India children belonging to lower caste are made to do odd jobs such as cleaning school playground and toilets. They are not allowed to sit with children from upper caste in class and many of them are considered as untouchables. In urban areas, the discrimination takes a sophisticated form. They are not given equal opportunities in classroom participation and extra-curricular activities. Their achievements are neither appreciated nor encouraged by the teachers. They start feeling that the teachers do not expect anything from them and they gradually stop making efforts and fall behind their peers in academics too. I have seen teachers who used to refer children by their caste such as “chamar, kunbhi”, etc. This not only embarrassed that child but also made him believe that his caste is a stigma and a shameful identity with which he has to live in the society.

One more section of children who are segregated by the society and in particular schools are the ones who belong to minority communities such as immigrant labourers and industrial workers living in slums. These children are in the worst condition because of cultural conflicts too. The place which they come from has different tradition, customs and most important language. They are not able to identify themselves with the culture they are taught about in school. The curriculum plays an important role in emphasizing the status of a particular caste, ethnicity and religion. Many biases are present in textbooks and learning materials. Among these biases are showing the people from second-language minority, women and low-income individuals in a pathetic state. The school’s attitudes towards diversity can be easily seen from the composition of staff and students both.

Children who are unable to speak the language being used in school are unconsciously alienated by teachers and other children. The language that children from minority groups speak at home is sometimes thought of as impure by the native-language speakers. They slowly start learning the second language and try to reduce the use of their mother tongue just because others do not respect it. Apart from second language, now English has become a necessity for communication in schools. Children from low socioeconomic status find it difficult to grasp and teachers instead of helping them, humiliate them and consequently these children fail to understand anything in class.

There is abundant literature about the inequality faced by students who are not economically strong and those who come from a lower caste. But we often keep ignoring the difficulties that children with special needs come across in schools. It is the need of the hour to give attention to this issue especially when we are now talking about inclusive education in schools. These disabilities can be classified as learning disabilities, mental retardation, sensory disorders, speech and language disorders, autism spectrum disorder, etc.

A child with learning disability has difficulty in learning that involves understanding or using written or spoken language and the difficulty can appear in listening, reading, and writing. Such children when taught in regular classrooms without extensive support and care fail to achieve the level of competence with even low achieving children of the same class. The teachers are often quick to label children with slight learning problem as having a learning disability instead of recognizing that the problem may lie in their ineffective teaching. Many of these children with a bit of assistance can grow up to lead normal lives but the insensitivity of teachers sometimes badly affects their lives.

Children with mental retardation actually lack age-appropriate skills in learning and caring for themselves. But because of their different physical appearance, people think of them as mentally ill and behave with them badly. Insensitivity of teachers towards such children makes it worse and encourages other children to ill treat them. This is the reason parents of these children do not wish to send them to regular schools and finally not giving them formal education at all. Children with visual or hearing impairment already have a challenge to overcome their disability. Visually impaired children have to depend on their touch and hearing to learn while those with hearing impairment have trouble in developing normal speech and language. Teachers do not prefer having such children in their classrooms so that they do not have to make special efforts for them and give more time to them. This rejection at the very first step of schooling leaves so many children hopeless with family being the only source of learning. 

Children having speech disorders such as problem in correct pronunciation of words and stuttering can be helped at a very early stage if teachers can recognize the problem. But this does not happen and instead teachers become intolerant of them making them more anxious and afraid of their disability. Language disorder like impairment in understanding a language and in expressing one’s thoughts can cause serious learning problems and in this case also teachers can quickly diagnose it from the child’s way of communicating but for this they need to be sensitized first.

Children, who are gifted, have above average intelligence and are superior in some domain such as art, music, mathematics, etc. Teachers tend to give more work to them instead of giving them work which is more challenging. These children get bored in the classroom as they already know about what is being taught or are fast in grasping concepts than their classmates. S/he also feels socially isolated being the only one in class who has no opportunity to learn things which can nurture her/his talent. Teachers feel that they need not be given any attention as they are ‘intelligent’ and do not make sure if they have really understood everything. Slowly such students start skipping classes and lose interest in achieving thus becoming apathetic toward school.

Here it is also important to mention about the children who are not considered normative because of their family problems. A child whose parents are separated or divorced is sometimes treated with sympathy and sometimes humiliation but not normally. A child whose father is unemployed, a drunkard or a criminal comes across insulting comments almost everywhere. S/he is made to feel so bad that the child does not want to socialize at all. An HIV positive child is one of the worst sufferers of such unjust treatment in school. Teachers instead of sensitizing other children about AIDS indulge in disgracing the child.

There is definitely need to have a normative image of child in school but not in the manner it is perceived currently. Standards are necessary to keep things in order but that should be for the well-being of everyone and not for the convenience of a few. A child who freely asks questions and expresses his/her thoughts without any fear, a child who in spite of his/her disability has the freedom to access resources without any hindrance, whose language is not his/her weakness but strength in gaining knowledge, whose personal problems do not affect his/her social life must be called as a normative child.

The society should come out of such prejudices and should try to establish a school environment in which each child can feel comfortable and free to learn and enhance his/her capabilities. Then only all children will be able to share their school experiences happily as I did in the beginning and that day will be the sign of positive change in our school system and consequently the future of our country.

REFERENCES

[1] Krishna, M. Chapter 1 ‘Introduction: Autobiography as a resource for educational theory’, M.phil thesis, Osmania University, Hyderabad

[2] Purcell-Gates, Victoria. (1995). Other people's words: The cycle of low literacy. Harvard University Press

[3] Shirinivasan, M. (2011). View From The Back-A study of the experience of literacy acquisition of   children from a marginalized community in a mainstream urban government school in Pune. Centre for Language, Literacy and Communication, Phaltan

Education of the Deprived Groups: Who Takes the Decision?

In the present school education scenario, if there is one debate which seems to be endless, it is the use of mother-tongue versus English as the medium of instruction. One may wonder what the dispute all about is because commonly it is agreed upon that English is the language which has got a global currency. No other language ensures access to higher education, employment and other resources which English does. I said so not because I believe it in completely but it is the assumption that people have about English in general. This assumption has now turned into a belief particularly in developing countries like India and South Africa where struggle to preserve the indigenous languages like Sanskrit and Afrikaans in education have been intense but they finally resorted to English. Earlier, there were societies which wanted their children to be educated in the mother-tongue so that they value their culture and remain rooted in it. But now the system from top to bottom beginning with the State to the parents and children, everyone is emphasizing English school education.

In this whole picture of demand for education in mother-tongue and later for English education, the marginal sections of the society seldom have a say. By marginal sections, I mean the people who are both economically and socially deprived. The so-called lower castes in India which include SC (Dalits), ST and OBC have been oppressed over the years and receiving basic education too was not easy for them. English became an instrument for them to bring about a change in their condition. Similarly, the people of Black community in America are stressing more on the formal English education so that they can compete with others in the world outside their community.

So, what makes English so important for the poor, the lower castes and those who are discriminated on the basis of race and skin colour? Does it really help them when the medium of instruction is bilingual? What effects does it have on their learning and what schools can do to help them in progressing? These are some of the questions that arose in my mind when I read the articles by Lisa D. Delpit (1988) called “The Silenced Dialogue: Power and Pedagogy in Educating Other People’s Children” and few articles by Kancha Ilaiah on education of the Dalit. Further in this article, I will be elaborating some of the issues that both of these authors deal with. While Delpit’s paper is based in the American context, Ilaiah’s articles are about education in Indian society, so it will be a ground for me to compare their perspectives as well.

Delpit (1988) focuses on the teaching methods used in the classrooms and what effects these methods have on the learning of children from poor and Black community in America. She takes the debate over process-oriented versus skills-oriented writing instruction as the base of the paper to argue what teachers should do to help the children from minority groups in learning and grasping concepts easily. In skills-oriented approach, the learning occurs from top (teacher) to down (student). The teacher is like an instructor who tells the student everything he needs to know using lectures, assignments, and such conventional methods in order to attain a certain goal mostly good results in the examination, graduation, etc. (Knowles, 1975, cited in Morris, 2010). Process-oriented approach engages students in self-study, group activities, discussions which are guided by the teacher but does not need him to interfere always. The students are given the freedom to express themselves by writing on topics relevant to them personally as well as culturally and the teacher later gives them feedback and follow-up instructions so that they can improve their writing skills (Troia et al., 2009, cited in Morris, 2010). This approach is useful for classes where number of students is large and thus forming groups to allow them discuss and write on a given topic helps the teacher manage and focus on individual students.

Narratives of some Black students and teachers about their experience in White majority classrooms all say the same thing- they are not heard by the White (teachers and students). Their personal experiences, their problems, their socio-economic background are not counted in as important while teaching Black children themselves. The White people believe that they know what is appropriate to be taught for all children including the Black, they trust research work done by other White people but do not consider the suggestions of fellow Black teachers and students in improving education for the Black. Delpit herself is a Black educator and she also faced such situations in classrooms where the process-oriented approach which is mostly used in American schools, did not prove to be beneficial for the Black students as compared to the White. She says that the dismissal of skills-oriented approach by the progressive educators is not good for the poor and Black children as they are not acquainted with the culture of the White people which dominates the curriculum and pedagogy in classroom. She says that this unquestioned authority of a particular section over the educational practices of the society can be termed as “culture of power”.

The authority of the teacher over students and the curriculum makers’ power to design the content and methods as per their world views are some of the issues of power that are enacted in the classroom. Mannerism of interacting, writing and dressing form the rules to be a part of the culture of power. These all represent the people i.e., middle class and upper class who hold this power but children from the lower class who are alien to this culture find it difficult to follow and survive in this code of conduct. The most important thing Delpit brings out of this discussion is that if rules of a culture are told explicitly, it is easier to follow them and succeed for people from other cultures. She gives example of a reading program called Distar which needs the teacher “to maintain the full attention of the group by continuous questioning, eye contact, finger snaps, hand claps, and other gestures, and by eliciting choral responses and initiating some sort of award system” (p.284). She says that this initiative helped all the children including the culturally deprived ones in learning to read. She refers to a study by Siddle (1988) which shows that direct instruction of standard writing procedures by teacher resulted in improvement in writing skills of the Black children while peer conferencing had the least effect. But here comes the last aspect of the culture of power which opposes explicit instruction to the students. She says that those who have the power do not acknowledge it while those who are deprived of it are more conscious to acquire it. Liberal educators believe that expressing the power of knowledge a teacher has in the classroom will not give opportunities to students to explore and grow. Children from upper class come to the school with the knowledge of mannerism and skills required by the education system but other children do not have that culture at home and so they need to be told explicitly what is expected from them and how they can achieve it. Thus the belief of the liberal educators deprives the poor and Black children from success even before they could try for it.

She gives an example of a Native Alaskan teacher who deals with children who talk in what is called as Black English while the schools expect them to write in Formal English. She says that activities like letting the children interact with “various personnel officers in actual workplaces about their attitudes toward divergent styles in oral and written language” (p.295), asking the students to compare different writing styles, telling them the technical details of formal writing procedures, etc. helps them to learn writing in Formal English while not having to let go their own dialect of English which they use while talking within their groups. I felt it interesting that throughout the paper, Delpit never promotes the methods or language of the dominant people but takes a pragmatic approach while saying that “they must be encouraged to understand the value of the code they already possess as well as to understand the power realities in this country” (p.293).

Delpit suggests that schools should teach these children the basic tenets of the culture which they do not get at home. Being from a different culture should not deny them access to quality education and later employment. She does not advocate the culture of power but says that “to act as if power does not exist is to ensure that the power status quo remains the same” (p.292). Thus, it is important that schools encourage the children from minority groups to value their own culture too but learn the styles and codes of the political world which exists outside the educational system. The teacher should not restrain herself from giving her expert knowledge to students but should also allow them to build concepts based on their contextual and socially relevant knowledge.

Delpit asserts that it is essential to involve the adults of the community in the decisions regarding content and methods appropriate for their children (p. 296). If they wish their children to learn and abide by the rules of the dominant culture because that will lead them to success, they have the right to demand for it and State should provide them with such education. No one from other cultures should interfere and decide what children of minority groups should study. She presents a wonderful thought that “We do not really see through our eyes or hear through our ears, but through our beliefs” (p.297) and thus the people from both the sides i.e., those who are in majority and those who are deprived from power should communicate their beliefs and needs with an open mind so that it can be decided properly and in a just manner what is best for the children of the poor and children of color (p. 296).  

Kancha Ilaiah’s articles mainly talk about the conflicts between regional language and English as the medium of instruction in schools in India. He says that in India, the regional language schools cater to students from lower caste while English medium schools are meant for the upper caste children. Macaulay’s minute emphasized educating the upper castes in English so that they could be employed as clerks and government servants and eventually spread English education to the masses (Macaulay, 1835). But the upper castes claimed their authority over English language just as they did over Sanskrit and did not let English education reach the lower castes. This is similar to the case of Black people who find it difficult to access English education because the White think that the Black need not excel in English and rather follow their own language. Even when the State provided English education through the missionary schools, the caste Hindu people did not allow the Dalits to join them and forced them to study either in local board schools which did not teach in English medium or in the crowded verandahs of the missionary schools (Constable, 2000).

He says that the assumption that teaching in regional language in the first few years of school will make it easier for children to learn English later is wrong (Ilaiah, 2007). He supports the step taken by AP government in implementing bilingual medium of instruction from Standard 1 itself so that children have a choice. The people from lower socio-economic background are also demanding for English education but since most of the Government schools do not provide it, they are deprived of it. Some of them take loans and later find themselves under huge debts for wanting to educate their children in private English medium schools. Ilaiah asserts that to change this situation, the private schools should be nationalized (Ilaiah, 2008). He believes that “Over time, English has become the common language of the global science and technology market and the overall economy” (Ilaiah, 2007) and thus it should be the fundamental right of every child to receive quality English medium education. I find his position similar to Delpit’s because he also never opposes the importance of mother tongue but keeps stressing on English education for success.

In an article titled “Why Dalits Want English”, Gail Omvedt (2006) explains the reasons for which Dalits look up to English as the instrument to get freedom from discrimination. The Hindu scriptures like Vedas and Upanishads were written in Sanskrit and were used by the upper castes to oppress the Shudras. With Macaulay’s minute, they realized that English can be a language which will not be Sanskritized and that they can use it to express themselves as they want. Their vernacular was looked down at by the upper castes but English will not be. Ilaiah also says that English education will open doors of higher education and employment for the Dalits which were inaccessible to them because of lack of English education. Jotirao Phule, a Dalit social reformer too emphasized higher education for Dalits in mother tongue as well as in English so that they can get rid of the Brahmin dominated indigenous school which discriminated the Shudras and Ati-shudras at every step from education to employment opportunities. He maintained that teachers in the schools for Dalits should be from their community itself because they will better understand their needs and problems (J. Phule, personal communication, October 19, 1882).

To summarize, both Delpit and Ilaiah believe in equal and quality English education for the Black and Dalits respectively. While Delpit puts a lot of emphasis on teacher’s role in learning outcomes of children from oppressed section, Ilaiah says that the State should provide quality education to the Dalits just as other dominant sections of the society receive. Delpit talks in detail about the methods which can be helpful to the Black children in learning at the same pace with other children and says that no particular approach (skills-oriented or process-oriented) can alone be the best way and that teachers should integrate a number of innovative methods in teaching. Both the writers assert that there should be a balance between the mother tongue and English to be used as medium of instruction. Children should be encouraged to value their own culture and language while learning English to progress in the practical world where (fortunately or unfortunately) English has become essential.

As I look at it, the fundamental aims of a school I establish will be as follows:

• To use education as a means to end the discrimination based on caste, class, race, religion, gender and any other aspect of society which draws line between people.

• To provide children with various options with respect to subjects, medium of instruction, learning methods, etc so that they can explore and choose what is best for them.

• To enable children to be creative and use their imagination in learning and constructing knowledge.

• To instill in them respect for other cultures, for their own culture; to work together as a team with children from different socio-economic backgrounds.

• To make them aware of the importance of clean and unpolluted environment and encourage them to protect it.

• To discover and nurture the skills of every child through various curricular and co-curricular activities.

I believe that all children whether from upper caste or otherwise should know how the society works, how discrimination separates people from people in the same society, how they need to fight for equality and justice. This is important because only when the children know the reality and understand what is and what ought to be, will they start working together towards the change. Children do not have prejudices and sense of ‘mine’ and ‘others’ like adults have. This is why their minds can be moulded in the right shape in schools. Schools should encourage children from different castes, class and religions to study together and not let them realize these differences. Teachers should be like a facilitator who will guide the children whenever needed and will allow them to construct knowledge as per their skills and experiences. The medium of instruction will be bilingual from the first grade itself so that children have choice between their mother tongue and English and they are not forced to learn any other language (Hindi or the respective State language) unless they want. Play-way method of teaching and learning where students learn from their experiences that they get while engaged in school activities or at home will be used so that students can question and find answers to them by themselves. Local handicraft skills will be taught especially to the tribal children so that their art and culture is preserved and spread in the society. This may also help the poor children in supporting their families financially because dropping out from school for earning can also be reduced through this method.