Education for All? That's not enough!

“Sarva Shiksha Abhyan (SSA) is Government of India's flagship programme for achievement of Universalization of Elementary Education (UEE) in a time bound ...” (Source: ssa.nic.in)

SSA is primarily aimed for the kids belonging from poor and under privileged backgrounds. There is a similar state funded program in the US called KIPP and this too is intended for kids from poor and under privileged backgrounds.

Apart from the kind of kids these schools target there is hardly anything common between them. Look at the names again.

Sarva Shiksha Abhyan literally translates to- The Education for All Movement.
KIPP is an acronym for- Knowledge Is Power Program.

Note the difference in intentions. One is concerned about numbers, other is concerned about knowledge.

Our efforts are concentrated at opening maximum schools and admitting maximum students. And in a country like India, that makes sense.

But are we concerned about quality, at all? About methodology for teaching?

KIPP schools are considered among the best public schools in the US. At KIPP, students are taught Maths, science, social studies and language. As well as problem solving, structured thinking, communication skills and music. The students are made to work hard, throughout the year, almost without any summer vacation (more on that later).

We all are aware about the state of government funded schools in India. Many of you must have seen it first hand, others must have read about it. But that entire situation is just one of the problems.

One of the other reasons of failure, or ineffectiveness, of the state funded schools is  their intention. A school for the penniless. Our current system makes schools for the poor, makes the content suitable for kids belonging to such families. This results in making those kids incompetent against the ones in private schools.
What should they do instead is make schools of  excellence- accessible even to the poor. Make the content superior and have best teachers to teach them. Make the students to work hard, provide them with incentives to work harder. We need to build schools that can provide quality education to the maximum.

Doing that on as massive scale as India’s, would be a daunting task. It would be a risk, with disastrous outcomes should it fail. Here again we can learn something from KIPP, we can start this as a pilot program, open only a few schools in the beginning. Improvise, update and expand them with time.

I want to talk more about on KIPP, but I'm more concerned about our education system. What our present education is doing- producing what I call employees (which some point out, are not even employable) . Instead it needs to produce more employers, original thinkers, innovators. The education structure has hardly changed in decades. Most of the entrance exams consider school reports and performances irrelevant. There are not enough incentives for the students to work hard and excel at schools.

We need a mix of both- people who are employable as well people who can think and create. As many scholars and concerned people have been saying- Our entire education system needs an overhaul. But I think, and most would agree, we should work on the grass root level first. And government schools would probably be the best place to start with. Not just the quantity of people we educate, but the quality should matter too. It should matter more. Bringing in Akash would not help anyone. Students would watch the lectures on their tablets, only if those lectures are worth watching live, only when there are incentives to watch those lectures at all.

For curious minds:

Click here to read about the state of our education.

About Summer vacations  |  A fantastic report on Summer loss  | What is summer loss?

Or, read Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell

Family First

There is one thing you should know about me. I have an uncritical, child like love for Indian cricket. Whenever some gentleman speaks against Indian cricket, Indian cricketers, the game of cricket, or Sachin Tendulkar, I get very offended and take it rather personally. So, you can imagine how much I adore Greg Chappell.

I liked you man. You ruined it.

And regarding his recent statements, which I deem were only a part of publicity campaign for his new book that I shall not name, I seriously considered catching a flight to Australia and well, until I read him say something that goes like this: Indians do not take decisions on their own, it’s not in their culture. 

I was impressed. This man is brilliant, well at least when he is not talking about cricket.

I asked around, and surprisingly many people agree. Here’s the journey of a typical Indian kid into adulthood and beyond. Yes, I'm talking about most of you:
(Now you'll feel cheated, as this article is not about cricket.)

It starts with what school you should go. Granted, parents would know better in some cases, but shouldn’t they treat your vote better than irrelevant. What kind of kids you should hang out with, what clothes you should or should not wear, they decide everything. Which stream you should pick in your Higher secondary (PCM), what should you do for graduation (Engineering) which stream should you chose in college (the one your dad/ uncle took), what should you do after college, what type of company should you work for, what you should do, what you should not do (drugs, alcohol, business, love marriage).

Hell, they even decide the person you should marry. Pundits, stars and planets also have a say here, but not YOU.  

Apparently, it’s in your palms, but not in your hands.

The point is that there is always a someone who would make decisions for you. Most of the time, it is a family member- one of the parents, an elder brother, an uncle etc and pundits and zillions of Gods otherwise. We all brave that nihilistic It’s-all-written sentiment almost every day.

But as they say, every cloud has a silver lining, and this is no exception. In fact we are highly familiar with another aspect of Family first phenomenon called nepotism. The kids today often confuse this term with Indian culture.

How many young actors can you name who do not belong to some Bollywood family. And how about politicians and their sons and nephews. How about one of the oldest parties in the nation and their pipedream of having that 42 year old youth ambassador as the next Prime Minister. Emperor’s son becomes an emperor. Beggar’s son remains a beggar. That was India 1500 years ago. And so it is  today.

I am not advocating whether it is right or wrong. What I am trying to tell you is this is prevalent, whether you like it or not. It affects our lives to a great extent. Okay, allow me to correct myself, I am saying this is wrong and has to be changed.

My advice is that we should start with ourselves. Take responsibility, make decisions, bite the bullet. Let’s not vote for people just because they share their DNA with some politician. Avoid movies of actors that are produced by their actor daddies, they are pathetic anyway.

I'll leave you with wisdom from an LSD-fuelled band ^{[citation needed]} :

“Don’t be told what you want, don’t be told what you need” 
(God save the Queen, Sex pistols)
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ps 1:  If you follow Sex Pistol’s advice, you’ll be contradicting yourself. A Paradox?

ps 2:  Come to think of it, maybe the title is not appropriate. Perhaps ‘Be a Man’ or 'Take the charge' or some other clichéd one would go better. Let me ask around and see if they have a better one in mind.