KOCHI: Last Friday, education minister C Raveendranath met the rep resentatives of all 36 teachers’ unions. The minister spoke for an hour, detailing new concepts and initiatives planned to strengthen the education sector. The next four hours were taken up by the unions who spoke about their workload, job security and remuneration; academics was not even mentioned. The meeting, no different from the routine ones that take place at regular intervals, illustrates how disjointed are the interests of stakeholders. The roles of students and parents are passive, except when public forums are formed to save a school dying for want of pupils.The disregard shown by major political fronts in introducing educational initiatives, with broader political consensus, has reduced the students in governmentaided schools to `guinea pigs’.
Though government is seen as a continuation, the same is often not reflected in the approach to school education. With each government committed to make policy changes and modify the approach followed by the previous government, students in government aided sector endure half-baked, politically-loaded reforms introduced every five years.
“Improvement of quality and maintaining its continuity are important.The immediate need today is the revi talization of our schools through the introduction of quality infrastructure.We can do things step by step. Quality improvement will happen once basic infrastructure improves and students return. Giving job protection to teachers and redeployment of excess teachers are major issues,” said Raveendranath.
In the mid-90s, the LDF government implemented a World Bank-funded district primary education programme (DPEP) in government and aided schools. It redefined the teaching-learning concept in primary schools. From teacher-centric education, a sudden shift was made to student-centric, activity-oriented education.
The programme, introduced without much groundwork and provisions for follow-up programmes, was replaced by the UDF government in 2001.The sudden surge of private CBSE schools was one of the direct results of the failure in implementing DPEP, which sent out an impression that it was `all play, no study’ model of education. Similarly, IT textbooks for primary classes, introduced by the VS Achuthanandan government, was withdrawn without discussions by the education department when UDF govern ment was in power. Now, with LDF assuming office, the education department has reintroduced the IT text books.
What is happening in our state? Represent atives of teachers’ unions, affiliated to r uling par ties, takes call on mat ters which are otherwise taken by experts. Initia tive by any sin gle minister is not enough to clean up this system,” said for mer Cusat vice-chan cellor Abdul Aziz, who headed the school curriculum revision committee during the UDF regime.
Successive governments gave the vigorous, scientific and continuous training for teachers – required for successfully implementing comprehensive and continuing evaluation of students – a miss. Now, the system is used to gift marks to students.
“The only solution to clean up the school education system is to stop the involvement of politicians. Let academicians do their job,” said All India Save Education Committee state secretary M Shajar Khan.
