Saturday, October 26, 2013

Interesting Facebook Conversation on India's Education

In this post, I’d like to share an interesting Facebook conversation with Mr. Sundara Velavan, faculty at Institute of Language Management, Tamil Nadu. Sundara raised important questions which led to discussions on programs like Teach for India, state’s role in education, decentralization and standardization and so on. While responding to Sundara, I presented my opinions on a gamut of educational issues. So, please feel free to comment on whether you agree/ disagree/ or would like to add more points to this discussion. The conversation began as I posted Economist’s article on Teach for America on wall of a facebook group, Centre forContemporary Educational Reform.  

Kathan Shukla
Are there any studies examining the impact of this sort of projects in India? A lot of NGOs are in the field, but is the bigger picture pleasant?
http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2013/09/economist-explains-7
https://fbstatic-a.akamaihd.net/rsrc.php/v2/y4/r/-PAXP-deijE.gif

Top of Form
Sundara Velavan What are your thoughts on this Kathan Shukla ?
Kathan Shukla haha... Sundara Velavan, putting me on the spot :O OK. At micro-level I think it's nice to see youth going to gov. schools, teaching, getting involved in development. Most are motivated and really want to do something and children also benefit from them. Definitely, the learning gets a push overall. However, at macro-level, the rationale for this flows in this direction: gov education is a failure -> So, NGOs need to get involved. The role should be that of a catalyst: carry out intervention, build capacity of gov people, create sustainable setup and get out of the system. However, they remain there forever and gradually expand. Simultaneously, the government shrinks its responsibility. So, we end up creating a scenario where government's capacity is reduced and the system is dependent on these NGOs, who in the long-run behave as parallel governments (as seen in many developing countries). And in case if they shut down for some reason, god knows what happens to those children. In all this, the quality of education remains un-addressed. Moreover, there remains grave concerns of deprofessionalisation of teaching profession. I don't know any hospital that would allow me to perform a surgery, or a court that would allow me to judge a case after 15-20 days of training. What joke we have made out of teachers!
Kathan Shukla To resolve this dilemma, we need methodologically robust empirical studies at every level across various social contexts. We all may have diverse opinions/intuitions, but the policy should not rely on that. There has to be solid bases - possibly numerous studies which help us arrive at causal inferences of short term long term effects of such NGOs.
September 20 at 4:56pm · Like · 2
Sundara Velavan Kathan Shukla Are you trying to imply that the state should be the sole provider and bear the sole/primary responsibility of educating our children and our youth?
September 22 at 1:53am · Like
Kathan Shukla In theory, yes, at least for basic education. Biggest argument comes from the preamble of our constitution. Ideally, basic education opportunity should not be dependent on socio-economic status. Most high performing education systems across world are public. With all their problems, even the Chinese have developed excellent public education system in cities. Also, our goal should be to have minimum variation across schools across entire nation. The privatization will always increase this variance as the present economic inequality comes in the equation. However, in practice, we all know the governments across India are incapable of providing top quality education. My diagnosis is that the problem is of governance & policy-making. All these years we have hardly studied our educational issues systematically. So, the policymakers are always clueless about what works. Hence, my earlier argument of empirical studies. It is also true that the socialist lobby uses the above equality argument to put more government controls on private schools. Cutting short the privatization is the worst thing. It's like saying -'all should be in non-functional schools and not just the poor'. In current scenario, if I were in policy-making, I would rather avoid the public/private debate and just focus on better quality education. Be pragmatic, study what works and just do it. Note that many privatization-proponents favour 'school voucher' programmes, where poor children can study in private school and the government pays the fee. However, that has not really worked in many studies in US. As always, we don't have sufficient knowledge for India. Centre for Civil society does some advocacy research, but as far as I know they have mixed results.
Sundara Velavan Thank you for your patient response!
Subir Shukla Brilliant analysis there Kathan Shukla! Agree with every word of what you say.
Kathan Shukla thanks for a kind note, Subir. Sundara, credit to you for inquiring 
Sundara Velavan If you would allow, I'd like to pick on what you've said, 'Also, our goal should be to have minimum variation in schools across the nation'. Could you share which parameters you are stressing that mustn't vary?
Kathan Shukla In the first phase, all inputs that the children get in schools. And goal should be to achieve invariant mean student achievement across schools. In other words, average academic achievement of one school should not be significantly different from other schools. Gradually, we can expand this invariance to desired non-academic outcomes. Considering this for India is too abstract. But, we can at least begin from a cluster level, where all schools within that cluster become high achieving.
Hema Khatri I agree with what Kathan Shukla says. In fact, I feel before trying to intervene directly by teaching the children and management of school, the focus should be on Teacher Trainings by empowering the government school/ municipal school teachers and equipping them with same set of skills that these young 'corporate sanyaasis' use for teaching the kids and running schools efficiently. There is need for changing their overall approach towards teaching as a profession and trust and capacity building at the level of school teachers and school management.
Sundara Velavan Kathan, Hardly would anyone dispute that high student achievement is necessary/desirable. But the does kind of uniformity that you talk about take into account the diversity of India and the uniqueness of everyone of her children? Is it consistent with the concept of 'local knowledge' articulated in the National Curriculum Framework (NCF 2005) and with the views of prominent educationists like Sir Ken Robinson?
Kathan Shukla Oh... I'm referring to uniformity across schools (average achievement), not students. Within schools there will always be variation across student achievement. Individual differences can be accommodated within school-level.
Sundara Velavan As I understand, your statement implies that while students within a school may be different, the schools themselves are similar to one another in terms of curriculum, value systems, infrastructure, parental aspirations and culture. Only in such a case can we propose common parameters of student achievement.
Kathan Shukla Yes, to some extent. Non-school variables (parental aspirations, socio-economic status, other cultural aspects) are beyond the control of policymakers. So, got to invest more (in teacher quality, leadership, infrastructure etc) in schools where those variables affect the achievement negatively. But, the goal should be to have minimum variation across schools. Also, curriculum can certainly be flexible and localized. Researchers often define student achievement as math, sci & reading scores on standardized test (which can be scaled and linked keeping in mind language/curricula variation). Doing this at India level can be the goal for next 50-70yrs. Even small homogeneous country like Finland took 2 decades. The Chinese did it in many cities in about 1 decade. We can at least begin it at cluster-level (approx. 30-50 schools).
Sundara Velavan I really appreciate your patience Kathan . Here are my last set of questions: 1. 'Is policy the only instrument in educational reform on which we must place all our bets?2. Math, Science and reading are important, but depending on your socioeconomic context, so are fishing, weaving, dancing, reciting mantras, honey collection and many other skills. Do you think that policy needs to make space for such alternatives as well?If yes, how? If no, why not?3. Do you think that a top- down, centrally controlled approach is the best way forward in solving our educational woes? 4. Will structuring education, which is the process by which learning is facilitated, on the principles of uniformity and minimal variation, which usually are associated with inanimate objects, help retain the human element in education? 5. What kind of an impact will the push for standardization have on holistic learning and development? I know the questions are many but I'm sure you understand the common undercurrent. 
Kathan Shukla I highly appreciate these questions and would love to hear other people's perspective. This is such an interesting conversation. I'll respond pretty soon 
Kathan Shukla OK. 1) Policy only gives a direction in which we should move as a country. For educational reforms, we will always need a multidimensional approach. Clear linkage of national objectives-> creation of relevant knowledge-pool -> policy -> practices -> continuous policy evaluation, which adds to the knowledge-pool. Things will improve if all stakeholders are on-board (from students to politicians and all in-between). 2) Math/sci/reading can be the primary outcomes of interest to assess school quality (only for research purpose). The policymakers/researchers need that knowledge to design interventions and to evaluate those interventions. All other aspects of the school have to be localized and sensitive to local culture. (3) Certainly not. I hate the top-down approach. In fact, I'd say that primary reason for poor educational outcomes across the country is DELHI (not the city but centralized decision-making). Centre's job is to coordinate state-policies and provide funds for knowledge production and various social-programmes. At present, the states need to start establishing the linkage as mentioned in first point. Gradually, we can bring that research & decision-making capacity to districts, then talukas, and even cluster-level (let's say over next 7, 15 & 25 years, respectively). Let people figure-out their local problems. (4) I'm not sure if I understand this question. It would be great if you can make it clearer what you mean by 'structuring education'. (5) I'm talking about standardized tests for research purpose to make informed policy decisions. That helps keeping the measurement error down (unbiased inferences). A lot of people in western-world argue against it because here the results are used to assess teachers and for punishing schools with lesser funding. I don't favour that use of test-results. Our tests (e.g., board exams) have extremely low reliability. The score will be different if different people assess the answer-sheet. I think that's unfair, right? Hence, standardized tests.
Sundara Velavan I don't know what to say except for thanking you for your patience! And yes, your point on gradual decentralization answers the fourth question to an extent. Thanks again Kathan. It indeed was a delightful conversation! 
Kathan Shukla Sundara, how can I add you to my friend list?

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