SAMAJ WEEKLY UK
(Note: This is an important report on the current status of primary education, its problems and solutions, which must be read in the context of the current closure of primary schools at the national level. If we let primary education get ruined like this, then one day we will become the most illiterate crowd in the world. We should also know that behind the current destruction of primary education, there is a deep conspiracy to keep the children of common people illiterate and make them cheap labourers.)
S R Darapuri, National President, All India People’s Front
Literacy and education are the building blocks of any nation. However, the recent ASER report (2023) portends a grim future for the trajectory of primary education in the country. To boost overall literacy, special attention must be paid to building holistic and resilient primary school education.
Primary education in India has been studied in detail, as it constitutes one of the most foundational stages in laying the groundwork for future learning, helping an individual navigate everyday life. As in-depth studies from the pages of EPW reveal, primary education is critical in the reduction of disparities. They also point out that beyond the need to set up basic facilities and required infrastructure, what further imperils the Indian primary school system, shortages of teachers, a lack of innovative teaching practices, and reluctance from school administration and parents all pose formidable challenges that demand urgent redressal.
In ‘Primary Education and Minority Rights’, 2017, Sushant Chandra argues that one must bear in mind that primary education is the biggest equaliser, and must be treated differently from secondary or tertiary education- As it enables the “normative grounding in educative values necessary to exercise choices consistent with the ideas of equality of opportunity and social justice. It is this feature of primary education that distinguishes it from secondary and tertiary education.” (Chandra, 2017)
Further, through the means of this intervention, we will explore how the hurdles to accessing education for children in India, especially in rural areas and particularly girls and those belonging to vulnerable communities, are multifaceted and often specific to their contexts. As this 2013 EPW Editorial grimly remarked- “School education in India is like a blank blackboard on which the teacher writes with disappearing ink.”
Decades after the implementation of the Right to Education Act, of 2009, which made education a fundamental right, and ensured free and compulsory schooling and education for children from the age of six to fourteen, equitable access to primary education remains a distant dream. However, as research suggests, with the right set of government interventions, policy reforms and civil society support, we can reimagine the primary education architecture in India, with the universal participation of children from all backgrounds. In a nation as diverse as India, establishing a solid foundation of literacy is imperative before embarking on any developmental endeavours, particularly amidst the rapidly evolving landscape of education.
ASER Report Findings: Barriers to Primary Education
The citizen-led “Annual Status of Education Report” (ASER), facilitated by the Pratham Education Foundation, is widely referred to for its comprehensive analysis of trends and evaluation of the quality of rural education over time. The survey, held in 28 districts across 26 states, provides insights into children’s enrollment status and foundational skills at district, state, and national levels. Through its in-depth household surveys, it illustrates the skewed trends in primary schools across the country. In a 2023 article titled ‘Does Access to Educational Institutions Signify Gaining Quality Education?’ Parul Gazta and Jagdish Jadhav, while pointing to the data presented in the ASER, note that increasing enrollment ratios mean little without accompanying improvements in the quality of education. They point towards the following concerns- (1) Attendance numbers, (2) That the “multigrade classrooms have steadily increased over the past decade from 54.8% in 2010 to 65.5% in 2022 (ASER 2023: 51) where students from two or more grades sit together.”
Foundational literacy
The National Education Policy calls for the urgent need to build foundational literacy for all. As per ‘National Education Policy, 2020’ “the highest priority of the education system will be to achieve universal foundational literacy and numeracy in primary school by 2025.” Foundational literacy is a critical marker to map the basic literacy and numeracy skills of an individual. According to a 2023 report by the Ministry of Education, Government of India, it is “the ability to read and understand a basic text, write and perform simple mathematical operations. The key components in Foundational Language and Literacy are Oral Language, Decoding, Reading Fluency, Reading Comprehension and Writing.” In her 2021 article, ‘Foundational Literacy and Numeracy in West Bengal’ Lipi Ghosh presses on the importance of building adequate literacy and numeracy skills at the foundational age between three and seven years, as data suggests, over “85% of a child’s cumulative brain development occurs at the age of six.” (Ghosh, 2021)
Curiously, “The ASER (2023: 49–50) confirms that reading abilities are more hampered than the numerical ability of primary school children. Reading expands imagination, curiosity, gives birth to many ideas, and creative thinking. Poor ability to read sentences or words hampers the intellectual growth of the learner.” (Gazta and Jadhav, 2023). Such statistics suggest the importance of encouraging reading, not only to be seen through strictly functional terms but also as a gateway to learning.
The binaries of gender and caste
The basic intent for enshrining education as a fundamental right was to ensure that children from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds could access quality education. However, in a 2017 piece, ‘Right to Education: Are We on the Right Track?’ Disha Nawani poignantly poses that “this right needs to translate into equitable educational opportunities and experiences for all children and should not be regarded as the provision of cheap, substandard education for the hitherto neglected”(Nawani, 2017).
In 2002, Vacha Women’s Resource Centre conducted research to analyse the educational outcomes of girl students in municipal schools in Mumbai. Their objective was to look into the “socio-cultural bases of health, produce a clear picture of their reality and involve policy-makers, social activists, NGOs, media and welfare organisations in supporting the issue of girls at this crucial stage of development.” (Vacha Kishori Project Team, 2002). The researchers identified a disturbing trend, a culture of sexual harassment and impunity.
As the researchers described it: “We tried to raise the issue of unnecessary touching and attention by male teachers. The girls resented the behaviour of male teachers and they expressed their discomfiture to us. The principal of the school did not believe the girls.”
Further, they noted that it was harder for girls to go to school when segregation and taboos surrounding menstrual hygiene still prevailed. As the researchers remarked- “In Mumbai the gender politics of toilets has always played a crucial role in the lives of females. They cannot relieve themselves till it is dark because there are not sufficient toilets and they have to go out in the open.” They maintain that “Denial of privacy and self-esteem thus starts in most cases at an early age.” (Vacha Kishori Project Team, 2002). Thus, one can observe that the impact of access to sanitation is not limited to the sector of human health alone. Investments in education continue to be undermined by inadequate sanitation at home and school.
In ‘Disadvantages and Segregation through School Choice: Elementary Education in India’, Biswajit Kar and Sachidanand Sinha present an analysis of privatisation in elementary education in India. Their study reveals its significant impact on student composition, leading to instances of stark segregation across different types of schools. This phenomenon perpetuates and reinforces binaries, particularly affecting children from historically deprived socio-economic backgrounds who are predominantly confined to public-funded schools. As they contended- “With the increase of schooling opportunities in India, specifically in urban areas, socio-economic diversity among students has decreased and the identity of students by “school types” has been reinforced by their existing socio-economic status identity.”(Kar and Sinha, 2021)
In a similar vein, children from disadvantaged castes often face psychological impediments, such as consciousness of negative stereotypes. Via an experiment, a study by Anoop Sadanandan in 2021, illustrated how caste consciousness could affect academic performance, and found that “children from disadvantaged castes perform poorly in tests when made aware of their caste and reservation status than otherwise.” (Sadanandan, 2021)
After conducting an in-depth study on how biases revolving around caste affect student’s experiences, Sameer Mohite, ‘Critical Thinking on Caste among Schoolchildren in Maharashtra: Case Study of Two Schools in Chiplun’,2014, argued that “classroom pedagogy reinforces traditional views on caste and discourages critical thinking. In the caste context, the uncritical nature of traditional thinking only perpetuates rigidity and caste inequalities.” Thus, to Mohite, it is only when we begin to question this pedagogy, and systematically analyse the caste prejudices within the four walls of the classroom, can we begin to shift societal attitudes beyond it.
Crafting alternative models
Early childhood education cannot be improved without carefully studying the power hierarchies of caste, class and social differentiation that control it. Pierre Bourdieu once noted the role of the student’s cultural and social capital in affecting their opportunities and achievements (Dworkin et al 2013). In a country as unequal as India, wherein children drop in and out of government schools, reconsidering the “one-size-fits-all” approach to education, is critical to any policy envisioning holistic schooling. In her 2020 paper ‘Democratic Politics Should be Concerned With Early Childhood Education’ Manabi Majumdar, by drawing on empirical evidence from classrooms in Anganwadis and private pre-school centres suggested that “The vision of preschool education and the surrounding debate needs to get closer to the structural dynamics of inequality.”( Majumdar, 2020).
In ‘What Does the Right to Education Need to Achieve?’, 2019, Sukanya Bose, Priyanta Ghosh, and Arvind Sardana state that unless emphasis on teacher training and a clear financial roadmap is created, with transparent norms of functioning put in place, the future of primary education looks bleak. “The Centre should play a stimulating, innovative, consultative, and promotional role in educational development. Moreover, the cynicism cycle needs to be broken: school teams and school administration are demotivated, and public schools have fallen into neglect, many of which are clearly dysfunctional.” (Bose et al, 2019).
Thus, any re-imagination of the primary education system involves not only the mere tickmarking of improved enrollment ratios, but should also stress upon the context-specific hurdles faced by young children and their varied experiences in the classroom. In other words, as Ishita Chatterjee Marie-Claire Robitaille wrote in ‘State of Indian Public Schools since the Right to Education Act’, 2023 -“the ultimate goal, comes from more than just textbooks, building and playground. The focus of policy and data collection should shift on what we know is essential for education, improved care for infants and preschoolers, and motivated and qualified teachers.”
Courtesy: EPW (engage)
