sridhar- changing the face of education

8/14/2019 Sridhar- Changing the Face of Education

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Poor Quality of Student Learning: What does the data show?

Public debate in India bemoans the lot of government schools in the country. The implicit assumption isthat alls well (or at least almost well) with private schools. With the help of Wipros communityinitiatives group, our company tried to verify this assumption. Between February and April 2006, we

administered specially prepared tests to about 32,000 students of classes 4, 6 and 8 of 142 English-medium schools in Kolkata, Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai and Bangalore. These schools were thoseperceived by the public to be the leading schools of their cities (and were identified through anindependent survey).

An analysis of the results of the study suggests that even in these top schools, students are not learningwell and with real understanding their learning is more superficial and based on recall of bookish facts.Probably more disturbing was that these children - from our top schools - scored lower than the childrenof 43 countries in an international achievement test. Details of the study and the findings are available athttp://www.ei-india.com .

The first part of the study was a survey of about 200 people from different walks of life in each metro toidentify the best schools as per popular perception. Based on their responses, a list of 50 top schoolswas drawn for each city. These schools were then invited to participate in the study. Students of classes4, 6 and 8 of each school were tested for their learning achievement with a special test tailored to theirage and ability. The test tried to measure how well students of these classes understand the key conceptsin English, Mathematics and Science. Apart from the multiple-choice questions, students were alsorequired to write a small paragraph or essay, which would help study their writing competencies.

A secondary study was also conducted to understand the progression of learning achievement across theclasses: a common test was administered to students of classes 4, 6 and 8, to gather insights on theretention and development of knowledge, as students move to higher classes. Additionally, about 25%of the questions in this paper were taken from an international assessment study (the Trends inInternational Maths and Science Studies - TIMSS, http://www.timss.org ) for which performance data of students from all over the world is available. An expert panel of educationists and principals guided thesurvey.

The findings suggest that schools are laying disproportionate emphasis on rote and procedural learningand not surprisingly, students tend to be strong in those. To a certain extent this is good - for exampleit builds habits of rigour and hard work. But when it starts replacing original thinking and creativity,over-reliance on rote can be extremely counter-productive. This is happening, and we need to bealarmed.

Thus it seems that students are learning mechanically. They are able to answer questions based on recallor standard procedures quite well, but their performance on questions testing understanding orapplication is far below acceptable levels.

Similarly, students fare poorly in questions requiring practical, real-life skills. Some examples of theseskills are measurement and estimation, correct use of day-to-day expressions in language, andapplication of principles of science in everyday life. For example, students are able to say that iron nails


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conduct electricity as this is taught in textbooks, but they are not able to deduce that if one of threebatteries of a torch were replaced by an iron nail, the torch would still light up (though less brightly).

The student performance suggests that they are unable to tackle questions that appear to be a littledifferent from what they typically find in textbooks or in the class. Their ability to apply what they have

learnt to new, unfamiliar problems - so important in todays world - tends to be low.

Comparative AnalysisA comparative analysis of the performance of the 5 metros again threw up a surprise. It was found thatthe performance of the cities fell into two categories, with Kolkata, Mumbai and Delhi clearlyoutperforming Bangalore and Chennai. It was also found that schools affiliated to the CISCE (ICSE)board out-performed the CBSE board which in turn out-performed the state boards.

Boys outperformed girls by a margin that was statistically significant in Mathematics (in all classes).The gap widens even more among better-performing students and in the case of difficult questions. Webelieve that these differences are not because boys are inherently better in Mathematics than girls, but

due to social messages encouraging boys to do better in Mathematics and probably discouraging girls.Many of these findings were corroborated through the secondary study in which learning levels acrossclasses were compared. While learning clearly improved from class 4 to 6 to 8, a number of studentsseem to be understanding class 3 and 4 concepts only around class 6 or later.

Educational Initiatives and Wipro have released all the data including the question papers and detailedanalysis in the public domain. (They are available at http://www.ei-india.com/whats-wrong-with-our-teaching). The main reason for this is to allow the issue of quality of learning to be more widely debatedon a foundation of hard data, rather than subjective opinions. In the coming year, we are planning toexpand this study to more cities in the coming year, and also enhance the study in other ways.

It is clearly in our power collectively to improve the quality of learning in our schools, but that willhappen only if we choose to make that commitment to the next generation, by way of focusing on reallearning. The current focus on valuing high scores in the board exams or fancy facilities in our schools isunlikely to take us far, as far as real learning is concerned. Our tests should be such that they measurereal learning.

Yet the reaction to surveys like this remains restricted to trying to apportion blame. Who is responsiblefor this state of affairs? We shall look into this in the next part of this article.


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Poor Quality of Student Learning: Whos to Blame?

According to a study conducted in top private English medium schools by us jointly with Wipro,students, even in these top schools, are not learning with understanding. Also they score lower than theaverage of students from 43 countries in a reputed international test. Details of the study and the

findings are available at http://www.ei-india.com .

Results showing poor learning in government schools are not new, but this study is probably the first of its kind involving research based large scale assessment of top private schools. So who is to blame forthis poor quality of student learning?

The first tendency is to point accusing fingers towards teachers and schools, as it is they, after all, whoare engaged in the task of actually teaching children.

After teachers, government and government policy is what we love to blame. If only government wouldprivatise schooling, or run English-medium schools, or pay teachers better, different lines of reasoning

go..., our problems would disappear!Though each of the above has some element of truth in them, the complete truth, as always, is far morecomplex. And it is that the education system concerns us all. As boards, schools, teachers, parents,students, administrators, businesses or simply tax-payers, we are a part of it. With the exception of students, all of us are to blame for this mess.

The boards of education the CBSE, the ICSE and the State Boards are responsible for setting andcorrecting test papers and announcing results. If there has been a dilution of standards, if questions askedare too mechanical, if students score above 90% and still count themselves as failures the boards areresponsible for this.

Many of us, as parents, may see ourselves as pressurized and the victims of an uncaring system, but it isparents who have perpetrated and strengthened this system. Parents goad their wards to score more andmore - showing scant care for real learning. Between 60% and 80% of students in private schools attendtuitions, and this would not be possible without parental approval.

Tuition classes have virtually become a parallel system of schooling, but a system where nothing mattersmore than guide-books, marks and exams. The business of coaching at various levels is one of the mostprofitable, and online tuitions are now a growing, if ignominious, export.

Educational experts and researchers are often guilty of not trying enough to get their word out. To takeone example, how many of us know that educational research is almost unanimous in therecommendation that primary education should be in the mother tongue, not a language unfamiliar to thechild (like English, the medium of almost each and every of our elite, coveted schools)?

Of course, schools and teachers have not exactly distinguished themselves when it comes to ensuringthat real learning is happening in schools. They see themselves as powerless, caught between the boardson the one side, parents on the other and tuition classes on the third, and do not perceive themselves ashaving the power to transform society.


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The rest of us members of the corporate world, or simply other citizens are not free from blameeither. We pay our taxes and 2% education cesses, but we condone a lot of what goes on in the name of education, including huge salary differentials in education compared to corporates, because we are toobusy (and we are not the experts, are we?) to make a difference. If there is one thing our educational

system lacks the most, it is a connection with real life, and can we as the practitioners absolve ourselvesof all blame for this?

Maybe an acceptance that it is we, collectively, who have got ourselves into the current quagmire, willhelp us realize that only we can get ourselves out of it. It is not as if valiant attempts have not been madeor are not being made to change things, but we have not allowed those efforts to reach a critical mass.We are part of a system a large, complex system and such systems have a dangerously effective wayof neutralizing efforts to change the status quo. Yet such systems can be changed, and history does shownotable examples. This realization, the acknowledgement that were all in it together and a willingnessto challenge old assumptions and stereotypes with confidence and hope, rather than trying to fix blame,may be the place to start.

In the concluding part of this series, we shall examine a set of concrete steps that can be taken to make adent in the existing system and try to create one which will help students learn better.


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Poor Student Learning: What can be done?

That there are serious gaps in student learning both in government schools and in top private schools -is a matter of grave concern. In the earlier part of this article, we concluded that all of us teachers,schools, educationists, parents, corporates, education boards, tuition teachers are collectively

responsible for this, and little will be achieved by pointing fingers at each other. Can something be doneto improve the system? Can the solution take all these various groups along, instead of pitting oneagainst the other?

The overall solutions to address the current malaise are fairly well-known and often proposed: Changethe paradigm of teaching and learning for example, increase group and activity work, train teachers inparticipative techniques, reduce dictation of notes, etc. Improve textbooks so that they may cover lesscontent but more meaningfully, possibly in greater depth. Eliminate textbooks till class 3, having onlyteacher guides at that stage. Change the nature of the board exam questions , so that understanding - notthe power to memorise - is tested etc.

These suggestions are not new. However, attempting to make such large changes is a risky endeavourwith significant chances of failure- First of all, implementing these changes across such a large system is a complex and massive effort. Secondly, there is the challenge of taking a large number of people along. Different people and

groups have their own perspectives and priorities, and this may prove a difficult task. The negativerepercussions or fall-outs of such changes can be high at a practical level- especially in thetransitional stages. Protests by parents and students to drastic changes in board exams can beimagined.

Thirdly, how does one monitor and agree that progress is being made? This involves measuring theimmeasurables like student learning, teacher effectiveness, and school efficacy a discipline inwhich we are still struggling and have had very limited success. Without an agreed upon

barometer for these key factors, it would be impossible to drive consensus or even havemeaningful debate.

In the language of systems thinking when an attempt is made to change a large system by tweaking afew of its parts, the system reacts with steps that in effect compensate for the changes, so that the net change in the system is minimal! Thus guides get produced even for new textbooks aimed at improvingpractical learning. Parents in Maharashtra protested and forced a plan to test children in class 4 to bewithdrawn, possibly without understanding that this was a measure of accountability primarily for

primary school teachers , not a desire to add another exam to already over-burdened students.

What is the alternative then? Can we make smaller changes in a way we incentivise stakeholders and

educate them, thus inducing slow but irreversible changes in behaviour that can bring about the desiredresults? Here then are some innocuous-looking ideas based on 3 simple philosophies:

1. Compulsion will not work, but building on peoples desire to contribute, do good and better themselves may. For example, banning tuitions is unlikely to work. But steps should be taken thatlead to the elimination of tuition. Similarly, do not force teachers to, say, enhance their skills, butprovide opportunities that can be voluntary tapped, and the motivated ones will automatically takethe opportunity and the some others will follow later.


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2. Government should do less and enable more. It should have expert teams and even those teams

should not do the stuff. That should be left to private players. The expert team should formguidelines, rate and ratify stuff, reward excellence, etc.

3. Doing all the right things is obviously the ideal, but even if some of the easier things can be doneor corrected, a gradual momentum towards improvement can be built up.

On the face of it, these are small ideas that try to tweak a small part of the system. They are relativelyeasy to implement there is very little compulsion in any of them and they can be started in smallways. And yet in their own way, these measures can together help completely change the current system no less!

1. Boards (starting with the CBSE) should award percentile scores in addition to marks. Over 3 years,the format and the official board results should start emphasising the percentiles, not the marks.

2. An application section should be added to board exams. The application section should have 10%

weightage in the first year, but this weightage should increase by 10% each year till it reaches 60%.3. Two public education campaigns - maybe not very different from the current Incredible Indiacampaign on promoting tourism and respecting heritage - should be launched. One of them shouldemphasise the role of the teacher and encourage the best people to join the profession. The other,targeted at parents, should emphasise that real learning is more than marks and exams .

4. The state textbook boards should be converted into Textbook Approval Committees . Staffed byprofessionals, one central committee should provide syllabus guidelines for textbook makers, and thestate committed should approve and provide a rating to every textbook submitted. Printed textbooksmust carry this rating and schools can choose from the different textbooks available.

5. On the lines of the steps initiated by the NCERT, all states should put up the current textbooksonline for free access. The new universal standard called Unicode should be used for regionallanguages.

6. Various steps should be initiated so that a clear message is sent out that excellence is valued . It isinteresting how this is either not the case or not communicated effectively today. Some of these stepsare:a. A nation-wide voluntary scholarship test around class 6. Gradually, such competitions can be

organised around different non-academic skills as well.b. Competitions for teachers - around best teaching aids, lesson plans, etc. The web should be used

extensively to both promote transparency and aid sharing.7. Various steps need to be taken to actively promote professional development for teachers. The most

important of these would be voluntary tests for teachers - tests that allow a teacher to know whereshe stands. Government should encourage private initiatives to develop these and ensure quality.Though the certification would not (and should not) have any statutory value, the quality theyrepresent will soon earn value. For any new initiative, a ready pool of the more motivated, morecapable teachers will be readily available.

8. Addressing teacher grievances: Teachers have a number of valid problems and one way to addressthem is to allow them to be brought out into the open. Technology allows us to do this today - asection of a national website for teachers should allow them to enter their grievances in their ownlanguage. An independent group will remove trivial complaints and also maintain a summary (state-


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wise, later district-wise probably) of how many grievances have been published and how many havebeen resolved.

9. Last, but as important as anything else, encouraging systematic research on a number of topicswhich are of critical importance if the educational system as a whole has to improve. Some of theseare the mother tongue versus English question; identifying a measurable set of Markers of

Excellence of a good school, and even compiling 50 Good Ideas than Work or something like that.

The above are just a few ideas, presented briefly. The point is to initiate a larger debate and take thisforward. For more details or to join the debate, please write to [email protected]

Sridhar Rajagopalan is the managing director of Educational Initiatives a company working to enhancestudent learning through initiatives like its ASSET test.

sridhar- changing the face of education

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