Where the new makes way for the old...
Published on Thursday, November 17, 2005My father was a great wall decorator. If not well-framed prints of landscapes, or an assortment of wall-clocks, he was often putting up posters of fruit bowls, or fuzzy animals, or even maps of the world. It was on one of these maps, many years ago, that I first noticed that the India on it looked a little different from the India in my textbook. The map was a give-away by some foreign shipping company, and to my young eyes it looked like a tiny bit of India had been chopped off the top. Puzzled I asked my dad who told me something about a Line of Control. I was fascinated and wondered why I had never heard of it before.
In 2005 NCERT, the apex Indian body for research in school education, came out with their latest National Curriculum Framework (NCF). As with any policy publication on education, the Framework too was soon mired in political opinion and debate. Both the Left parties and the Saffron brigade vented their ire at assorted components of the framework.
To be just to the NCERT they have tried to iron out issues that have plagued the Indian school education systems for decades. School boards, including the highly rated CBSE, have been widely accused of promoting rote learning and little creativity or individual thinking. The preface to the NCF document is frank in admitting to these and other failures. It bravely confesses that our schools are resistant to change and, while our textbooks have been getting thicker and flabbier, children see little connection between their daily lives and what is fed to them daily in classrooms.
As with many other issues the government has not been entirely blind to the state of affairs. The Ministry of Human Resources appointed the Yashpal Committee in 1993 that produced a widely appreciated report called "Learning without Burden". (This link gives a review of the history syllabus using the guidelines prescriped by the report. Be warned, it is not gripping reading.)
All this is old news to most readers. Even during the recent NCF debate the public reaction to the entire imbroglio was one of apathy. As long as our progeny became engineers, doctors or MBAs no parent seems to care. Grade sheets seem to have become the ultimate representation of a school education. The days spent in the classroom before that merely got in the way of coaching classes. With entrance exams to filter out applicants to most good graduate programmes, school curricula recieves little, if any, attention.
Surely this ambitious NCF-2005 means that the NCERT is aspiring to give our children a better school experience. The TWW decided to probe further: while the NCERT is making a laudable attempt to change the way our children learn, what were they doing about the content? What is the point of experiential and enjoyable learning if the lessons imparted were sub-optimal. The TWW decided to investigate the history syllabus in particular.
The history syllabus has remained a very controversial topic. While the "secular" accuse the BJP of saffronisation, the RSS grumble that history textbooks do not refer to its formation. The debate is cyclic and rises everytime school reforms are spoken about. The TWW noted something rather peculiar about the history program. Going through the current CBSE history syllabus for 12th and the proposed program by the NCF raises one important question in our minds: What happened to Indian history post-independence? The syllabus seems to go mum after the 1950s.
Surely what happens in contemporary India is important to our children. Why have even the adventurous new NCERT not extended the scope of teaching to include the last 50 years? Should not our children know that we won two wars and lost one? The circumstances of the emergency? When our young people come out of schools should not they be in a position to understand the reasons for why the nation is the way it is? It would be impossible for even the brightest of our youth to extrapolate 2005 from 1947. While our science and maths textbooks are more uptodate, and we are even including a segment on disaster management, why is history getting such a step-motherly treatment?
Understanding this reluctance to talk about the last fifty years of our independence is not difficult. History has been a political hot potato. Sadly for our children, the government in power seems to be the ultimate arbitrator of what can and cannot be taught. And given our tumultuous post-independence history it would be impossible to write objectively about it without slinging some mud on one's own face. While the BJP will think twice before referring to Babri Masjid, the Congress may not relish talking about the Emergency or the anti-Sikh riots.
What all this means is that our youth today will grow up not understanding why everyone talks about the Line of Control while our textbooks do not show it anywhere. Hiding Babri Masjid and Blue Star from our schools make little sense if they are to grow up into well-informed citizens tomorrow. Or are we going to rather let the media and political machinery educate them instead? Perhaps our fear of partisan opinion will mean we will need to wait for a few decades before current events can be seen in an academic and neutral light. But by then it will be too late for our children in schools today.
Yesterday evening most TV channels had extensive coverage of the CAT examination. Some channels went to the extent of analyzing the mecahnics of the exams and potential cut-offs to the various IIMs. Questions and sections and mark distributions were analyzed, and experts were called to dissect every aspect. Interviews with candidates and faculty from the IIMs beamed out all day. Alas, if only our school system would get a fraction of the attention.
suddenly did a " Aashique banaya apne" number?
a little taken aback.
nevertheless must say u make very good sense and agree completely with the post. getting used to this.
now let me go and mourn my maximus.
iw
My point is that the issue you have highlighted is part of a much greater reform that is urgently required in the education system in India.
What happened to Indian history post-independence?
well...."Some-thing" happened which we are affraid to talk about,rather we have been kept in dark about this some-thing.
It is not only our politician who have obscured us,but the irony remains the same throughout the globe....Ask Americans about Civil Rights Movement,ask them about the Vietnam War.Ask Germans about Hitler.Ask Italians about Mousollini and you would find the same shrug,the same assumed darkness created by the Politik Of Politicians.
Hey...John.....got to go know??hope you have something to write about the last weeks Bihar Elections.....coz
Laloo is HIS-tory NOW!!!!!
Ranjan Marathe
(Rim-Jim.)
Heard that you are taking the plunge. had to congratulate you on that. havent been a regular with your blogs, but have read enough to appreciate your writings, the fact that you have no clue what the book is going to be about makes it better still. the very best to you.
Cheers
Chetna
Your turning into a full time writer should also imply more frequent(weekly?) updates of this blog.
You do have some fan following here too
email hiteshnijhawan@yahoo.com
I think it would make sense for chapters in all textbooks to give a list of references and recommended reading. Reference lists are provided for the most insignificant journal articles, surely they should be a part of a textbook that goes out to thousands? Let the list include official publications by the RSS as well as any books brought out by the Congress. Curious minds can go dig in libraries, virtual or otherwise. That might keep everybody happy, by letting them have airtime, so to speak.
At the same time, teachers can teach students to be critical of the material they read and not swallow everything whole.
But maybe all this is too much trouble for staff already stretched too far with low pay and long, tiring working hours?
Does anybody try to understand why kids abhor rote learning...ask them and come out with a solution accordingly
This is Sanjay here. i just got info about u from my frnds blog where one of his frnd has asked him to be like u--who left his job to pursue his passion.
I just read one paragraph (last one) where u were talking about media and the way they were focussing on CAT exam.
Man, i liked ur view where u have expressed desire for the same sort of coverage for schools.
Frnd, thats the irony of media, which is run by 'mindless' editors, reporters.
These gentlemen never give a thought on what they r doing and what will be its repurcussion.
Its been a pretty long break u have taken from this blog of yours. Should write something here too. How about female infanticide, Palestine war, Irish conflict, Andhra Naxals? Or anything that finds your fantasy..?
I agree that the total blank in school reading from 1950 on is a puzzle, but I feel that most teen and preteen writers are also ignoring this time- why blame only the government. Even bald facts are not available in chronological order, let alone biased views. I as an adult have spent time trying to make some sense of the seventies and eighties when I was otherwise too young to take much notice of politics - NOW. But the problem being that events of that time are difficult to come by in recorded verity. So maybe someone somewhere will actually just put some events and dates together in a long list and then we can refernce whatever interests us.
At times, i feel post grauation shd be done compulsory, but what abt the millions who dont even get primary education..
Andhra Naxals, Bluestar, LOC ..all these shd be told..
but can't parents take up this responsibilty..
or may be links shd be provided in the NCERT books..but shd not be an additional burden on students..
ur blog is very nice!