Fifty-nine years after independence, elementary education has finally become a fundamental right for all Indian children between 6 and 14. Common Indian people are unable to enjoy most of the fundamental rights provided to them by the constitution since its adoption. The education as fundamental right may meet the same fate if serious efforts were not made.  

 Bihar has the lowest literacy rate in the country. Today Bihar has over 2.7 million children who do not go to school. In Bihar, 60 percent of children drop out of school at the primary level and around 75 percent at elementary level. The proportion is higher for girls and disadvantaged groups of children.

The National Policy of Education 1986 has implied that all children, irrespective of caste, creed, location or sex, have access to elementary education of a comparable quality. While reviewing the implementation of this policy, the Ramamurti Committee (1990) considered the development of Common School System (CSS) to be “very vital component of overall strategy for securing equality and social justice in education” (in Chakraborty: 2006).  Bihar has taken the lead in starting the process of adopting a uniform educational system and has constituted a Common School System Commission (CSSC) to look into its long term implementation. The three member commission is to submit report within nine months and will focus on ways to introduce the CSS that aims at providing uniform education without discrimination based on one’s economic condition to all boys and girls of the state.

It is important to recall the Education Commission (1966) recommendation that put forward the concept of neighbour-hood schools for equitable quality education for all children. But with the growing number of private schools and deteriorating standard of government schools led to the delocalization of schooling in search of better quality education. Only either poor or marginal people send their children to government schools or those who could not secure admission of their children in these schools for one reason or other. The recommendation of the above commission is the terms of reference for the CSS Commission.

The government has also nurtured the concept of differential treatment in schooling for different categories of children in terms of Kendriya Vidyalayas(KVs), Sainik Schools, Navodaya vidyalayas (NVs)  etc.  However noble the mission of the government may be in opening such schools but they make these exclusive systems inconsistent with the common school system.  The Acharya Ramamurti Report also criticized the NV school system as it was very costly and inconsistent with the idea of common schooling for all. Each school should be developed into quality school only then the concept of neighbour-hood schooling can get voluntary materialization. Otherwise there is only one way left and that is to send all children to government designed common school i.e. forcing all to study in schools where the government wants them to study.

The CSS is a concept which intends to provide equitable quality education to all children of the society. This concept is basically revolves around government schooling system which appears to be incapable in providing quality education to our children. With the existing expenditure on education it is almost impossible to provide optimum physical facilities and number of teachers to our schools but by increasing physical facilities and number of teachers to a reasonable level we can find alternative ways to provide equitable quality education to our children.The curriculum giving more autonomy to teachers in designing her own daily curriculum, teaching based on activity cards in  grades 1 to 3 and use of minimum books in grades 4 to 8, use of local milieu in teaching learning processes, planned use of MGT, emphasis on oral expression in teaching of English, evaluation based on observation of affective and cognitive behaviour of the children throughout the year, implementation of the concept of failing the teacher and or school system instead of the child, compulsory provision of schooling of the public representatives and public servants in government schools, removal of immediate bureaucratic control on teachers and good life conditions to the teacher can work wonder.

In the modern society where egalitarianism, universalism and humanism are cherished values, the notion of CSS appears to be an important goal especially in our society where inequality is intense in schooling system. The welcome step should not be confused with still another step of achieving universalization of school education. It may create a catalytic effect on the demand of education among the common mass as they will start believing in the usefulness of the common system of education as it is meant for all children of the society which in turn may lead to the goal of universal elementary education and better effect on other higher levels.

 COMMON SCHOOL SYSTEM (CSS)

The basic aim of CSS is to provide equitable quality elementary education to all children of the society. The concept of CSS is quite relevant for Bihar because of two reasons. Firstly in spite of various governmental efforts like BEP, DPEP and SSA during last fifteen years the primary and elementary education is in shamble. Secondly people have lost faith in governmental schooling system and all those who can afford send their children to private schools. The Common School System Commission (CSSC) has invited the people to suggest norms, frame work, implementation strategy for the CSS. In response to the public invitation of the CSSC, we have developed norms and standards, frame work and implementation strategy for CSS. The document has been submitted to the CSSC.

NORMS AND STANDARDS OF CSS

The following norms and standards have been identified for equitable and qualitative Common School system:

• Attractive school environment.
• At least 3 usable class-rooms for primary schools and 6 usable class-rooms for elementary schools (with teacher’s blackboard, children’s board, proper sitting arrangements, low cost teaching-aids etc.).
• At least 3 teachers for each primary school.
• One teacher for each subject at elementary level (at least 4 teachers for Language, EVS, Social Science and Math).
• Substitution of text-books with activity cards and group activity based curriculum in early grades and use of minimum books in later grades in order to create space for teachers and learners to be creative and innovative.
• Use of the child’s immediate milieu as a resource for itemizing required knowledge and skills (for example, local birds, flowers, crops and trees; local language and folk-lore; and locally practiced crafts and expressive arts).
• Training of teachers not only in technical and academic proficiency but in delivering in the difficult situations of government schools as a challenging task (training based on hard realities).
• Continuous academic and training support by fully capable state institutions like SCERT, DIET, SIEMAT and SIET.
• Speaking (oral expression), the foremost concern of the teaching of languages as it is the basic mode of communication.
• Fixation of teaching duration in terms hours for different subjects.
• Ensuring minimum level of learning in all subjects.
• Criteria based evaluation.
• Inclusion of the process of evaluating affective domain (like attitude, sociability, punctuality, adventure, expression, etc.). This domain is given if not more, equal weight-age to that of cognitive domain in determining students’ merit.
• No over emphasis on achievement in school examinations at the cost of creativity.
• No setting up of Model or any other Expensive Schools by the state because such strategy makes people believe that mass government sponsored education failed to deliver the goods.
• Best possible salary and life amenities for teachers.
• Compulsory provision for the schooling of public representatives and public servants in government schools.
• Extension of ancillary services beyond free books and mid-day meal like free clothing and other learning materials for poor children.
• Attachment of crèches and pre schools to elementary schools in order to enroll poor girl children who look after the younger children at home and to keep them at school.

 

FRAMEWORK FOR COMMON SCHOOL SYSTEM

Infrastructural Framework

The existing primary and elementary schools will have at least 3 & 6 usable class-rooms with proper ventilation, sitting arrangement, blackboard and low cost teaching-learning aids respectively.

The school will have one room for teachers.

The school will have facility for safe drinking water and toilet.

The school will have study materials and manuals for teachers to help them understand the basic principles of modern education.

The school will have facilities for physical development of the children.

Teacher Framework

Number of teachers in the primary/elementary school will be 4/ 7 so that teaching may be done in the alternative way like MGT without affecting the quality of education. The Multi Grade Teaching is an innovative way of teaching with less than optimum number of teachers where combination of different grades is made on certain principles not haphazardly.

Curricular Framework

The curriculum will be based on participative action of learners, teachers and community. It will arouse child’s natural desire to be active. It will also aim to inculcate initiative to take personal responsibility especially in context to routine task like school upkeep, plantation, making of learning aids etc. It will provide ample scope for teachers’ initiative in the teaching-learning process. The innovative approach best fitted to our socio-economic condition will be adopted and attempt will be made to replace the textbook loaded curriculum with activity cards and group activities for grade I to III. Minimum number of books will be used for higher grades.

Inclusions of following components in the curriculum for primary schools are suggested here:

• Language(Mother tongue and English)
• EVS
• Mathematics
• Health & Hygiene and

• Arts & Crafts

 

Inclusions of following components in the curriculum for elementary schools are suggested:

• Language (Mother tongue, English and a third language).
• Science
• Social Study
• Mathematics
• Health & Hygiene and
• SUPW

Evaluation Framework

The evaluation will be based on the assessment of cognitive and affective aspects of the children. Affective aspects will be taken as seriously as cognitive domain. The evaluation will be criterion based. Every child will reach the minimum level of learning in terms of intellectual and behavioural aspects. The traditional concept of pass and fail of a child will be done away with. The concept of failing the teacher or school will be introduced. The regular observation of cognitive and affective behaviour will be the basic mode of evaluating a child. The school will simply help all the children to reach the minimum level of learning. If a child fails to reach the level, the responsibility will go to the teacher and the governmental system entrusted with providing learning resources attached with the school system.

 

 

Administrative Framework

In the suggested curricular and evaluation framework it would be necessary to make the school free from immediate bureaucratic control. The community will control the school.

Support System Framework

To provide academic and pedagogical support to the school capacity building of state institutions like SCERT,DIET, SIEMAT, SIET and Training institutions will be done in terms of  permanent faculty and physical resources. Pre-service and ion-service training programs will be strengthened. Ancillary services will be provided to help the teachers and the children.

Teacher Efficiency Framework

Teachers’ service conditions along with salary structure will ensure them stable and respectable social and family life. 

 IMPLEMENTATION STRATEGY

The implementation strategies related to curriculum, evaluation and administration will be emphasized. The minimum number of teachers suggested in the framework leads to the strategy of combining grade 2 &3 or 4 & 5 or 3 & 4 for Multi Grade Teaching. The number of teachers suggested for elementary level (7) is sufficient to conduct single grade classes.

In a multi-grade class the sitting arrangement should not be haphazard. Proper arrangement should be developed taking class differences or individual differences in to consideration. The sitting arrangement may be circular keeping lower grade children (when class difference considered) or keeping relatively poor children (when individual difference considered) in the inner circle. The alternate linear arrangement of sitting or separate block arrangement of sitting (different grade children sitting together in a block) may also be followed. The multi-grade teaching also requires active planning as the teacher has to identify common contents and evolve common strategy for more heterogeneous situation.   

The school should be made available relevant study materials and teaching manuals selected and or developed by SCERT/ expert team. The old materials and manuals should be replaced timely.

The school should be made attractive partly by providing basic facilities by the state and partly by involving children and community. School garden may be developed and protected by children, community and teachers. The school wall may be decorated with children’s painting or any other decorative items prepared by them. These are just few activities to indicate the process.

The curriculum frame intends that the greater involvement of teachers will be ensured in the teaching-learning process. A broad curricular guidelines for areas mentioned in the framework  will be designed by experts, social activists working in the field, representative teachers and community representatives for primary and elementary level teaching-learning system. Up to grade 3  the use of books will be avoided. Model activity cards will be designed based on curricular guidelines. The teachers will be free to select   their daily curriculum of activities from among the model activity cards. They will also develop additional activities and learning materials.

Books will be introduced from grade 4. There will be common book for all areas of learning suggested in the curriculum. The learning material in the book will have ample scope for inquiry learning and learning by doing. A series of 2 to3 books will   be prepared for grades 4 and 5. A series of 4 to 6 books will be prepared for grades 6 to 8.

For all grades teaching hour to be devoted on each area of learning will be fixed in order to avoid lopsided emphasis on some areas of learning and avoiding others. For designing of such books, voluntary agencies engaged in innovative work should be involved. The well known voluntary organization ‘Eklavya’ has already done some innovative work in this field.

With the existing teachers, children can learn only ‘kamchalaoo’ English. In terms of teaching English existing government schools can never be equated with English medium private schools. The learning of good English is not possible without doing away teaching of English based on translation, memorizing answers and books like ‘learning English’. In most of the developed countries 35 percent time (nearly 300 hours) is devoted on teaching one language. The number of hours devoted to teaching-learning process in most of the western schools in a year is just double than the number of hours devoted to the process in our schools (Acharya, 1999). It appears quite difficult to provide quality language education without serious preparation and alternative implementation of alternative strategy.     In teaching of English and the language other than mother tongue the emphasis should be laid on oral communication along with reading and writing. As there will be no specific teacher for teaching of English and third language, the transacting teacher will be trained in using language laboratory and simple equipments should be provided to the school. At the same time sufficient teaching hours (one-third of total teaching-learning hour) should be spent on it.

 

The evaluation will be based on holistic assessment of the child’s work done throughout the year. The teacher will maintain record of all activities and learning experiences of each child. Assessment of both affective and cognitive aspects of learning outcome will be made through observation, classroom interaction, oral questions and written work. The basis of evaluation will be expressive behaviour in the classroom and outside, amount and quality of work done throughout the year. No child will fail.  The teacher will have the responsibility to ensure every child attains minimum level of learning in each area of the curriculum.

The existing mechanism of immediate bureaucratic control of teachers should be   ended.  The officers like   BEEO, DEO and DSE   have got the role to monitor and provide professional support to the teacher but they are quite incapable in providing such support. Their role is just limited to supervise teachers’ arrival, departure and stay in the school and disturb the system by engaging teachers in various non academic works. The teachers should be made accountable for their success and   failures. The monitoring of the school should be done by a committee consisting of parents whose children study in the school and panchayat representatives.

As a rule children of public representatives and public servants are made to study in government schools. It is based on the same proposition in which it is always considered better to transfer school management and control to the community and to hand over implementation of mid-day meal scheme to mothers’ committees. It is widely believed that community will be more concerned towards school management and control as their children study in these schools. The children will be better fed if scheme is handed over to their mothers. Likewise public representatives and public servants will be more concerned towards government schools if their children study in these schools.  

The teachers should be given respectable salary. They should get at least Rs. 10,000 per month. They should be provided facilities at least at par with existing NV teachers. The role of universalization of quality elementary education which is now a fundamental right is universally recognized across the world. Development of the society is not possible without it. The state is putting great emphasis on attaining quality universal elementary education. In fact it is the highest priority of the state.  Equal emphasis should be placed on the social and family life of the teacher who is the most important agency to ensure this fundamental right.  Without ensuring prestigious and comfortable social and family life to the teacher we can never achieve the goal.

Ancillary service like mid-day meal should lead to learning achievement. Many components of learning like community participation, maintaining hygienic conditions, use of clean utensils, counting of present and absent children, helping physically challenged and un-well children etc.

In order to enroll girl children of the poor families and keep them at school, crèches and pre schools will have to be attached to elementary schools because most of these girls have to look after the younger children at home. These need not be costly as they can be run with the help of locally recruited women (who may be suitably trained) and by a cooperative arrangement between girls themselves.

Training of teachers should be based on a module which takes hard realities of our schools into account. Teachers should be trained not only in technical and academic proficiency but they should be trained to deliver in difficult situations of government schools. Teacher education based on western pedagogical theory will not help in improving the situation. Pedagogy should be based on hard realities of our society and schools. 

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Dr Khagendra Kumar is the Head of the Department of Education, Patna University and Dr Kumar Sanjeev is lecturer in the Patna Training College, Patna University

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