Sunday, June 2, 2013
India Education System For Studens
Posted by
Kera Sakti
,
4:43 AM
India is a country which
has a population of many countries in --cluding China-- then the state of
Indonesia, in the Indian state has its own characteristic system of education
in which teachers and students have a close bond with each other, as where the –expression--
of one of the pious people when it is, namely, befriending teachers or be close
to the teacher, then he will gain knowledge. Science teacher proficiency level
will be moved to the proficiency --level-- of students.
“In the Beginning”
In ancient times, India had
the --Gurukula system-- of education in which anyone who wished to study went
to a teacher's (Guru) house and requested to be taught. If accepted as a
student by the guru, he would then stay at the guru's place and help in all
activities at home. This not only created a strong tie between the teacher and
the student, but also taught the --student everything-- about running a house.
The guru taught everything the child wanted to learn, from Sanskrit to the holy
scriptures and from Mathematics to Metaphysics. The student stayed as long as
she wished or until the guru felt that he had taught everything he could teach.
All learning was closely linked to nature and to life, and not confined to
memorizing some information.
The modern school system
was brought to India, including the English language, originally by Lord --Thomas
Babington Macaulay-- in the 1830s. The curriculum was confined to “modern”
subjects such as science and mathematics, and subjects like metaphysics and
philosophy were considered unnecessary. -Teaching was confined to classrooms
and the link with nature was broken, as also the close relationship between the
teacher and the student.
The Uttar Pradesh (a state
in India) Board of High School and Intermediate Education was the first Board
set up in India in the year 1921 with jurisdiction over Rajputana, Central
India and Gwalior. In 1929, the Board of High School and Intermediate
Education, Rajputana, was established. Later, boards were established in some
of the states. But eventually, in 1952, the constitution of the board was
amended and it was renamed Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE). All
schools in --Delhi -- and some other regions came under the Board. -It was the
function of the Board to decide on things like curriculum, textbooks and
examination system for all schools affiliated to it. -Today there are thousands
of schools affiliated to the Board, both within India and in many other
countries from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe.
Universal and compulsory
education for all children in the age group of 6-14 was a cherished dream of
the new government of the Republic of India. -This is evident from the fact
that it is incorporated as --a directive policy-- in article 45 of the
constitution. But this objective remains far away even more than half a century
later. However, in the recent past, the government appears to have taken a
serious note of this lapse and has made primary education a Fundamental Right
of every Indian citizen.
The pressures of economic growth and the acute
scarcity of skilled and trained manpower must certainly have played a role to
make the government take such a step. -The expenditure by the Government of
India on school education in recent years comes to around 3% of the GDP, which
is recognized to be very low. -“In recent times, several major announcements
were made for developing the poor state of affairs in education sector in
India, the most notable ones being the National Common Minimum Programme (NCMP)
of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government.
The announcements are;
- (a) To progressively increase expenditure on education to around 6 percent of GDP.
- (b) To support this increase in expenditure on education, and to increase the quality of education, there would be an imposition of an education cess over all central government taxes.
- (c) To ensure that no one is denied of education due to economic backwardness and poverty.
- (d) To make right to education a fundamental right for all children in the age group 6–14 years.
- (e) To universalize education through its flagship programmes such as Sarva Siksha Abhiyan and Mid Day Meal.”
‘The School System”
India is divided into 28
states and 7 so-called --Union Territories--. The states have their own elected
governments while the Union Territories are ruled directly by the Government of
India, with the President of India appointing an administrator for each Union
Territory. -As per the constitution of India, school education was originally a
state subject that is, the states had complete authority on deciding policies
and implementing them. -The role of the Government of India (GoI) was limited
to coordination and deciding on the standards of higher education.
This was changed with a
constitutional amendment in 1976 so that education now comes in the so-called
concurrent list. That is, school education policies and programmes are
suggested at the national level by the GoI though the state governments have a
lot of freedom in implementing programmes. Policies are announced at the
national level periodically. -The Central Advisory Board of Education --(CABE)--,
set up in 1935, continues to play a lead role in the evolution and monitoring
of educational policies and programmes.
There is a national
organization that plays a key role in developing policies and programmes, called
the National Council for Educational Research and Training --(NCERT)-- that
prepares a National Curriculum Framework. -Each state has its counterpart
called the State Council for Educational Research and Training --(SCERT)--.
These are the bodies that essentially propose educational strategies,
curricula, pedagogical schemes and evaluation methodologies to the states'
departments of education. -The SCERTs generally follow guidelines established
by the –NCERT--.
But the states have
considerable freedom in implementing the education system. The National Policy
on Education, 1986 and the Programme of Action --(POA)-- 1992 envisaged free
and compulsory education of satisfactory quality for all children below 14
years before the 21st Century. The government committed to earmark 6% of the
Gross Domestic Product --(GDP)-- for education, half of which would be spent on
primary education. The expenditure on Education as a percentage of GDP also
rose from 0.7 per cent in 1951-52 to about 3.6 per cent in 1997-98. The school
system in India has four levels:
- lower primary --(age 6 to 10)--
- upper primary --(11 and 12)--
- high --(13 to 15)-- and
- higher secondary --(17 and 18)--.
The lower primary school is
divided into five –standards--, upper primary school into two, high school into
three and higher secondary into two. Students have to learn a common curriculum
largely --(except for regional changes in mother tongue)-- till the end of high
school. There is some amount of specialization possible at the higher secondary
level. Students throughout the country have to learn three languages --(namely,
English, Hindi and their mother tongue)-- except in regions where Hindi is the
mother tongue and in some streams as discussed below. There are mainly three
streams in school education in India. Two of these are coordinated at the
national level, of which one is under the Central Board of Secondary Education --(CBSE)--
and was originally meant for children of central government employees who are
periodically transferred and may have to move to any place in the country.
A number of “central
schools” --(named Kendriya Vidyalayas)-- have been established for the purpose
in all main urban areas in the country, and they follow a common schedule so
that a student going from one school to another on a particular day will hardly
see any difference in what is being taught. One subject --(Social Studies,
consisting of History, Geography and Civics)-- is always taught in Hindi, and
other subjects in English, in these schools.
Kendriya Vidyalayas admit other
children also if seats are available. -All of them follow textbooks written and
published by the –NCERT--. In addition to these government-run schools, a
number of private schools in the country follow the CBSE syllabus though they
may use different text books and follow different teaching schedules. T-hey
have a certain amount of freedom in what they teach in lower classes. The-CBSE also
has 141 affiliated schools in 21 other countries mainly catering to the needs
of the Indian population there. The second central scheme is the Indian
Certificate of Secondary Education --(ICSE)--. It seems that this was started
as a replacement for the Cambridge School Certificate.
The idea was mooted in a
conference held in 1952 under the Chairmanship of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, the
then Minister for Education. The main purpose of the conference was to consider
the replacement of the overseas Cambridge School Certificate Examination by an
All India Examination. -In October 1956 at the meeting of the Inter State Board
for Anglo Indian Education, a proposal was adopted for the setting up of an
Indian Council to administer the University of Cambridge, Local Examinations
Syndicate's Examination in India and to advise the Syndicate on the best way to
adapt its examination to the needs of the country. -The inaugural meeting of
the Council was held on 3rd November, 1958. In December 1967, the Council was
registered as a Society under the Societies Registration Act, 1860.
The Council was listed in
the Delhi School Education Act 1973, as a body conducting public examinations.
Now a large number of schools across the country are affiliated to this
Council. All these are private schools and generally cater to children from
wealthy families. Both the CBSE and the ICSE council conduct their own
examinations in schools across the country that are affiliated to them at the
end of 10 years of schooling --(after high school)-- and again at the end of 12
years --(after higher secondary)--. Admission to the 11th class is normally
based on the performance in this all-India examination. Since this puts a lot
of pressure on the child to perform well, there have been suggestions to remove
the examination at the end of 10 years.
“Exclusive Schools”
In addition to the above,
there are a relatively small number of schools that follow foreign curricula
such as the so-called Senior Cambridge, though this was largely superseded by
the ICSE stream elsewhere. Some of these schools also offer the students the
opportunity to sit for the ICSE examinations. - These are usually very
expensive residential schools where some of the Indians working abroad send
their children. - They normally have fabulous infrastructure, low
student-teacher ratio and very few students. Many of them have teachers from
abroad
There are also other
exclusive schools such as the Doon School in Dehradun that take in a small
number of students and charge exorbitant fees.- Apart from all of these, there
are a handful of schools around the country, such as the Rishi Valley school in
Andhra Pradesh, that try to break away from the --normal education system--
that promotes rote learning and implement innovative systems such as the
Montessori method. -Most such schools are expensive, have high teacher-student
ratios and provide a learning environment in which each child can learn at
his/her own pace. -It would be interesting and instructive to do a study on
what impact the kind of school has had on the life of their graduates
State Schools
Each state in the country
has its own Department of Education that runs its own school system with its
own textbooks and evaluation system. -As mentioned earlier, the curriculum,
pedagogy and evaluation method are largely decided by the –SCERT-- in the
state, following the national guidelines prescribed by the –NCERT--. Each state
has three kinds of schools that follow the state curriculum.
The government runs its own
schools in land and buildings owned by the government and paying the staff from
its own resources. These are generally known as government schools. -The fees
are quite low in such schools. -Then there are privately owned schools with
their own land and buildings. Here the fees are high and the teachers are paid
by the management.
Such schools mostly cater
to the urban middle class families. -The third kind consists of schools that
are provided grant-in-aid by the government, though the school was started by a
private agency in their own land and buildings. The grant-in-aid is meant to
help reduce the fees and make it possible for poor families to send their children.
-In some states like Kerala, these schools are very similar to government
schools since --the teachers-- are paid by the government and the fees are the
same as in government schools.
“The Case of Kerala”
The state of Kerala, a
small state in the South Western coast of India, has been different from the
rest of the country in many ways for the last few decades.-- It has, for
instance, the highest literacy rate among all states, and was declared the
first fully literate state about a decade back. Life expectancy, both male and
female,- is very high, close to that of the developed world. -Other parameters
such as fertility rate, infant and child mortality are among the best in the
country, if not the best. -The total fertility rate has been below the
replacement rate of --2.1-- for the last two decades. -Probably as a
side-effect of economic and social development, suicide rates and alcoholism
are also very high.
Government policies also
have been very different from the rest of the country, leading to the
development model followed in Kerala, with high expenditure in education and
welfare, coming to be known as the --Kerala Model-- among economists. Kerala
has also always shown interest in trying out ways of improving its school
education system. Every time the NCERT came up with new ideas, it was Kerala
that tried it out first. -The state experimented with the District Primary
Education Programme --(DPEP)--- with gusto, though there was opposition to it
from various quarters, and even took it beyond primary classes. -The state was
the first in the country to move from the traditional behaviorist way of
teaching to a social constructivist paradigm.
It was mentioned in the National
Curriculum Framework of –NCERT-- in the year 2000, and Kerala started trying it
out the next year. The transaction in the classroom and the evaluation
methodology were changed. -Instead of direct questions that could be answered
only through memorizing the lessons, indirect questions and open ended
questions were included so that the student needed to think before answering,-
and the answers could be subjective to some extent.
This meant that the
students had to digest what they studied and had to be able to use their
knowledge in a specific situation to answer the questions. --At the same time,
the new method took away a lot of pressure and the children began to find
examinations interesting and enjoyable instead of being stressful. --A
Comprehensive and Continuous Evaluation --(CCE)-- system was introduced along
with this, which took into consideration the overall personality of the student
and reduced the dependence on a single final examination for deciding promotion
to the next class. -
At present, the CBSE also
has implemented CCE, but in a more flexible manner. Kerala was also the first
state in the country to introduce Information Technology as a subject of study
at the High School level. --It was started in class 8 with the textbook
introducing Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office. But within one year the
government was forced to include Free Software also in the curriculum by
protests from --Free Software enthusiasts and a favorable stance taken-- by a
school teachers association that had the majority of government teachers as its
members. Eventually, from the year 2007, only --GNU/Linux-- was taught in the
schools, and all computers in schools had only GNU/Linux installed.
At that time, perhaps even today, this was the
largest installation of GNU/Linux in schools, and made headlines even in other
countries. --Every year, from 2007 onwards, about 500,000 children pass out of
the schools learning the concepts behind Free Software and the GNU/Linux
operating system and applications. --The state is now moving towards IT Enabled
Education. Eventually, IT will not be taught as a separate subject. -Instead,
all subjects will be taught with the help of IT so that the children will, on
the one hand, learn IT skills and, on the other, make use of educational
applications --(such as those mentioned below)-- and resources in the Internet --(such
as textual material from sites like Wikipedia, images, animations and videos)--
to study their subjects and to do exercises.
Teachers and students have
already started using applications such as Dr. Geo, GeoGebra, and KtechLab for --studying
geometry and electronics--. Applications like Sunclock, Kalzium and Ghemical
are also popular among teachers and students. -The initiative taken by Kerala
is now influencing other states and even the policies of the Government of
India. States like Karnataka and Gujarat are now planning to introduce Free - Software
in their schools, and some other states like Maharashtra are examining the
option.
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