Speaking points by Dr. B. K. Passi

IMPROVING RURAL  EDUCATION:

Listen To My Song Please (Insaan ka insaan se ho bhai chara)

(MAN SHOULD HAVE BROTHERHOOD WITH OTHERS)

For the AIAER 20^th International  Conference October 2005

Education defined

Education is the all round development of personality

Education is the gradual process of acquiring knowledge, skills and values that  prepare us for life  

Education is the result of good upbringing 

Educating or instructing or teaching represent those activities that impart knowledge, values and skill

Rural defined

Rural areas are sparsely settled places away from the influence of large cities and towns. Rural areas are distinct from more intensively settled urban and suburban areas, and also from unsettled lands such as outback or wilderness People live in villages, on farms and in other isolated houses

Perspective of rural education

Education of rural people preparing for rural  life

Education of rural people preparing for urban life

Education of all including rural people for national & global life

Education of urban people for preparing people to serve for rural  life

Basic education

Is basic education a fundamental need to live a life?

Is education universal and same for the global environment?

Is education restricted to national environment?

Is education same for the rural and urban environment?

Is basic education a primary base for secondary education?

Does basic education organize some prerequisite knowledge and skills that is fundamental for proficient working?

Need to understand pre-requisite of school education

Education from conception to birth- what & how?

Education from birth to school age- what & how?

Education from entry stage to end of school- age- what & how?

Do we provide compulsory education up to some level?

Constructivism in education

Is education for receiving knowledge, skills, and attitudes?

Is education a process of constructing children knowledge, children-attitude, children-skills or adult-knowledge, adult-attitudes, or adult-skills?

Does education cater to the reality of child-life or the reality oriented to adult life?

Relevance of rural education

Is enhancing relevance of education a central issue?

Relevant education uses knowledge & experience from the local situations

Educational relevance should focus on “learning to learn” for rural context and needs

Rural education is relevant if it leads to productive work through rural enterprises

Every child is a genius: multiple intelligences

Gardner says that every child is a genius at birth, and the child loses 90% by the time of 20 and loses 98% in later part of life

Intelligences are of seven kinds but our schools are providing mostly  for logical & verbal intelligences

Identify the power of pre-birth environment

Prenatal education helps a lot; Birth is too late for learning; Recall the story of Abhimanyu; School called ageless wisdom; Fetus adapts to receive the mother's voice; prenatal music plays an important role for postnatal development; experiments of singing birds; Japanese train their children for athlete-hood from infancy

Encourage mother's breast milk; interactive home environment with mothers is useful

Animal School:

This is an interesting story against standardization

Avoid standard curriculum  for  children as they are unique

This is an interesting animal story against standardization.

Once upon a time the animals decided they must do something heroic to meet the problems of a "new world," so they organized a school. They adopted an activity curriculum consisting of running, climbing, swimming, and flying. To make it easier to administer the curriculum, ALL the animals took ALL subjects. The duck was excellent in swimming -- in fact, better than his instructor; but he made only passing grades in flying and was very poor in running. Since he was slow in running, he had to stay after school and also drop swimming in order to practice running. This was kept up until his web feet were badly worn, so then he was only average in swimming. But average was acceptable in school, so nobody worried about that except the duck. The rabbit started at the top of the class in running, but he had a nervous breakdown because of so much make-up work in swimming. The squirrel was excellent in climbing until he developed frustration in the flying class, where his teacher made him start from the ground up instead of the treetop down. He also developed "Charlie horses" from over-exertion and then got a "C" in climbing and a "D" in running. The eagle was a problem child and was disciplined severely. In the climbing class he beat all others to the top of the tree, but insisted on using his own way to get there. At the end of the year an abnormal eel that could swim exceedingly well and also could run, climb, and fly a little had the highest average and was named valedictorian. The prairie dogs stayed out of school and fought the tax levy because the administration would not add digging and burrowing to the curriculum. They apprenticed their child to a badger and later joined the ground hogs and the gophers in order to start a successful private school

A new curriculum of 3R’s+

3KH::JJJ

3R’s+3KH:: JJJor 3_Rs+3Js  ( Khel=body, Khushi=Mental Enjoyment, Khubsurti= Aesthetics)  therefore, we need 3+3 Environment  3R’s+3KH JJJ

The beautiful tree was uprooted

The Talisman of Gandhi Ji

 “That does not finish the picture. We have the education of this future state. I say without fear of my figures being challenged successfully, that today India is more illiterate than it was fifty or a hundred years ago, and so is Burma, because the British administrators, when they came to India, instead of taking hold of things as they were, began to root them out. They scratched the soil, began to look at the root, and left the root like that, and the beautiful tree perished. The village schools were not good enough for the British administrator, so he came out with his program. Every school must have so much paraphernalia, building, and so forth. Well, there were no such schools at all. There are statistics left by a British administrator which show that, in places where they have carried out a survey, ancient schools have gone by the board, because there was no recognition for these schools, and the schools established after the European pattern were too expensive for the people, and therefore they could not possibly overtake the thing. I defy anybody to fulfill a program of compulsory primary education of these masses inside of a century. This very poor country of mine is ill able to sustain such an expensive method of education. Our State would revive the old village schoolmaster and dot every village with a school both for boys and girls”

Teachers: training or loving

Teachers qualified, trained, well paid are desirable but love for children is an essential condition ( not cold training)

We may hire un-trained adults but they must have  warm-hearts

All parents are aware of the importance of education 

All villagers including the poor parents want an access for quality education for their children

It is the circumstances that are obstructing the people to fulfill their educational aspirations

Plan education for each family ‘case-by-case’, and should avoid the generalized planning

Blind uniformity, and objectivity, should be avoided

Women are capable for educational management 

Women are equally / more capable of handling issues of education

Our policies and programs of school improvement should be built around women initiatives and their resources. Adult women of villages should be the major partners of the education of children

Avoid models of high cost education

Avoid high cost models of elementary education and prefer to work with low cost model fulfilling the necessities of education

Resources, technology & tools

Resources, technology & tools are double edged in nature. If used properly this resource is wonderful. But if technology is used without care then it can be harmful and dangerous. Use EDUSAT, TV, and Radio with full care.

Educational technology by itself cannot improve education 

Children can become responsible & constructive

Children by nature are active and sincere and if supported properly they can be responsible and constructive. They can accept the challenge of organizing classrooms and even school activities provided we arrange such opportunities for them

Cooperative Learning

Pedagogy of cooperative learning gives better results. Also, if balanced properly, it will give relief to the overworked teachers. Peer teaching will reduce the unit cost of education, and will improve the overall culture of  the school

Critical and Creative Thinking  Skills

Rural schools too can become the fountainheads of creativity. Teachers can spare time from routine teaching and get themselves engaged especially in the teaching of critical and creative thinking skills

Theory Y  People with Passion

I know a woman from Bangalore who used to work hard for whole day to earn money for buying fresh flowers for preparing a garland for offering to the Lord. She used to wake up early morning so as to be the first devotee for offering her garland to the Lord. This gave her an immense pleasure and a passion for work

Use resources of time, and people 

Schools should work (a) for 365 days, (b) for 12 to 16 hours each day (c) for all persons from ages 3 to 80+ years and (d) invite both the educated and not so educated groups, for pursuing educational programs. Of course, we know quality of education does not necessarily lie in the buildings of institutions but lies in the processes, they generate

Children in traffic jam 

Children are captives like drivers in the taxi-traffic jams of big cities where they have energy but no way to move forward from the rigidities of formal education. Please save them

India is free but…

India is free but schools are not yet free

Rabindranath Tagore

Tagore says- I was brought up in an atmosphere of aspiration, aspiration for the expansion of the human spirit.  We in our homes sought freedom of power in our language, freedom of imagination in our literature, freedom of soul in our religious creeds and that of mind in our social environment.  Such an opportunity has given me confidence in the power of education which is one with life and only which can give us real freedom, the highest that is claimed for man, his freedom of moral communion in the human world....