Someone has to care

I WAS first introduced to the Federal Trio Program run by the U.S. Department of Education, at Rutgers University earlier this year. Here is a programme that has helped over ten million underprivileged, first generation Americans achieve success with undergraduate and graduate studies. The programme is truly striking in its intent. ``Opportunity - I think that's the key, whether you're black, white, blue, green. This is a programme about people and opportunity,'' is how Dr. Muriel Grimmett, Rutgers Director of the Student Academic Support and Achievement Program describes it. The Federal TRIO is an educational opportunity outreach programme that identifies and encourages disadvantaged students who have shown potential in school. They are invited to workshops, given financial aid, tutored, and even provided assistance in applying for admission. The experience helps them prepare for college. The programme sees them through successful graduation. And then I read about other programmes. Professors at Berkeley teaching at public schools, legal firms setting aside time and resources to give disadvantaged school children a feel for life by giving them direct access to the human resources and technical skills professionals have in profusion, weekend classes for students who want to improve, summer jobs in tutoring for graduate students. And then I read about parents whose votes decided whether public schools would be privatised or not, about boards of education that gave parents of children who speak little English, the right to place their children in English language classes rather than native language classes, while the schools made provisions for those students who may fall short in English competency tests.

The most challenging and dramatic story came in Dr. Richard C. Atkinson's call for the elimination of the SATs as an admission requirement for the University of California, because in his words, ``America's overemphasis of the SAT is compromising our educational system.'' As president of the University of California, the nation's premier higher education system, Atkinson's call has caused alarms to sound the country over.

Atkinson calls attention to the danger of assuming that the SAT measures innate intelligence. While he supports standardised tests, he is urging the development of new tests that according to him will ``focus students' attention on mastering subject matter, and create a stronger connection between our children's accomplishments in school and their likelihood of succeeding in college.'' As long as SATs remain the determining factor in admission, the process of education will be geared toward test- taking skills, rather than developing reading and writing abilities. According to Atkinson, an estimated 1,50,000 students paid more than $100 million for coaching provided by the Princeton Review, Stanley Kaplan and other such centres. He also points out that minority perceptions about fairness cannot be so easily dismissed, because ``they have no way of knowing what the SAT measures, and, therefore, have no basis for assessing its fairness or helping their children acquire the skills to do better.''

Atkinson traces the evolution of SATs over the years: in 1900 they were designed to identify students from a wide range of backgrounds who had demonstrated mastery of academic subjects needed to succeed in college; in 1930 James Conant, then President of Harvard University, modified the test from one of achievement to aptitude. The invent was good - to reduce the advantage wealthy students enjoyed by virtue of having attended excellent schools. However the change also brought in the sense of SAT as akin to IQ. Atkinson comments: ``All too often, universities use SAT scores to rank order applicants in determining who should be admitted. This use of SAT is not compatible with the American view on how merit should be defined and opportunities distributed. The strength of American society has been its belief that actual achievement should be what matters most. Students should be judged on the basis of what they have accomplished during four years of high school, taking into account their opportunities.'' Atkinson's is a case in point of leadership ensuring that universities have to be more than first- rate research universities for a democracy to be alive. Obviously, education is more than an industry. Obviously people care.

For someone like me who is willing to buy any form of excuse that will give the lie to the overwhelming reality that our educational system is both cruel and farcical, these stories hurt. India is a complex nation with a staggering population that is diverse, rich and poor, resourceful, oppressed, intelligent and sharp. I must concede however, that we are not the only nation confounded by conflicts that maybe caste/ class/ race/ gender/ linguistic based. But what I cannot understand is that we don't seem to care. Or maybe we have learned to sport indifference as defence mechanism. Reservation quotas and policies, the Mandal Commission, UGC directives, State policies that change from government to government on curriculum and medium of instruction, do not in any way even attempt to address the problems of the disadvantaged student. Do we know what the problems are? Are we willing to locate them, leave alone deal with them? How many of these policy-clauses provide opportunities and give the community reason to celebrate? We have not even thought of a backup plan, leave alone follow-up programmes.

In the final analysis we are all perpetrators of a system that plays on guilt. The answers are not easy, even though finance has never been a problem. The government allocates substantial funds for education, and the subsidy on higher education in this country is remarkable. Parents who cannot find a slot for their children in subsidised education, particularly medicine, engineering, computer science, are willing to go into loans and debts to buy seats. But the evidence is real, that the only tool people without entitlement and privilege can use in their search for equity is an education that will teach them life skills. That only sound education can help our advantaged students arrive at some element of purpose. Someone has to care. Maybe the parents should come forward.

SUSAN OOMMEN

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