The Hindu : Spare the rod, save the child

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Sunday, Jun 29, 2003

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Spare the rod, save the child

School students are under increasing physical and psychological pressure... and, in many cases, collapsing, writes Lakshmi Balakrishnan.

Grieving parents of Ramu Abhinav (Inset).

Schools are supposed to shape a child's intellect and personality. Strange then that most reputed schools refuse to take in students till they are convinced that the children and their parents have what it takes to be trained by them.

The battle for space clearly begins early for Indian children. One that teaches them a lot but helps them learn little. No doubt, things have improved. Parents say at least they are not asked to donate fans or share the cost of a new building. Thanks to a Delhi High Court ruling a couple of years ago, corporal punishment has seen a sizeable decline, if not complete eradication. Schools are only asking parents to describe their children in ten words now. And putting the `failed' tag on to those who can't quite deal with such a "simple" affair.

"There were schools that first gave us (parents) a written test and then gave it to our child. Which was followed by our interview and the child's. It is difficult to understand how owning a car or credit card will make a difference. I may not want to spend money on a car but would do so on education, so how can they assess us on that basis,'' asks Vibha Joshi, who visited many schools before finally admitting her son in a neighbourhood one.

Parents say schools must clarify the criteria for selecting students. Institutions such as the Delhi Public School point out that there is no way they can admit every student who applies. The number of applicants clearly exceeds the available seats, which means some kind of criteria have to be devised.

"We never ask students to recite poems or rattle `a' to `z'. But parents are often over anxious and pressure themselves and their child to perform. That has to change first," says the principal of a top Delhi school.

But then, that is only for those who manage to get to school. According to a report of submitted by the evaluation unit of the Delhi Government's Planning Department on MCD schools in 2001, of the 11.4 lakh children in the age group of 6-11 in the Capital, over 20 per cent never enrolled in a school, and of the rest, 25.3 per cent dropped out and nearly 17.2 per cent were consistently absent.

And considering that the estimated all-India drop out rate in primary schools is 40.25 per cent, the picture only gets gloomier.

Admissions are only the beginning of the uphill climb. For most students, school is all about mugging up dates and trying to remember names that seem to have no relevance. As most toppers themselves admit, the present marking system hardly represents the capabilities of a student.

With scoring becoming more important than learning, the schooling process may be losing its very purpose, but education boards say a change is slowly making its way into the system.

A recent circular issued by one of three national school boards of India — the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) — to its 6,700 or so affiliated schools is perhaps an indication of the realisation of the need for change.

Issued in February, the circular puts forward four important proposals — no homework for students of class I and II, allowing students of these classes to leave behind their school bags, evaluating students of class I to V through a more comprehensive system, spread over the year rather than a single window method which increases pressure, and moving away from the pass-fail system in primary classes in a phased manner. The board has further asked its schools to make an effort towards providing education that encourages study of the liberal arts, especially in the primary classes.

The Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE), another national board that has over 1,200 schools under it, has introduced similar moves.

Apart from trying to reduce the study load at the primarily level, taking up a utility-based subject has been made mandatory by the CISCE.

But talk of the school bag or curriculum load is clearly not taken too seriously by schools, with a majority following the traditional method of turning holidays into special classes and giving loads of homework.

The boards claim that they only recommend, and do not impose, what schools should teach, at least at the primary level. Schools, on the other hand, point out that since the students ultimately have the board examinations in mind, they don't have much of a choice but to follow what the boards recommend.

While all agree that students are under increasing physical and psychological pressure, no one seems ready to take the responsibility for it. With the result, they are shouldering the burden, and, in many cases, collapsing.

Primary classes are often the building ground where students are first told that they cannot fail. Parents are no longer happy with just good marks. The cry for "more" is an increasing one, with comparisons with a bright sibling or a neighbourhood boy only making matters worse.

"Parents are very ambitious and want their children to learn too much too soon. They must be reasonable,'' says the CISCE chairman, Francis Fanthome. Often seen as the culprits who put pressure, parents are increasingly turning into victims.

According to an NGO that runs a special helpline for students, this year saw a marked change in the pattern of calls before and after the board examinations. Nearly 50 per cent of the callers were parents wanting to know how to deal with anxiety. Although schools insist that the pressure has reduced, the number of suicides that continues to hog the headlines seems to prove just the opposite.

In Delhi alone, at least four cases of suicide — all examination-related — were reported in May and June. While Sakshi, a class XII student, decided to hang herself a day before her results were to be announced, Anita, a Kalyanpuri resident who failed the Open School examinations of class XII, set herself afire.

And it is not just the ghosts of the board examinations. A class IX student who had failed committed suicide. But the boards say efforts have been made to introduce examination reforms.

The CBSE changed the Biology and Economics question papers in 2002, replacing 10 per cent of the redundant syllabus. The class X Maths paper saw the total number of questions being reduced from 30 to 25, with choices being provided for the first time. This year again, the class XII Maths and Physics papers saw the questions slashed from 30 to 26 and 27, and the class X Science questions from 33 to 30.

The problem, however, hardly lies with the question paper pattern. With marks being the sole decider of a child's intellect, most students say it still does not matter what they are good at. "I may be brilliant in one subject but not in another. I might be interested in sports and not in academics. But is it fair to call me a failure just because of a report card that evaluates my talent on the basis of how well I understand concepts and principles that I may not even use in future,'' wonders Rohan, a class XI student.

The question of how best to evaluate students is still being debated. Which eventually brings up the question that the boards seem unable to answer — what can be an alternative method of grading?

No one wants to answer this as of now, with reasons ranging from non-acceptance at the university level to a clear lack of consensus on a single grading system, among the national and State Boards.

"Grades are not an issue with this council. We have been following the grading system for 50 years now and our grades are accepted all over the world. As of now, we are the only ones following the internationally accepted normal Gossian curve. It is time school boards got their act together instead of waiting for others to take the initiative'', says Mr. Fanthome.

The CBSE's grading system itself may be criticised for being flawed as it follows the process of distributing abilities on an equal band of 12.5 per cent each — a practically impossible situation — but the board says the purpose of grades in any case is defeated the minute you also give marks.

The CBSE had introduced grades in 1978, only to withdraw it in a month. It continues to give them in the class X and XII marksheets along with marks. A special committee on scaling and grading was set up by the Council of Boards of Secondary Education under A. E. T. Barrow in 1981. The committee recommended a five-point scale grading system, which was rejected by the boards.

The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) in its report on grading in schools notes that the present system fails to "measure the growth of a learner on a continuous basis''. And that "one of the limitations of the interval scale that runs from 0-100 is the absence of absolute 0 and 100. The zero that is artificially created does not represent nothingness of an attribute nor does the score of 100 signify perfection in achievement'', says a senior CBSE official.

With the boards obviously not too keen on taking the initiative, many private schools in the Capital have started using grades in the primary level. And till the boards and schools decide to agree on moving away from the number line that sways a child's capabilities from zero to hero, education in schools is likely to be a right that students only read about and not quite enjoy.

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