MUMBAI, April 15: Professor Ram Joshi, principal architect of the Pre-Primary Centres (Regulations of Admission) Act, 1996, had a hard time defending the provisions of the legislation which had raised the hackles of school managements at a meeting organised by the Citizens Organisation for Fairness and Equality in Education held today.The act had banned books for the pre-primary students. Explaining the irony in the load of books that students carry, Joshi said university students do a "Sudarshan Chakra" on their fingers with their one 100 page notebook, the primary students are breaking their backs with the burden of school bags."There are outstanding college students today by way of more student outside the classroom," Joshi said to a roar of laughter as he pointed out the logic behind bringing less books to school."In any case, how many students actually read books," he asked adding that teachers had to encourage students to read without fear of examination.Professor Joshi however, left somefundamental questions like the changed role of teacher unanswered.The principals and teachers criticised the series of government sponsored educational reforms at pre-primary, primary and secondary level saying it made the teachers feel wronged.For example, Principal H N Pal said, "The pre-primary act is good. But there is no preparation, no guidelines as to how to go about it. The pre-primary level does not have any books. So how is a teacher supposed to to teach a child to read and write, something he must know as he graduates to standard one which introduces text books."Then again from Std I onwards, teachers are prohibited from using supplementary study material. "Why should a teacher be dictated at every level. Only a teacher knows what is good for his/her student and she/he should therefore be given some discretion. Same observation is needed regarding the number of books a child should bring to school," said educationist Madhukar Shenve.On the ban on interviews, teachers insisted that theyshould know beforehand whether the child is normal or not. Pal saidthat her school has some handicapped students who faced problems.
