Opinion Why there can’t be a classroom at a click

It is doubtful if industry, or any other sphere, can derive full benefit from outstanding management without matching support all the way down, or if a few centres of excellence can flourish in an otherwise dull milieu. The “percolation theory” does not work — this meritocracy is a gated community of the mind.

The authors cite China’s strategy to ensure high university rankings. They might instead have considered a basic fact: Virtually China’s entire population enjoys effective school education. So does every country starring in global university rankings. By contrast, last month’s Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) confirms the disheartening condition of India’s schools.

One might argue for selective upgrading at the school level too. But that happened long ago. Our school system includes a large, exclusive and well-funded private sector. That has not reformed the educational scene generally. It is not a good precedent for further hierarchising our already hierarchic higher education system.

Every year, the JEE and NEET exams destroy some young lives because a staggering number of candidates are battling to enter a handful of institutions. If there were 230 IITs instead of 23, 10 times as many aspirants would find places. Of course, all 230 would not be of equal standard or eminence. Through inevitable academic selection, some would do better than others. But what we have today is a ghost of this model, with widening disparities.

Beyond lip service, India has consistently ignored the imperative role of a meaningful school education for all. The new National Education Policy has not taken off at the school level. Its truly game-changing proposal, an Early Childhood programme merging anganwadis with primary school, is in cold storage. It astonishingly accepts that all children need not attend full-time schools.

The proposed top-of-the-class PM-Shri schools will number 14,500 – less than 1 per cent of all schools in India. A 2021 UNESCO report found a shortage of 11.16 lakh teachers, with 69 per cent vacancies in rural schools and 1.1 lakh single-teacher schools (89 per cent of them in rural schools).

The latest ASER report reveals that 25 per cent of 14 to 18-year-olds cannot read a Standard II textbook; 43 per cent cannot do Standard III sums. Most students study humanities. This is hardly by choice: Few schools are equipped for science teaching.

It is simply unreal to talk of an exclusive world-class system in this milieu. But even when we admit the problem, our search for quick-fix solutions and our tryst with technology make us resort to computers.

Digital learning is an immense boon. But the computer is not a magic wand. Some types of material and pedagogic practice lend themselves to digitisation, others do not. The endemic use of computers in evaluation has spawned the ubiquitous multiple-choice question, stunting students’ capacity for connected thought. Contrary to Madhav Chavan’s assertion (IE, January 18), there cannot be a “classroom at a click”.

It is impossible to teach a child to read, write and count in an online mode. Hence, the grave danger that many children of the pandemic might grow up devoid of literacy or numeracy. When these children grow up, how will they join the workforce? How will India’s economic ambitions accommodate them?

There is also the issue of digital access. By much fudging and glossing, we have convinced ourselves that we have enough smartphones for the educational needs of all or most children. During the pandemic, the Education Ministry claimed that 85 per cent students availed of online classes. A parliamentary committee found the figure to be 30 per cent. Can two or more children share a smartphone to any purpose with the adults of the family? What about poor connectivity? Above all, would the educated elite accept a smartphone as an adequate device for their own children’s learning needs? There is no escaping the bottom line: The nation cannot educate its children through quick fixes, cost-cutting and cherry-picking.

No developed nation has got where it has without effective school education for all its citizens. India would be rash to think otherwise. Effective schooling calls for enough capable teachers and infrastructure (including digital support) for all students. If this is assured, higher education would automatically fall into place. There would be no need to nurture certain institutions like hothouse plants by short-changing the rest. Rather, all institutions would compete for resources and privileges.

The public university system developed in 50 years of Independence had moved appreciably in this direction. It was frustrated by our failure to develop an adequate school system. For all our brave rhetoric, we have not built substantively on either front since then. We cannot put off the challenge any longer.

The writer is professor emeritus, department of English, Jadavpur University