Reflection 2

EDUCATIONAL SECTOR
-1

Aditya Maitri
PGPGC202100377
 1. Present scenario of the school system in India

As presented in the article, “Education policy-making needs a rethink”, the top-down

policy making approach focusses on the POLITICAL COMPULSIONS.

To create an impact within the term of 5 years of a government’s leadership, they focus on
populist schemes like increasing scholarships, providing free meals, free tablets, bicycles
etc.

These schemes lead to improvement in the poor lagging indicators like Pass-rates,
Enrolment-rates, Dropout-rate, Absenteeism etc and don’t improve the LEARNING
EXPERIENCE as real educational improvement, where most students achieve grade-level
competencies, is complex and time consuming.

With the limited budget that the states have, they spend it on increasing the visibility by
investing in populist schemes. This vicious top-down approach with no real learning
experience policies forces all the stakeholders to focus on lagging indicators mentioned
above.

Policy -Makers

State Adaministrators

District Admistrators

Teachers

Students Parents

EDUCATION
SYSTEM

Education Private
Board Tutors

When pushed by the administrators to focus on the lagging indicators, as we saw in Mihir’s
case, the teachers don’t really appreciate any initiatives that will hamper Pass-rates,
Enrolment-rates, Dropout-rate, Absenteeism etc.

The other policies which are not populist don’t have any empirical, context-sensitive
studies-based evidence for their ability to impact the learning experience in a positive way.
There is no system in place that feeds policy-relevant knowledge based on empirical,
context-sensitive studies into the policy making process.
Hence, the vicious cycle continues where POLITICAL COMPULSIONS are favoured over
real impactful policies which are complex and time consuming.
2. Prof. Kothari’s work on SLS

The case clearly shows how little changes can create a very big impact. I can connect it to a
scene from the movie “ 3 idiots” , when the lead actor recommended the usage of pencil in
the outer space for writing instead of a space pen which costed millions of dollars.

From the 3 readings on Same-Language Subtitling, following are my major learnings:

1. The ability of SLS in overcoming the Motivation Barrier

Motivating people from the low-literate societies with some ability to decode words to
engage with books and other reading material is challenging. SLS could perhaps reduce
the weak reader’s dependence on motivation to persist with print by integrating reading
into daily entertainment already consumed and expected to be consumed throughout life.

This would also encourage people to further pursue reading books and other materials
once the initial motivation barrier is removed

2. Enhanced Entertainment experience & Media access to the hearing

disadvantaged

It is widely known that deaf people, in a manner of speaking, discover their hearing. With
SLS, deaf can actually observe the words that are displayed at the bottom and see the lip
movements to understand what the other person is trying to say.

Continuing this exercise for a longer period can also help the deaf attain much more
words
In their vocabulary and improve their speaking skills.

3. Major problems in Early Childhood Education in India

PROBLEMS

- Teachers and Helpers

Low honorarium for anganwadi teachers, helpers employed under the Integrated
Child Development Services (ICDS) and their continued protests with the
government for increasing the wages to the minimum wage levels. They are also
supposed to do other government works like surveys. This leads to shift in the
primary duty and children aren’t given adequate skills. Hence, children from
anganwadi fall way behind the children from private pre-schools ( Ahmedabad
school example) increasing inequality

- Deviating from the expected linear trajectory

As mentioned in the report by UNICEF, The India Early Childhood Education

Impact Study, Young children do not follow the linear trajectories that policies
 prescribe, or that the education system expects. Children’s participation in preschool
and early primary grades is unstable and fluid, and does not necessarily follow the
linear age-based trajectory prescribed by policy (RTE Act, 2009 and National ECCE
Policy, 2013).
In some states, large numbers of 4-year-olds are already in school. In others,
significant proportions of 6- and 7-year olds are still in preschool. In all states,
children attend irregularly; back and forth movements between preschool and primary
grades are frequently observed and thus impacting child’s development.

POTENTIAL SOLUTION

Currently, the RTE Act covers only children in the age group 6-14, thus excluding children
during the most important phase of brain development, in violation of their right to a sound
foundation for education.

A public-private enterprise, with guidelines framed by the government which prohibits the
children under age 6 to enter school, can solve this. Private entities hiring quality teachers
with the funds from government towards the partnership and not towards less-efficient purely
government-operated anganwadi can solve this.

As of now, PRATHAM is one such non-government organisation which is working towards

developing pre-school children.

Pratham focuses on high-quality, low-cost and replicable interventions to address gaps in the
education system. Working  directly with children and youth as well as through large-scale
collaborations with government systems, Pratham programs reach millions of lives every
year. Pratham's Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL) approach has demonstrated proven
impact on children's learning outcomes and is now being adapted to contexts outside India.

The limitations it might face are the lack of resources to operate efficiently which might be
solved a full time public-private partnerships with government.

- Enterprise that can solve the problem and why it can

- Example of such an organisation
- How exactly does it solve the problem
- Limitations that exists in solving the problem by the enterprise
CITATIONS

1. Shukla K D & Chand V S (2020, 19 June) Education policy-making needs a

rethink
( https://bloncampus.thehindubusinessline.com/b-learn/educational-policy-
making-needs-a-rethink/article31870030.ece)

2. The India Early Childhood Education Impact Study

( https://www.unicef.org/india/media/2076/file )

3. Kothari, B. (2008). LET A BILLION READERS BLOOM: SAME LANGUAGE

SUBTITLING (SLS) ON TELEVISION FOR MASS LITERACY. International
Review of Education.

4. Kothari, B., Pandey, A., & Chudgar, A. R. (2005). Reading Out of the “Idiot
Box”: Same-Language Subtitling on Television in India. The Massachusetts
Institute of Technology - Information Technologies and International
Development.

5. Kothari, B., & Bandyopadhyay, T. (2014). Same Language Subtitling of

Bollywood Film Songs on TV: Effects on Literacy. USC Annenberg School for
Communication & Journalism.
6. PRATHAM
( https://www.pratham.org/ )