Lighter schoolbags not an answer

The NCERT syllabus for schools is to be reduced by half from the 2019 academic session, according to the HRD minister. The prime impact of this student-friendly curriculum move would be lighter school bags. But the weight of schoolbags is a symptom of the disease afflicting primary education in India rather than the disease itself. The belief that the current school syllabus is more than that of degree course in arts and commerce would be a somewhat simplistic assessment of what ails our system. Of course, the time freed up by a lighter curriculum may be useful for students to gain some space for extracurricular activities, including sports and games, for their all-round development. But the educational surveys held nationwide periodically, invariably reveal bad news — students are learning less as they move to higher classes and that an average Class 8 student can barely answer basic questions in maths, science and social studies.

It is again too simplistic to say that the school curriculum will be reduced as the syllabus for medicine and engineering studies would also have to change to accommodate the fact that school students may be learning less from the new curriculum. A drastic measure like cutting the syllabus cannot be introduced without the whole system having to change. A lighter school bag alone is not the answer. In an age in which so much knowledge is available online and learning is possible as it is from prescribed textbooks, modern schools can point students towards marshalling the Internet to enhance their knowledge. The gap between the rate at which technology is accelerating and the pace at which people are upskilling is growing and one way to try and cover this would be to show how school students can use material available online to learn more.

The big disadvantage India is suffering from is the quality of teachers more than the curriculum. How the system can retrain teachers, who are not well-paid, to adapt to the modern environment would be crucial to teaching and learning outcomes. A real examination should test whether students have learnt the principles rather than their having picked it by rote learning. Testing the ability of sharp young minds is more important than examining knowledge. The major drawback to ways of maximising India’s demographic advantage is so little is apportioned to education and health in the national budgets. What meagre funds are available beyond building infrastructure are hardly sufficient to re-skilling teachers and making them innovative. What we see is lack of quality in basic education, which is as symptomatic of a national malaise in agriculture, public health, banking and various other fields. But without a sound education, the national ability to tackle the bigger problems might be stunted into the future too.