EDUCATION IN A WORLD OF CRISIS
Paul Neergaard, Director, Danish School of Seed Pathology, has pointed out that 97 per cent of the total funds spent in developed countries and only 3 per cent in developing countries. He further points out that Indian dependence on English for research is greater than the British dependence on English. Crises in education is a crisis in communication, communications between the planners and the beneficiaries, the elite and the people and between the teachers and students.
The non-formal adult education is meant for 60 per cent of the illiterate population of the country. If the education country and the budget for non-formal education is 2 per cent of the total education budget, one can easily count per learner per teacher expense. The ritualistic encounter between the teacher and the taught, more often than not without a common language of communication, is to fill up statistics than gaining meaningful result. While components such as population education, family planning education, environment education are added each day, there is none to bother about quality and communicability of the material.
The primary education, which is the foundation of the entire educational edifice, is in still more precarious condition. To execute the operation blackboard programme 1.7 lakh school rooms are to be built and 4 lakh teachers are to be recruited costing about 1000 crores. We do not have funds for this. But even if this is done there is no guarantee that there will be any improvement of quality. The reason is language. With the emphasis on infant meritocracy on the one hand, and interactive communication technology on the other, the obvious facts that (a) primary education is primarily language education; (b) the socio-political cost of primary education in a second/foreign language is enormous; and (c) without proper foundation in languages the educational superstructure is bound to crumple, are forgotten.
At the primary education stage, one's understanding of the environment deepens, one's kinship with the societal network is established and one takes root in one's culture. The child's creative intelligence turns into a bundle of confusion as a world view different from the one provided by the categories of home language is imposed at an impressionable age. Take for example the use of English as the language of primary socialisation and primary learning for a non-English mother tongue child in India. The home language has words for trees and creepers, grasses and greens, fruits and flowers, birds and beasts, shades of colour and the ever-changing moods of nature. None of these are available in English either at home or in school. Therefore this acts as the first base of cultural alienation. The three dimensional Indian kinship terms expressive of extended and putative relations are neutralised by the English kin terms which come in the way of building a sense of interconnectedness in the social network. This leads to cultural anomie. The myths and symbols of a culture cannot be transmitted through the norms of another language. All artistic forms of cultural expression become alien to the growing child, who develops cultural perception blind spots. All these transmit a value which pushes the child towards a metropolis outside immediate culture and as one grows in "sophistication" one tends to accept a metropolis outside the country, in an English mother tongue region. It will thus be seen that the mother tongue shapes the early perceptions, becomes responsible for early concept formation, links past memories with future dreams, it becomes an integral component as well as expression of emotions and values. Further education built upon this foundation becomes as asset, whereas based upon a substitute it becomes debilitation. The need for and benefit of early mother tongue education is accepted all over the world including the founding fathers of the Indian constitution. But this is observed more in its breach.
There is a good deal of talk about new methods, materials and media mix and the use of high technology for the advantage of the poor. There is no strategy for communicating even the message to the teacher. It is forgotten that technology is culture sensitive and relevant technology results from the interaction of science with society. Unless peoples' languages are employed for dissemination of science there can neither be developing of a scientific temper nor technology can take root in the education system. On the other hand it will support radical conservation and status quo.
India's achievement in higher education has been spectacular. The largest chunk of the education budget is allocated for this. But one look at the streaming process demonstrates that it benefits a miniscule minority. 96 per cent of India's population provides less than 1 per cent students to the colleges and universities in the country. India is the third country in the world in terms of scientific and technological manpower and eighth in the world in printing. It houses 50 per cent of the 900 million world illiterate population. The growth of education that is talked about promises more of the same thing, more teachers, more books, greater enrolment and greater physical inputs. But as they are not calculated to cope with the decline, time is bound to aggravate mistakes as it has done in the past. Under a system where education is state managed and even private initiative operated under the pleasure of the State, where a linear curve marks the progression from infancy to adulthood with teacher qualification, curricular context, textbooks, school timing and duration either dictated or licenced by the State, it is not possible to meet the impending crisis unless a higher order leadership that is required for growth is encouraged.
In the past, all educational advantages are appropriated by the advantaged and most experimentation has been conducted at the cost of the under privileges. Unless more attention is given to the first generation learners and the low achievers for societal reasons, excellence will continue to be a mask for the chosen few. Crisis management will be a discipline in the Institutes of Management, but the Crisis will continue.