Monday, February 8, 2010

Fwd: [se-ed] DISCUSSION: Replicating Innovative Indian Experiences forImplementation of Right to Education. Reply by 10 February 2010.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Multiple Contributors <se-ed@solutionexchange-un.net.in>
Date: Mon, Feb 8, 2010 at 1:46 PM
Subject: Re: [se-ed] DISCUSSION: Replicating Innovative Indian Experiences forImplementation of Right to Education. Reply by 10 February 2010.
To: Education Community <se-ed@solutionexchange-un.net.in>


Moderator's Note: Find below the responses from Umesh Chandra Gaur and B.L.Kaul

Umesh Chandra Gaur, Confederation of Community Based Organizations of India, New Delhi

The Government of India regard education as the basic element for overall development of its citizens. I want to say that only a good teacher can make a good student. But it is sad to say that the burden of bags of the children is increasing but the level of education is decreasing because the teachers don't give full attention to their students. 

Sixty years after the Constitution of India came into force, the commitment to provide education to all, remain unfulfilled. While India is home to 22% of the world's population, it accounts for 46% of the world's illiterates. Almost one fourth of the world's total child labour force and a very high proportion of the world's out of school children and youth are in India.

I want to draw attention towards the condition in rural and urban areas. The quality of education is poor. Quality of education and performance of teacher are two areas of urgent concern. Number of schools has increased yet facilities are far from satisfactory. Nationally sponsored schemes are nation specific only. Quality of education is very low - for example in Uttar Pradesh, among the children studying in Class V, 5% cannot read anything, 15% can only identify alphabets, and 50% can do simple addition and subtraction.

We can start some awareness camps for teachers. Government should give more attention in rural and urban areas and should make a committee who regular take back report monthly from every school so that government could know that the position of a particular school is improving or not. Non Government Organizations and Voluntary Organizations can play an important role in this. They can lead the awareness camps. By doing this we can improve our educational system.


B.L.Kaul, Society for Popularization of Science and Progressive Educational Society, Jammu

Jammu and Kashmir State is way ahead of other states in teacher education. The State has many institutions imparting teacher education. The DIET's train primary teachers and they receive a Diploma at the end of the course. There are also institutions of ETT (Elementary teacher training) imparting two years's training. These are affiliated to Jammu & Kashmir Board of School Education. Most of the trainees come from the neighboring states of Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and Himachal. There are over a hundred private B.Ed. colleges besides two Government B.Ed. Colleges located in Jammu and another in Srinagar. B.Ed colleges located in Kashmir Division are affiliated to Kashmir University and those located in Jammu Division are affiliated with Jammu University. All these institutions fulfill National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) conditions. Like in the case of ETT students from neighboring states come for admissions to pursue B.Ed. courses.

Both the Universities of the State also have a two year Distance Education programme to train teachers for B.Ed degree. Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) also has set up centers at Srinagar and Jammu for correspondence education including B.Ed courses.

Teacher Education is an essential component of School Education. How far do the teachers possessing teaching degrees follow what they have learnt at the college? This is something that needs monitoring.


From: Radhika Herzberger [mailto:radhika@rishivalley.org]
Sent: Tuesday, January 19, 2010 4:02 PM
To: 'Education Community'
Subject: [se-ed] DISCUSSION: Replicating Innovative Indian Experiences forImplementation of Right to Education. Reply by 10 February 2010.

Moderator's Note: Dear Members, we are initiating discussion on learning from the innovative initiatives in order to implement Right to Education Act, the historical legal commitment by Government of India to provide for free and compulsory education to all children of the Country. As a community of practitioners interested in sharing, linking and learning, we all are aware of the importance of knowledge in helping us improve our interventions. India has a range of very innovative – creative experiments with a huge potential to learn from and replicate. This discussion would help us in sharing ways and methods to hold hands of the government in shouldering the responsibility to make available quality education to all children.

We are happy to announce that Dr. Radhika Herzberger, a well known name amongst the people working in the field of education in India and across the borders, has agreed to Guest Moderate this discussion. Dr. Radhika Herzberger teaches history and presently serves as Director of Rishi Valley Education Centre, a pioneering educational initiative in the Country. As an educational thinker, philosopher and practitioner she has in her credit a number of well acclaimed books written on various aspects of education. Her out of the box thinking and reflection on the challenges in education and the pragmatic approach to shape those ideas in the form of action has been widely received, studied and used by interventions all over.

We look forward to a stimulating discussion on the issue.

Shubhangi  

Dear Friends,

The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 received the assent of the President of India in August 2009.  The main provisions of the Act can be found at; web link http://education.nic.in/Elementary/free%20and%20compulsory.pdf  (Size 1.48 MB)

The debates on the Right to Education, especially in Solution Exchange, has been on

The Consolidated Replies with respect to each of the discussion list some innovations in education, and discuss critical issues pertaining to the Right to Education (RTE)

We at the Rishi Valley School believe that education is the one most critical aspect of human development that impacts all social and economic development in a country and across the world.  Now that the right to education has been enacted, and the government is fully committed to finding the solution to reaching large numbers, we feel it is important to engage in a serious discourse on the quality of education that we provide to children, especially at the primary level.

We would therefore request inputs from the members of the education community on the following key aspects of quality of education: 
  • How can the government be supported to improve the motivation and skills of existing teachers in government schools?
  • Moreover, are there effective ways of bringing into the pool of teachers who are trained and motivated a large number of youths with graduate degrees (sometimes even 'teacher qualifications'), who are currently unemployed?
  • The Rishi Valley School's Rural Education Centre works with a methodology, which has been replicated and scaled up in both rural and urban locales within India, and has been nationally and internationally acclaimed (URL). There are many such methodologies worth replicating. Please share the teaching methodologies you have used and found useful in enabling high quality learning  teaching and monitoring systems, and which can be scaled up by government schools. 
  • Our belief is that school education must continue to be the responsibility of the state and the state must invest in improving its own capacity to deliver.  We would invite comments from members on how official resources are best directed in the implementation of the RTE Act:  
·   In government schools
·   Through NGOs and educational foundations
·   Through Public-Private Partnership (PPPS) with for-profit educational organization

Such a discussion will help reputed educational organizations to provide pro-active support to the government in implementation of RTEA, and help direct official resources towards high quality education, that is innovative and suited to local needs. Post discussion, it is also proposed to bring together a group of reputed educational institutions within the country to share the lessons from these approaches, and brainstorm to scale these up in different parts of the country as appropriate?  The new approaches can be incubated with NGOs working in partnership with government schools, and government resources can be allocated to these.

Regards

Radhika Herzberger and A. Kumaraswamy
Rishi Valley School
Madanapalle, Chittoor District
Andhra Pradesh
(www.rishivalley.org)




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