Education in India

What's wrong with schools in America? A documentary attempts to explain.

I want to watch Waiting for Superman, the documentary that's just released in America. 

 

 

This bit about the situation in America from a review of the documentary in New York Magazine drives home a harsh reality that is far more stark in the Indian context.

A real revolution in education will require a more foundational change-one that addresses the way in which the nation goes about turning people into teachers in the first place.

The ridiculousness of how we do it now is a bugbear of Geoff Canada's. "We say to these young people, 'We're going to make a deal with you,' " he explains. " 'We are not going to pay you a lot of money, but we are going to give you a lot of time off. You'll always get home before dark. You won't work weekends, and you'll have every summer off.' It's a terrible message we're sending that these perks come with their job. What kind of people does that attract to the profession?"

The answer to Canada's question is distressing and depressing. Whereas the best public-school systems in the world-Finland, Singapore, South Korea-recruit all of their teachers from the top third or better of their college graduates, in America the majority come from the bottom two-thirds, with just 14 percent of those entering teaching each year in high-needs schools coming from the upper third. And the numbers may be getting worse. According to a recent survey conducted by McKinsey, a meager 9 percent of top-third graduates have any interest in teaching whatsoever.

I think the corresponding numbers in India may be far worse. Much food for thought for us on how to address the challenges in India.

Here's a link to the McKinsey Survey referred to in the review - Closing the talent gap: Attracting and retaining top-third graduates to careers in teaching.

An earlier McKinsey report in 2007 titled How the world's best school systems stay on top summed up the challenge by stating "the quality of an education system can't exceed the quality of its teachers."

Reality show for schools in Kerala

The Kerala State Education Department plans to run a reality television show on schools in Kerala, says a report in Indian Express.

The show would be aired on the state-run IT@School ViCTERS channel, the country's first channel exclusively meant for educational shows through EDUSAT network. This would showcase the various innovative initiatives taken by the schools and its students and teachers such as peer teaching, green endeavours or any other innovations related to education.

"This show will be the first attempt to integrate the learning elements with the societal roles of children. Here, both children and teachers will be presenting the achievement of their schools with the help of videos and IT-enabled communication tools. This will be a competitive space, where diverse types of unique models in learning will be presented," says K Anvar Sadath, executive director of IT@ School project.

The three-month long show, starting November, would have 45-minutes long 75 episodes presented by 100 schools - both government and private ones.

According to a Sify report on the show,

The achievements can be in the pedagogical innovations - activity-based, bringing in IT into education, infrastructure, best teaching practices, physical fitness programmes, agriculture initiatives in schools, sanitation and cleanliness etc.

'This show will also be an ideal opportunity in understanding the different aspects of the learning process and will help in gauging the feedback of students and teachers for policy making,' said Sadath.

Each episode will have three segments. 'The first segment will be a profile of the school, then there will be a video prepared by our crew on the different activities of the school, and then the school will be given an opportunity to present their performance before a jury. The overall performance of the school in at least three of the fifteen sectors suggested will be evaluated,' said Sadath.

I had earlier explored the possibilities of other types of reality shows in education.