ചൂണ്ടുവിരലിലെ വിഭവങ്ങള്‍

2010 ജൂലൈമുതല്‍ അക്കാദമിക വിഭവങ്ങളുമായി ഈ വിദ്യാഭ്യാസ ബ്ലോഗ് ...പ്രയോജനപ്പെടുത്തുക, പ്രയോഗിക്കുക, പ്രചോദിപ്പിക്കുക, പ്രചരിപ്പിക്കുക.. ചൂണ്ടുവിരലില്‍ പങ്കിട്ട വിഭവമേഖലകള്‍....> 1.അധ്യാപക ശാക്തീകരണം ,2. വായനയുടെ വഴി ഒരുക്കാം, 3.എഴുത്തിന്‍റെ തിളക്കം, 4.വിദ്യാഭാസ ഗുണനിലവാരം- സംവാദം,5. മികവ്, 6.ശിശുസൌഹൃദ വിദ്യാലയം, 7.സര്‍ഗാത്മക വിദ്യാലയം, 8.നിരന്തര വിലയിരുത്തല്‍, 9.ഗണിതപഠനം, 10.വിദ്യാഭ്യാസ അവകാശ നിയമം, 11.ദിനാചരണങ്ങള്‍, 12.പാര്‍ശ്വവത്കരിക്കപ്പെടുന്നവര്‍, 13. രക്ഷിതാക്കളും സ്കൂളും, 14. കളരി, 15. ക്ലാസ് അന്തരീക്ഷം/ക്രമീകരണം, 16.ഇംഗ്ലീഷ് പഠനം, 17.ഒന്നാം ക്ലാസ്, 18. ശാസ്ത്രത്തിന്റെ പാത, 19.ആവിഷ്കാരവും ഭാഷയും, 20. പ്രത്യേക പരിഗണന അര്‍ഹിക്കുന്ന കുട്ടികള്‍, 21. ഐ ടി സാധ്യതകള്‍, 22. പഠനറിപ്പോര്‍ട്ടുകള്‍, 23.പഠനമാധ്യമം 24. ഭൌതികസൌകര്യങ്ങളില്‍ മികവ്, 25.അക്കാദമികസന്ദര്‍ശനം, 26.ഗ്രാഫിക് ഓര്‍ഗനൈസേഴ്സ്, 27.പ്രഥമാധ്യാപകര്‍.,28. ബാല, 29. വളരുന്ന പഠനോപകരണം,30. കുട്ടികളുടെ അവകാശം, 31. പത്രങ്ങള്‍ സ്കൂളില്‍, 32.പാഠ്യപദ്ധതി,33. ഏകീകൃത സിലബസ്, 34.ഡയറ്റ് .35.ബി ആര്‍ സി,36. പരീക്ഷ ,37. പ്രവേശനോത്സവം,38. IEDC, 39.അന്വേഷണാത്മക വിദ്യാലയങ്ങളുടെ ലോകജാലകം, 40. കലാവിദ്യാഭ്യാസം, 41.പഞ്ചായത്ത്‌ വിദ്യാഭ്യാസ സമിതി, 42. പഠനോപകരണം, 43.പാഠ്യപദ്ധതി പരിഷ്കരണം, 44. ചൂണ്ടുവിരല്‍,45. ടി ടി സി, 46.പുതുവര്‍ഷം, 47.പെണ്‍കുട്ടികളുടെ ശാക്തീകരണം, 48. ക്രിയാഗവേഷണം,49. ടീച്ചിംഗ് മാന്വല്‍, 50. പൊതുവിദ്യാഭ്യാസസംരക്ഷണം, 51.ഫീഡ് ബാക്ക്, 52.സ്റ്റാഫ് റൂം, 53. കുട്ടികളുട അവകാശം,54. കൃഷിയും പഠനവും,55. നോട്ട് ബുക്ക് ആകര്‍ഷകവും സമഗ്രവും, 56.പഠനയാത്ര, 57. വിദ്യാബ്ലോഗുകള്‍,58. സാമൂഹികശാസ്ത്രം, 59. സ്കൂള്‍ അസംബ്ലി, 60.സ്കൂള്‍ റിസോഴ്സ് (റിസേര്‍ച്) ഗ്രൂപ്പ് - ,61.പ്രതിഫലനാത്മകക്കുറിപ്പ്, 62. ബദല്‍പാഠങ്ങള്‍, 63.മെന്ററിംഗ്,64. വര്‍ക്ക്ഷീറ്റുകള്‍ ക്ലാസില്‍, 65.വിലയിരുത്തല്‍, 66. സാമൂഹിക ശാസ്ത്രാന്തരീക്ഷം, 67.അനാദായം, 68.എ ഇ ഒ , 69.കായികവിദ്യാഭ്യാസം,70. തിയേേറ്റര്‍ സങ്കേതം പഠനത്തില്‍, 71.നാടകം, 72.നാലാം ക്ലാസ്.73. പാഠാവതരണം, 74. മോണിറ്ററിംഗ്, 75.വിദ്യാഭ്യാസ ചിന്തകള്‍, 76.സഹവാസ ക്യാമ്പ്, 77. സ്കൂള്‍ സപ്പോര്‍ട്ട് ഗ്രൂപ്പ്,78.പ്രദര്‍ശനം,79.പോര്‍ട്ട്‌ ഫോളിയോ...80 വിവിധജില്ലകളിലൂടെ... പൊതുവിദ്യാഭ്യാസത്തിന്റെ കരുത്ത് അറിയാന്‍ ചൂണ്ടുവിരല്‍...tpkala@gmail.com.

Sunday, February 10, 2013

Tests are Torture


India Today /Archive /February 4, 2013 /
Vinod Raina January 25, 2013 |

        It is ironic that last week while an NGO was releasing its annual test scores of Indian children (the ASER report) to the media, teachers at Seattle's Garfield High School were protesting against the standardised Measures of Academic Progress (the MAP test) in America's public schools that is intended to evaluate, like the ASER testing, student progress and skill in mathematics and reading. The Seattle teachers are not alone in opposing such testing; for example, 880 districts that educate more than 4.4 million Texas students have adopted a resolution opposing
these tests.
            The ASER testing is still not at the same high-stakes level as the MAP testing, but with the Planning Commission  controversially endorsing testing for improving children's learning in its 12th Plan, with incentives to those who do well, India can
be seen to be moving towards a testing regime that is at the core of the increasingly discredited regime of America's No Child Left Behind (NCLB) programme.
     So what do ASER tests tell us? That children are not learning as well as they should. That unfortunately is not a new discovery. As far back as in 1974, when we were confronted in the Hoshangabad Science Teaching Programme that children could not be taught measurement in science in Class VI because they could not understand decimals that they should have learnt in Class IV and V mathematics, we began systematic testing in maths and languages to uncover the gaps. In a major survey in 1986 covering 10 districts and about 10,000 children from Class III to XI and primary schoolteachers, we found only about 52 per cent teachers
could understand decimals adequately. 
So how is this different from ASER testing? They were part of action research to find out why children don't learn, and
to use the findings for creating appropriate teaching-learning materials and appropriate inputs for teacher trainings, and not as media events.
So should we test more and more or devise methods to ensure that children do learn? There seems to be a line of thought that increased testing will itself ensure increased learning, which was the basis of testing-based approach of NCLB that is proving to be wasteful, stressful and expensive in the US. Some of the reasons for lack of learning are also fairly well-known, and they are not just absent teachers.

  • The inappropriateness of the language and contents of teaching-learning materials, 
  • the lack of understanding about age-concept relationships in the textbooks, and
  • child-unfriendly transactions in the classrooms are at the heart of the problem.

Untrained, demotivated or absent teachers complete the picture.
The task of correcting these deficiencies falls on academic institutions connected with school education. 
But they have been systematically impoverished and demolished through policy initiatives; the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan kept them out of the project ever since it was launched in 2000, an anomaly only just recently corrected through the RtE. 
The SCERTs and DIETs, chiefly responsible for these
tasks, have been made to atrophy in terms of appropriately trained manpower, and
their tasks have been performed by consultants and NGOs first under the District Primary Education Programme (DPEP) and later under the SSA (the Rajasthan government's books are currently being prepared through an MoU with a bank (!), that has further sub-contracted the work, while its State Institute for Education and
Training lies dilapidated in Udaipur). Through another policy brilliance, state after state of the country was encouraged to let its regular teacher cadres die, to be replaced by untrained contract teachers. Taken together, these are at the heart of
the problem why children do not learn. Ensuring children learn, desperately requires institutions charged with the responsibility of doing that to be resurrected. NGOs cannot replace these institutions, and testing will do nothing if these
institutions remain dysfunctional.
That children in private schools seem to do better than those in government schools has been the bane of NCLB testing, and now in ASER testing, since the scores are not weighted in terms of socio-economic backgrounds of children. Children who have home support in education are mostly in private schools; that they seem to do better has more to do with this fact than necessarily in differences in quality of schools. We must, of course, take good ideas from anywhere in the world. 
It is well  known that the best learning levels of children are from Scandinavian countries and from countries like South Korea and Japan. In spite of enormous financial inputs, US has not been able to catch up with them. And these countries do not rely on external testing. It would, therefore, be better that instead of importing
discredited ideas from the US, we adopt the methods of these countries; whichchiefly rely on inclusive classrooms for increased learning levels.
(Vinod Raina is a Visiting Senior Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies,
New Delhi, and a member of the Central Advisory Board for Education)

2 comments:

Prasanna Raghavan said...

Very valid arguments. American education system especially in the critical subjects has been in shambles for decades. Without committed (I mean not simply certificated) teachers education cannot improve.

soumz said...

"So should we test more and more or devise methods to ensure that children do learn?" - high time we realize and take action on this.