Reforms: Rejuvenating or repressing

Central board of secondary education has introduced many reforms in the education system at school level. The board has been striving hard to make the school education an interesting and enjoyable experience for the school going children and at the same time trying to ensure that the children are taught the skills and values of life. The assessment and evaluation system has undergone a complete change especially up to the secondary level. Most of the people involved with the school education including the teachers and the parents feel that these changes were long awaited. But at the same time many of them also feel that the changes introduced are at a fast pace without giving sufficient time to the stakeholders to understand and comprehend them. Well this is exactly the case when the mother of a child gave a fixed diet to him for a long time and when she realized that some change should be introduced (because change is the law of life) so she cooks many varieties of food for him without realizing that so much food and that too so quickly will not be digested and even the most nutritious food would cause a lot of problems to the child and this precisely seems to be happening with the changes and the reforms introduced in the recent past in education system. I shared this worry and observation earlier also with other learned people. They opined that the reforms being introduced are good but the pace is fast. You may recall that the CCE pattern was introduced in the middle of the academic session due to which many teachers, parents and the students found it difficult to understand and follow the same in the right way. And the same style continues even today. We do not understand why the changes should be forced on the stakeholders whenever the people in position think about them. As stated earlier also that the changes introduced are not questioned but the manner in which that is done leaves everyone worried. Though the training programs were conducted for the head of the schools, teachers and in some cases for the parents also when the CCE was in introduced in 2009. But that was done in a hurry with a large number of people gathered at one place and as it was done in a hurry, so some of the trainees were also not very clear about the concept. Moreover, the concept of formative and summative assessment was new to many stakeholders. The most confusing one, has been to understand the formative assessment. This I discussed before also that formative assessment is the tool in the hands of the teacher to know how much learning has taken place in the mind of the learners and whether the teacher has been able to fulfill the objectives of the teaching learning process. But this has been taken by the people as terminal test to be conducted for the whole class on a particular day and in a particular way. The formative assessment may be left to the teachers’ discretion because the same is to be conducted almost every day for improved learning of the learner. But I think CBSE has used it in its own way for the sake of uniformity and some kind of transparency. This gives me a feeling of lack of trust between the schools and the organization introducing the reforms and this has valid reasons for it being so. The board cannot act as police for quite long because no reforms will yield desirable positive results until implemented honestly by those responsible for the proper implementation. We should be realistic in our assessment towards the proper implementation and benefit of the same to the learners not in short term for them but for the nation in the long term. We should not think about the needs of the learners in isolation but with the future requirements of the country because the individuals cannot survive if we do not serve our nation. So the education and evaluation system should be such that our country remains capable of facing the future challenges. The other important aspect to be kept in mind by the policy makers should be that any change brought in should be based on some research done by an indigenous group of people and not by somebody from and in foreign country. We must see our requirement based on the outcomes of the research and the reforms should be proposed and debated upon before implementation. Education may not be taken as the sample of bridge but as a whole bridge because few people saying “yes” for something does not necessarily make the new thing better than the earlier one.

As I mentioned earlier, introducing any change in the mid session should be avoided because that makes no sense at least for that particular term rather raises multiple queries and confusion for everyone. I would like to mention about the concept of problem solving assessment introduced by CBSE from this session (the same was informed to the schools in the month of September 2012). Though the introduction of the PSA is a welcome step but why should it be done separately? Could it not have been the part of the SAs question papers as value added questions have been added? Even if it was to be done, then why the teachers were not given enough time and training to guide the children for the same? You all might be aware that the private publishers have already published books on PSA that are now available in the market. I may be excused for saying the truth that there are many of us (teachers) who are not aware of how to solve many of these problems. The other thing being questioned is, why the PSA in class IX be counted in lieu of FA4? What is the logic behind that? The board is taking all possible decisions and measures trying to help the students but that may not happen in every case. At the same time, the logistic problems of the schools should also be realized and be kept in mind. In class XI, the PSA result will be reflected and the same could have been done for class IX also. This I am suggesting because many children are taking the PSA as additional burden on them and they will be forced to study and learn extra for that. So are we increasing or reducing the stress on the children? I should not be misunderstood that I am not for the changes and reforms, but my concern is the manner in which it is being done. When we force our children to eat something which they do not want, the doctors also say that it may not prove to be very good for their health though the food might be full of proteins and vitamins.  But when the children are told about the positives of having that kind of food, they will enjoy the same and be benefitted the most. Similarly, the reforms introduced (which are really good) should be appropriately spaced and be implemented by making all stakeholders aware about the advantages and the positive outcomes. The PSA would benefit the teachers and the students a lot but the same could have been introduced once everyone was aware about it. As I always say that these are my thoughts and I would like to be educated where to make the corrections.