Over the last few years, there have been increased calls for more stringent assessments of learning outcomes, notwithstanding the elimination of conventionally understood examinations thanks to the decisions to do away with Board examinations in Classes 8 and 10; the former because of the RIght of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, the latter thanks to the CBSE imperative to reduce pressure on school children. Like much else about our education system, the few national assessments carried out so far reveal contrary results - while the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) carried out by Pratham with the help of volunteers and other NGOs has consistently indicated falling levels of learning, NCERT's own studies seem to contradict this data; the former's survey shows that despite increased government spending on education, more than half of Class 5 children unable to read a simple Class 2 text, while the latter in its most recent report claims that two out of three children in Class 3 were able to correctly answer grade appropriate questions. And the performance of the two historically most advanced States in PISA 2012 was nothing short of dismal.
On the other hand, a couple of weeks ago, there were reports of Class 12 children in UP who committed, or attempted to commit, suicide because they were unable to pay the bribes demanded by their respective Principals (no less!) to allow them to cheat in the exam. The cases of teacher-assisted cheating in Atlanta, Chicago, New York and other cities in the US have already been documented; in every case where teacher performance or compensation were linked to student performance, there was a strong incentive for those teachers to "help" their students do well in assessment tests.
In principle, it is hard to argue with the need for outcome measurement; at the end of the day, what gets measured, gets done. In a recent article, Prof Lant Pritchett and Gulzar Natarajan argue for different types of measurement reports, depending on the end user of the information (see http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/one-report-card-is-not-enough). The trick lies in calibrating systems to ensure that while they provide an accurate picture of our children's achievements, they don't end up either discouraging everyone, or lend themselves to gaming.
Ideally, we need to find a method of low stakes testing that serves as a diagnostic tool, enabling teachers and administrators to take corrective steps well in time; paraphrasing Robert Stake, we need more tasting of the soup during preparation, i.e., more formative assessments. This means a middle path between the extremes of the high stakes testing of the No Child Left Behind Act in the US and the no-tests-at-all philosophy of the Sudbury Schools.
What should worry us all is the fact that learning levels are consistent across school managements; regardless of whether a school is run by the government or a private entity, learning outcomes seem to be uniformly poor. The difference, as Prof Kartik Muralidharan of the University of San Diego has shown, is that private schools achieve these poor results at about one-third the government rate because their input costs are much lower! Clearly it is time to more beyond the public vs private school debate to look at the best way to help our children learn.
A country that claims to be on the verge of benefitting from the demographic dividend needs to make greater effort to ensure that all its young get an equal opportunity to participate in building the nation.
On the other hand, a couple of weeks ago, there were reports of Class 12 children in UP who committed, or attempted to commit, suicide because they were unable to pay the bribes demanded by their respective Principals (no less!) to allow them to cheat in the exam. The cases of teacher-assisted cheating in Atlanta, Chicago, New York and other cities in the US have already been documented; in every case where teacher performance or compensation were linked to student performance, there was a strong incentive for those teachers to "help" their students do well in assessment tests.
In principle, it is hard to argue with the need for outcome measurement; at the end of the day, what gets measured, gets done. In a recent article, Prof Lant Pritchett and Gulzar Natarajan argue for different types of measurement reports, depending on the end user of the information (see http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/one-report-card-is-not-enough). The trick lies in calibrating systems to ensure that while they provide an accurate picture of our children's achievements, they don't end up either discouraging everyone, or lend themselves to gaming.
Ideally, we need to find a method of low stakes testing that serves as a diagnostic tool, enabling teachers and administrators to take corrective steps well in time; paraphrasing Robert Stake, we need more tasting of the soup during preparation, i.e., more formative assessments. This means a middle path between the extremes of the high stakes testing of the No Child Left Behind Act in the US and the no-tests-at-all philosophy of the Sudbury Schools.
What should worry us all is the fact that learning levels are consistent across school managements; regardless of whether a school is run by the government or a private entity, learning outcomes seem to be uniformly poor. The difference, as Prof Kartik Muralidharan of the University of San Diego has shown, is that private schools achieve these poor results at about one-third the government rate because their input costs are much lower! Clearly it is time to more beyond the public vs private school debate to look at the best way to help our children learn.
A country that claims to be on the verge of benefitting from the demographic dividend needs to make greater effort to ensure that all its young get an equal opportunity to participate in building the nation.
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