The Punjab government has announced certain changes in the educational system followed in schools. This experiment will be conducted only in the government schools of the Punjab. The 22, 855 private schools of the Punjab, as reported in the Economic Survey 2000-2001 (2001), will not be affected unless they decide otherwise on their own. The 67,490 Urdu-medium schools of the Punjab will, however, be affected. Why I have mentioned this at the outset is that experiments are generally made on those belonging to less affluent and less powerful families it is their children who study in government schools. Since the government is unsure of what policy to follow it keeps changing policies.
Two earlier experiments are worth mentioning. The first was General Zia ul Haq’s declaration that Urdu will be the medium of instruction in all schools from class 1 from 1979 so that in 1989, after ten years, all examinations will be in Urdu. It was often claimed that the English medium schools would be abolished. Some schools switched to Urdu but they were not among the top elitist ones. The common peoples’ schools, at least in the Punjab, were in Urdu anyway so they were not affected. The top elitist ones were not affected either. Then in 1987 the policy was reversed and the choldren who were caught in the muddle suffered years of uncertainty.
The second experiment was made in Balochistan. The activists of the indigenous languages made the government pass ‘The Balochistan Mother Tongue Use Bill No. 6 of 1990’ made Balochi, Brahvi and Pashto compulsory in ordinary schools but exempted elitist schools on one pretext or the other. In 1992 the Balochistan Government decided that local languages should be optional not compulsory (No. 50.CAB-4-359 192). As parents considered these languages as an extra burden they opted not to teach them and the languages died as school subjects at the lower level. Languages are in demand if there are jobs in them but jobs had not been provided so the demand was very less. Anyway, the point is that the experiment was not made on privileged children.
The present experiment too is being made on under-privileged children and teachers because any child of wealthy or powerful parents goes to private schools (or the cadet colleges and armed forces schools) and not the ordinary government schools. Let us now see how this experiment will affect students and teachers. We need not bother as to what the salient features of the experiment are because they have been given in detail in the press.
In any view the only point worth concentrating upon is the claim that examinations will be abolished. At the same time a number of grades from A plus to F are given. F is below 33 per cent marks which used to be considered failure before. The question then is whether somebody getting only F grades would pass and be eligible for promotion to the next class or not? It appears that promotions will not be denied till the 8th class. However, an F grade student will still be denied the matriculation certificate and the F.A/F.Sc certificate without which one cannot enter professional institutions or the university level. In short, academic failure is deferred but not eliminated altogether.
On the whole, I think, it is a good idea not to insist on failing students upto the 8th level. The idea of failing is ego-shattering. It does not make people any better; it probably gives them a negative self image. In any case it is a requirement of the system of wealth and power-distribution not knowledge. By failing people we prevent them from entering the job market. The job market, in any case does not open after 8th class so even this device of elite-closure need not be applied. However, after that level (in higher classes) they will still fail. This has not been eliminated and it probably cannot be eliminated as long as there is a job market and as long as testable skills are needed for it.
The idea of not failing students upto a certain level, in my view, is good. More good will come out of it than harm. What is wrong, however, is that final examinations will be replaced by a number of ongoing tests. This does more harm than good. Students are always under tension and start thinking of knowledge as a burden which comes in bits and pieces. These bits and pieces have to be got off one’s back. The idea of cannecting things and allowing them to make sense disappears and the mentality of living from test to test, between spurts of activity and inaction, takes over. Moreover, if there is no final examination bringing all the strands together the idea of a coherent whole in a body of knowledge will disappear altogether. So, if I have understood correctly that lots of tests will take the place of examinations, then this is not a good idea at all.
This idea is bad from the point of view of teachers too. The teachers of elitist schools already groan under the burden of checking too many answer sheets because such schools believe in too many tests. However, these teachers are paid more and have more prestige than government school teachers. The idea of putting government school teachers under this additional burden without paying them substantially for every answer sheet they mark, is unfair.
Related to this is the idea of teachers’ reports. If I understand correctly every six weeks or so the teachers will write reports on students. Presumably the reports will be on the performance of each student. This is preposterous! Has the person who has decreed this undertaken the herculean task of writing even one report every six weeks? Does anybody realise that government schools often have 50 students and even more in every class. To write reports on so many students is just impossible. And just how is anybody to generate such reports every six weeks or so? Presumably by looking at the marks obtained in tests. So, why not just display the marks in tests and do away with the reports. The idea of writing reports is totally wrong, unjust and serves no useful function. This part of the proposal should be done away with before teachers start submitting fake reports.
Among other things the proposals mention the desire to increase the communication between parents and teachers. This is already done in elitist private schools and the results, in my opinion, have not been very good. True, some good things have happened as a consequence of parents taking remedial action before a child’s academic career is ruined. True, the idea looks very good in theory. True, if correctly implemented it could have positive effects. However, in reality it has done more harm than good. It has increased parental interference. It has created anxiety among the parents. It has made teachers feel powerless and humiliated, expecially when powerful or pushy parents point out their faults. On the whole parental interference has shrunk the boundaries of the teachers’ autonomy. Thus, I would say that, balancing the positive and the negative points of this idea, it is a bad idea. If it is applied in government schools I do not think the outcome will be good. Moreover, in this case, it might humiliate the parents most of whom will be illiterate and even less powerful than the teachers. Most probably the teachers will call the parents, scold them for not being able to help with the homework of the children and in the end suggest tuition. In my opinion, therefore, this part of the proposal may be dropped.
In short, if poor children are to be experimented upon, the only experiment I would recommend is promoting them upto class-8 whether they pass examinations (of which there should be a mid-term and an end-term only) or not. All other parts of the proposal must be withdrawn. The money earmarked for the these parts must be spent on buying better furniture, computers and increasing the salaries of teachers so as to attract better people in the schools.