"Our Methods For Teaching Of Reading Are Quite Obsolete"Meera Srinivasan The Hindu Date:22/01/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/01/22/stories/2008012254941100.htm More attention to Classes I and II, focus on basic reading and arithmetic skills in lower classes, better teacher training and stronger State Councils of Educational Research and Training are the immediate goals to be achieved in the realm of school education, says NCERT directorKrishna Kumarin an interview. Excerpts:
Our Reading Development Cell is now fully functional. We have housed it in the Central Institute of Educational Technology (CIET) — a constituent unit of NCERT — in order to ensure that modern technology is actively used for promotion and advocacy of a new approach to the teaching of reading in the early primary classes. NCERT decided to focus on reading because reading is the heart of every subject and the children´s overall progress depends on their ability to read and to derive joy from reading. Sadly, the methods used for the teaching of reading in the early classes are quite obsolete and incapable of sustaining the child´s motivation. Rather, these traditional methods turn reading into a chore. Visit any primary school and you will inevitably hear collective chanting of the letters of the alphabet. The whole process is so irrational and exhausting that it is hardly surprising to find children unable to read comfortably even in Class V. Even those children who succeed in learning how to read don´t become habitual readers. Traditional approaches don´t allow us to recognise the little child´s search for meaning. Modern pedagogies of reading lay stress on starting with meaningful units, such as words and sentences and bring in analytic features of language later. Emphasis is also laid on linking reading with storytelling and children´s own emotive writing. Children want to make sense of the world in every activity. Language is a remarkable sense-making faculty we humans are gifted with. Children´s introduction to reading should enable them to expand the scope of their innate linguistic competence, in an atmosphere of joy and encouragement. That is the perspective of National Curriculum Framework (NCF 2005) which recommends a language-across-the curriculum perspective. The States were expected to take a similar initiative and to establish their own Reading Cells. How much progress has been made on this front so far? NCERT is trying to persuade all States to set up their own Reading Cells, but the progress has been rather slow. We are not surprised or disappointed by the slow initial progress because the focus is so new even though the problem is so old and widespread. Our universities have failed to keep abreast of scientific research in early reading. In fact, this area has been ignored for more than three decades during which important advances have been made in psycholinguistics and neurology to explain how children learn to read and how we can nurture their innate strengths with the help of sensible curricular strategies. The SSA units in several States have responded positively to NCERT´s call to focus on early reading. We are pleased that the SSA in Tamil Nadu is also considering our suggestion and has taken the first steps by creating a small group. States like Tamil Nadu are quite aware of the nature of the problem, and they also have access to good local groups capable of providing support. For instance, Tulika has published excellent reading material for children which needs to be used widely. One problem is that the importance of books for the youngest age-group is not fully recognised or understood. Card-based strategies can never give the same results even though they can give some short-term satisfaction. We must appreciate the nature of systemic reform required to create a reading culture in our schools and society. Institutions like the National Book Trust, NCERT and State bodies must come together to create a book-oriented environment in every town and village. Kerala has set up an institute of children´s literature to liberate school education from a textbook-centred approach. NCERT´s Reading Cell will soon bring out a graded reading series consisting of nearly 40 titles, divided into four levels. The idea is to give little children the joy of negotiating a book and finding another one slightly more challenging. Reading requires so much more exercise. How do you assess the progress of the SSA? Has it achieved its goals? What role has it been assigned in the 11th Plan? SSA has a very varied picture in different States. In certain States it has made very good progress. Especially in States where the Panchayati Raj system is in good health and the Village Education Committees are working properly, SSA has come close to attaining its major goal of bringing every child to school. In States where village-level bodies are sluggish, the picture is poor. However, the question of quality applies uniformly to the entire country. SSA was envisaged as a movement, and it has indeed generated an enormous amount of social and professional energy. The challenge now is to institutionalise this energy so that the gains don´t become a pleasant memory. Institutionalisation of SSA´s gains requires drastic systemic reforms of the kind recommended in NCF. The focus group appointed under NCF to work out systemic reforms was chaired by Professor Shantha Sinha who has described rural children´s plight as a ‘battle for school.´ There are far too many obstacles that the rigid school system poses to rural children. NCERT hopes to establish a rural education cell to study some of these problems, especially those resulting from poverty, migration and the agrarian crisis which has hit the peasantry in many parts of the country. For SSA to succeed, State governments must strengthen their SCERTs and District Institutes of Education and Training (DIETs). The 11th Plan offers an unprecedented increase in funds available for children´s education although we still have a long way to go to match what the East Asian and Western countries spend on their children and schools. The 11th Plan also proposes to move in the direction of taking SSA upwards to cover Class X. Clearly, the immediate goal is to improve enrolment and retention in the upper primary classes where the present situation is quite worrisome, especially in the context of girls. Improving the quality of pedagogy, pedagogic material, and teacher training presents quite a canvas of tasks to be attended to in the immediate future. In this list, the last one seems most difficult, considering both the long-term neglect and the recent commercialisation of teacher training. We must revisit the Chattopadhyaya Commission´s recommendations given in the mid-1980s and start undoing some of the confused steps taken over the 1990s if we want to utilise the financial outlay offered in the 11th Plan. There has been some discussion on the uniformity of syllabus in States like Tamil Nadu which continues to provide four distinct streams in school education. What is your view on this? This matter was brought to our attention a few months ago. We reminded the Tamil Nadu government that this kind of reform has been long overdue. Way back in 1966, the Kothari commission had recommended a composite school model covering Classes I to XII. It is a sad reflection of our consensus-building capacity that 40 years later quite a few States have varying school structures. Maharashtra, for instance, has seven years of elementary education, which is hardly in keeping with the Constitution´s promise of eight years of elementary schooling. In States like Tamil Nadu, more than one Board conducts examinations. In the early 1990s, a central government committee had recommended that every State should have only one Board. It will be a good idea for Tamil Nadu to move in this direction, but then it must do so along with several other things. Without a specialised workforce being nurtured under SCERT, quality goals cannot be achieved in different sectors of school education. Universities and colleges also must join in the effort to improve the quality of elementary education. We had expected that Tamil Nadu´s performance in NCERT´s mid-term survey of Class V achievement levels would be better than it was in the base-line survey conducted in 2002. That has not happened, but I am quite aware of the enthusiasm I now see for certain reforms such as amalgamation of the four streams you mentioned. I also realise that there is considerable resistance to it and scepticism as well. The NCF provides a very cohesive view on how syllabus and textbooks should be designed and dealt with in the classroom at different stages of education. To talk about a higher or lower standard syllabus is to miss the heart of a child-centred approach. There is so much stress on our children today precisely because we don´t recognise individual differences and we want every child to be taught and examined the same way. No wonder our system is actually as cruel as Taare Zameen Par shows. NCF asks us to take into account the child´s perspective and see what knowledge, which skills should be offered to children at what point in their lives. I am very happy that a popular film like Taare Zameen Par is spreading this message, but the system of education has a long way to go in the NCF direction. We need to provide flexibility and room for initiative in all spheres of the system. This year, the CBSE examination is expected to feature at least a small proportion of questions which don´t require rote answers. The Kerala Board is also moving in this direction. The real issue is not whether syllabi should be uniform or different. Good teaching always situates learning in the child´s context, whatever the topic. To use a term Professor Yashpal, who led the NCF process, has coined, teaching succeeds when it offers a ‘taste of understanding´ which is wholesome, creative and enjoyable. If this does not happen, schools will only traumatise children with a burden of information and the fear of failure or unsatisfactory performance in the examination. © Copyright 2000 - 2008 The Hindu |