Need to embrace structural changes to our educational institutes

It is unfortunate that education is among the last sectors that actually makes changes and moves away from long-held practices to more innovative, research proven practices that are shown to have a better impact on student learning than traditional methods. John Dewey, an educator and educational philosopher from the early 1900s, shared many then progressive approaches to teaching and learning that have since shown to be more effective than traditional rote memorisation and industrial school models, and are still used widely today.

Still no change
India implemented a New Educational Policy (NEP) almost two years ago with few changes seen in public and private schools. While Covid-19 has certainly delayed implementation, the high level of bureaucracy is likely more the culprit for why things have not changed in India and much of the rest of the world’s public and private sectors. It is simply easier to do things as they have been done than to retrain millions of teachers and school leaders to implement more progressive approaches to teaching and learning.

Adapting school systems
One huge change in the NEP is from the ‘10+2’ (grades I-X + grades XI-XII) to the 5-3-3-4 model (PreK-grade II; grades III-V; grades VI-VIII; and grades IX-XII). Reallocating teacher and leader training towards this model will have an amazing impact on how, what and when we teach in India.

The biggest impact this will have is removing the need for the ever-present grade X board exams. The question remains why there is a grade X board exam when high school finishes in grade XII. One answer is forty-odd years ago, the four-year high school programme was changed to the 10+2 model with students opting to either continue two more years of high school, or stop school education; hence the need for a grade X board.

The grade X board exams are so powerfully fixed in the Indian educational mindset that an engineer with a masters degree and a decade of practical experience still needs to list this in her/his resume when applying for a job 15 years after the grade X boards. It seems odd to place so much emphasis on an exam that only measures a small amount of a person’s learning and educational trajectory.

The amount of time, anxiety and tension associated with teaching to grade X board students, studying for the exams, and appearing for them, could be better spent teaching and learning about the subjects, developing conceptual understanding, and develop the character necessary to participate in an ever-changing labor market.

If the weight of the grade X boards continues, no other educational innovation will be possible as they will all be window dressing until the time comes to prep for exams, often one entire year in advance. This is a serious loss of educational time for all of India’s students to learn what is truly needed in this evolving world.

(The author is head of school, Canadian International School, Bengaluru)