Address At The Valedictory Function Of The Platinum Jubilee Celebrations Of The Central Board Of Secondary Education (Cbse)

Children Friendly Education

I am indeed delighted to participate in the Valedictory Function of the Platinum Jubilee Celebrations of the Central Board of Secondary Education. I congratulate the members of the Central Board of Secondary Education for their contribution in shaping the future of our youth during the last seventy-five years. I greet the organizers, researchers, education planners, educators, examiners, principals, students and distinguished guests. I would like to discuss, with this audience, my thoughts on stress free, creative learning models and learner centric evaluation system.

Education with Value System

The best part for a person is his or her learning period in childhood at School. The prime learning period is 6th to 17th year of age. Hence, the school hours for children are the best time for learning, and need the best environment and mission oriented learning with value based educational system. This reminds me the echo from Bestolozzy, a great teacher's saying, "Give me a child for seven years, afterwards, let the God or devil take the child, they cannot change the child." That is indeed the power of the teacher. For parents and teachers, school campus and home have to have an integrated mission: education with value system. During this period of education, it is essential to have a one hour class every week to discuss about good human beings present and past and what makes a good human being. This class can be called as ?Elevating young minds?. As an example this class can discuss the personalities such as Buddha, Confucius, St. Augustine, Kalifa Omar, Mahatma Gandhi, Einstein, Abraham Lincoln including some scientific personalities and moral stories linked to our civilizational heritage. Twelve-year value-based education of 25,000 hours in the school campus is essential to establish an open and transparent society or a society with integrity. Up to the age of 17 years, the father, the mother and the teacher lead a child to become an enlightened citizen.

I would like to discuss a few models of education which I have come across in the country, that can promote creativity among children, reduce the dropout by creating sustained interest in learning, how a tele-education programme is complementary to the present educational system, that will enable good teaching to have a wider reach in remote areas and also a quality evaluation system.

M.R. Raju model ? minimizing school dropout

Prof. M.R. Raju lives in his native village Peddamiram close to Bheemavaram, Andhra Pradesh. The life of Prof. Raju is indeed a great example, how a famous nuclear scientist working in Los Alamos Laboratory, USA left his job and came to his village and decided to transform Peddamiram and its surroundings, with the support of his family members. With his assets he started the Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Medical Trust in that village. In a decade, he and his team supported by volunteers from various institutions from India and abroad, have brought great change to the people in the village. Particularly he targeted character building and upliftment of the children in the age group of 3 to 5 years. The village has 100 children in this age group, out of this 50 belong to the high income group who study in private schools. 30 are very poor and they study in Balawadi School run by the State Government. The other 20 join the school being run by Prof. M R Raju. In this school the parents have to pay a fee of half a days wages per child/per month. For girl students they have to pay Rs.10/- per month. The emphasis in this school is on, playful environment, nutritional support and caring love. This experiment is being repeated in many other schools.

The parents are periodically invited to the school and given training on the need for providing nutrition to the children through proteins, leafy vegetables and eggs. The children are given training on cleanliness and hygiene. For example they are taught about importance of washing hands before eating. With this training they become teachers at home for hygienic practice and they will not allow any of their members to take food without washing hands. When the teachers interact with the children they always talk to them as a scientist. This technique is promoting creativity among the children. When a child is shown the letter ?B? and asked what he understood by this letter, the child says it is looking like a spectacle. Similarly when a sketch is started with some features such as eyes or lips the children are able to draw a full picture. This shows the creative ability of the students. These students once trained in Prof Raju?s school for three years learn to enjoy studies and they do not become dropouts later. This has totally transformed the village atmosphere and the dropout rate of the children in schools has come down substantially. A confident young population is emerging in the village and the surroundings. This method of training has been researched by child psychologists and educational theorists which is being practiced by Prof Raju and his team during the last 10 years. This approach makes the child a willing learner before entering the school and makes him to participate in the school learning process when he joins the regular school.

Azim Premji Model ? Computer Aided Accelerated Learning

The Azim Premji Foundation in collaboration with State Governments and multilateral agencies has started a child friendly school initiative in Karnataka. Recently I visited one of the schools - a Government Secondary School at Nagasandra village near Bangalore, which has been sponsored under this accelerated learning programme. The principal aim of this programme is to ensure that all children come to school, learn during school time and complete five years of schooling. Dropouts are identified and brought to the school. I saw that the Scheme was effective because of the commitment of the teachers, village elders and the members of the school committee and the success rate of the programme is high because there is a committed Head teacher. The programme encompasses a series of interventions that strengthens practices in the classroom and provides support to educational administration and community empowerment to manage the educational process. The initiative includes setting standards regarding facilities like classrooms, water, sanitation and services like safety, physical and psycho-social health.

The focus was on gender sensitive curricula and materials for literacy, numeric ability, knowledge, attitudes, skills for life and learning processes. The initiative also addresses the issue of effective home school relations and quality assessment methods. The programme is either output driven or input driven based on the region of experimentation and goes beyond cognizant learning and memory test. It emphasizes on intellectual, technical, physical, creative and spiritual learning. This holistic phenomenon of learning once ingrained in the primary stage where there is a happy learning process and a non-threatening evaluation, has led to voluntary learning by the participants.

There are other models of children education such as JSS Maha Vidyapeetha of Sutur, Karnataka where thousands of children are being educated and grown with extraordinary care by His Holiness Shri Shivarathri Deshikendra Maha Swamigal. Similarly, Smt. Poornima Pakwasa is in the mission of educating thousands of tribal girls in a village called Saputara in Gujarat.

Apart from attracting children to schools, the education system should be able to inject creativity among the children. Also the aim of the education system should be to build character, human values enhance the learning capacity through technology and build the confidence among children to face the future.

A Tele-Education model for long reach

I would like to narrate a tele-education learning model piloted at Rashtrapati Bhavan for providing satellite connectivity for the PREVIK (President?s Virtual Institute for Knowledge), which we have established recently for establishing knowledge connectivity through the VSATs installed by ISRO. In this platform, the live virtual studio environment is created and it will connect a number of remote locations and provides seamless one to many connectivity through multicasting mode in a collaborative environment as well as two-way connectivity is established. In this platform, I can give a presentation and address the remote locations, where the multimedia delivery is possible and also I can interact through various collaborative tools. I can refer any informational website from Internet to all the remote locations and can also delegate the remote expert to give a lecture to all those who are connected. We have also established the Digital Library and digitized around 2 million pages. I can search for a particular page and push the page to all the participants through this tele-education. It is an integrated solution provided and makes me feel as if I am virtually connected to all and interact with them in a seamless and cost effective manner to multiple locations. This kind of delivery mechanism through tele-education framework certainly help in taking the quality content generated by the School authorities, Voluntary organizations to the larger student community in remote areas. This model may give solution to the shortage of good teachers.

Capacity building model

I had a discussion with Prof. Robert O? Slater, Professor of Education and Human Development of Texas A&M University, USA which emerged into an educational model, necessary for contributing towards the economic growth of a nation. In the education environment we want to give our children the capacity for contributing to economic development and nation building. What kind of nation does India want to build? India transforming into a developed nation by 2020, is the vision of the nation. Can we sow the seeds of capacity building in primary school children?

For realizing the above vision, the capacities required in educational institutions are: The capacity for research or inquiry, the capacity for Creativity and Innovation, particularly the creative transfer of knowledge, the capacity to use high technology, the capacity for Entrepreneurial Leadership and the capacity for Moral Leadership.

Research and enquiry:

The 20th century was for the generation of knowledge. The 21st century will be about the management of all the knowledge and information that we have generated and give value to it. We must give our children, the skills with which they find a way through the sea of knowledge that we have created and continue with life long learning. Today, we have the ability, through technology, to really and truly teach ourselves and to become the life-long learners that any sustained economic and political development requires.

Creativity and innovation:

We can best teach ourselves by teaching others. The management of knowledge in 21st century is beyond the capacity of individuals. The amount of information that we have is overwhelming and has exceeded the capacity of individuals. The management of knowledge therefore must move out of the realm of the individual and into the realm of the society. The children must learn how to manage knowledge collectively. In other words they must not only learn themselves, but also teach others and learn as teams in their own classroom environment. They should be able to create action teams and learn through collective work as well.

Capacity to use of high technology:

Every student in our schools should learn to know how to use the latest technologies for aiding their learning process. Schools should equip themselves with adequate computing equipment, laboratory equipments, Internet facilities and provide an environment for the students to enhance their learning ability. Through tele-education model discussed earlier it can be seen that a virtual classroom environment with the virtual laboratory, virtual immersing effect has been created through the use of latest technologies.

Entrepreneurship:

The aptitude for entrepreneurship should be cultivated in the school environment itself. We must teach our children to take calculated risks for the sake of larger gain. They should also cultivate a disposition to do things right. This capacity will enable them to take up challenging tasks later.

Moral leadership:

Moral leadership involves two aspects. First it requires the ability to have compelling and powerful dreams or visions of human betterment. A state of things in which human beings could be better off in the future than they are now. Moral leadership requires a disposition to do the right thing and influence others also to do right things.

In sum, inquiry, creativity, technology, entrepreneurial and moral leadership are the five capacities required to be built through the education process.

The models discussed above and other experiences on similar lines either individually or in combination can be used by schools following the CBSE Syllabus, wherever they experience shortage of school teachers. Now I would like to discuss some of the areas where CBSE can focus for the overall benefit of our students.

Consistency in School Syllabus

I have received many representations from parents, educators, students and social workers about the indiscriminate and too frequent changes taking place in syllabus of school textbooks, which they consider as an injustice done to the young students. I have a suggestion for overcoming this problem ?A Standing council for School text books? can be constituted with renowned apolitical educationalists as members. This council will ensure the maintenance of the consistency of the syllabus and authorize only special topics to be included based on the future educational need of the child and deletion of obsolete topics. Some of the examples are inclusion of ocean science, waste management, water, and upcoming Nano technology as a part of science curriculum. These changes must also be implemented after having adequate debate among the constituent institutions. There has to be provision to accommodate new things that will help the children in their future life. But at the same time the content and teaching of the syllabus should be such that it does not load the young minds but to make them enjoy learning, and be imaginative and creative.

Job oriented courses /Syllabus

CBSE must also plan to introduce job-oriented courses for state-of-the-art skill requirement at global level to the students at +2 level itself. There has to be plenty of scope for doing actual work and learn skills rather than mere theory. This can equip them with additional specialized skills required to take up jobs in maintenance, consumer electronics service and support, call centers, paramedical services, nursing, craftsmanship, artisan skills, travel and tourism and marketing etc., This will enable some of the students to take up jobs immediately after +2 and also provide a base for other students to pursue specialized courses. Skilling large number of students who may not get an opportunity to pursue higher education is a must. It is our duty to empower those in schools with contemporary economic skills. For all the above it is necessary to retrain the existing teachers or induct on part time basis those individuals or agencies who have the right skills.

Examination Reforms

Over the years CBSE and other examination bodies have gained considerable experience in the conduct of examinations. However, I find there is a demand for more transparent and reliable system of examination, evaluation and reporting. It is also noticed that the examination primarily tests the memory of the students. I remember during my study in MIT, Chennai, they used to conduct open book examination. This used to be one of the tough examinations for the students. I would recommend that CBSE may consider introduction of open book system of examination, which may eliminate the possibility of leakage of question paper and copying which is reported in many parts of the country. This will also promote creativity among the teachers in setting questions and the evaluation of the creative ability of the students.

A secure examination system may also be considered for implementation by the CBSE. The major constituents of these secure examination is to prepare the question paper from the question bank, encrypt the question paper and digitally sign the question paper and electronically push it to the concerned examination centers, so that only an authorized person using the authentic key may download the exam paper just prior to the examination to prevent the possibility of leakage at any time.

Practical Examination

CBSE conducts practical examination in Science subjects such as Physics, Chemistry and Biology. This examination is primarily conducted using an internal examiner from the school and an external member appointed by the CBSE. There is a growing feeling among students that there is very little co-relation between the practical knowledge of a student in the subject and the marks awarded to him by the examiner. There is a need to correct this impression among the students. Also, our teacher and the evaluation system should have the ability to recognize the special talents among our youth.

Renewal of Evaluation system

The Central Board of Secondary Education has a good system of conducting examination, evaluation and timely declaration of results. In 2004, one student represented that he has done extremely well in the exam but to his surprise he was awarded only 13% marks in Physics. He had secured very good marks in rest of the subjects. This matter was taken up with the CBSE and after re-totaling it was found that the actual score was 85% in the same subject. The CBSE has taken timely action to correct the error. After this incident, I have received more than 500 mails regarding the discrepancy in awarding of marks. I would suggest the following system for overcoming such situation. After the initial evaluation of the answer paper a centralized core group can draw random sample from each batch and carry out independent evaluation. If there is no discrepancy between the initial evaluation and the core group evaluation and it is consistent with the performance of the students, it will be presumed that the batch marking is satisfactory. In case of a discrepancy further samples will be drawn for verification. There is also a possibility that due to mishandling of answer sheets, some sheets are missing. To prevent such an occurrence, students must be asked to write the page number with the total number of pages in each page of the answer sheet at the end of the examination. This will enable detection of any missing sheet during transit and take corrective action. Special training must be carried out by CBSE for certifying the examiners in the evaluation process. In short the CBSE must get ISO Certification for the evaluation system.

Early recognition of talents

Friends, the genius in Ramanujan had to be discovered by Prof. Hardy. This has been cryptically remarked at that time by Poondi Namasivaya Mudaliar with anguish "It is the destiny of our nation that an Indian brain requires an acknowledgement from a foreigner. Why our people are hesitant to appreciate such a personality". I would like to narrate another incident, which took place a few years back.

A young man, Loveligen, from a remote area of Kerala, who could not complete PUC, wrote to me saying that he has discovered a new mathematical theory and he would like to talk to me. I saw in the letter that the boy was very sincere. Since he has written to me, I thought our specialist team can study his work and direct him to the right type of researchers. I called this boy to Delhi for a few days. What surprised us was that he had arrived at part of the equations of the Ramanujan's number theory, which this boy was not at all aware of. He had discovered something and added some new points to it and the result is new. To a great extent the achievements in the field of mathematics generally seem to come out of a desire to look into the beautiful aspects of nature, including natural phenomena such as the star studded skies, which have always interested the astronomers from time immemorial. An additional contributory factor seems to be an inherent drive towards recognition of patterns even if it be in the sense of mathematical sequences or series.

It is interesting to note that Loveligen has currently delved into the equally exciting topic of power sequences and series. What I felt was that he needed a good mathematical education or a patronage of a good mathematics teacher. It is like having Prof Hardy for Ramanujan, the mathematics genius to come. I asked this boy, why he didn't meet a mathematics teacher. He said, meeting a mathematics teacher is an expedition. He says, it is below their dignity to meet somebody who is not even a graduate. How do we promote this kind of young and enthusiastic minds? Can our evaluation system assist to spot these buds to blossom?

Need for Adoption of Safety Measures

The recent tragedy involving school children at Kumbakonam must have rung some bells in the Central Board of Secondary Education also. It is part of the responsibility of the CBSE to see that their schools maintain basic minimum norms both in the academic field as well as in the physical facilities which they provide on their campuses. In this regard, I would suggest that we draw lessons from this unfortunate incident of Kumbakonam and try to build in certain safety features in our school buildings without which it should not be possible to accord affiliation to these schools. And there should not be any discretion available with anyone, including the President of India, to waive off these conditions.

Conclusion

CBSE has been constantly upgrading the quality of teaching, empowering younger generation with professional and vocational skills, creating a stress free evaluation environment and practicing the use of modern technology in the evaluation and reporting process. What we need now is the empowerment at all levels in the school. When the child is empowered by the parents, at various phases of growth, the child gets transformed into a responsible citizen. When the teacher is empowered with knowledge and experience, good young human beings with value systems take shape. When individual or a team is empowered with technology, transformation to higher potential for achievement is assured. When the leader of any institution empowers his or her people, leaders are born who can change the nation in multiple areas. When women are empowered, society with stability gets assured. When the political leaders of the nation empower the people through visionary policies, the prosperity of the nation is certain.

In the last 75 years, CBSE has produced number of leaders who have excelled in various walks of life. Let this breed multiply. I greet all the members of CBSE in this Platinum Jubilee Year. I wish all of you success.

May God Bless You.