universalisation of primary education, with almost 100 per cent Gross Enrolment Rate (2014-15), quality of education in the last decade has gone down. In 2008, 50.6 percent of grade 3 Indian children were able to read a grade 1 text, but by 2016, this percentage had dropped to 42.5 percent. This backward trend is concerning given that India is committed to the Sustainable Development Goal of providing opportunities for lifelong learning and equitable quality education for all by 2030.
The Padhe Bharat Badhe Bharat program, which was started in 2014 and was run by SSA, aims to help children in grades 1 and 2 become better readers and writers. The recently released draft New Education Policy 2019 also talks of foundational literacy and age appropriate pedagogical practices. It not only talks of revamping the current educational structure, but also promotes massive teacher education and professional development reforms. Remedial education is also discussed in the draft NEP, primarily for students who have fallen behind and face daily curriculum challenges in class. One question that is largely ignored in this discussion is whether or not we are prepared for change, despite the possibility of a new era of reforms. The term “literacy” now encompasses more than just the acquisition of fundamental reading and writing skills. Literacy today talks of the ability to access information from multiple sources, deal with multiple perspectives and layered meaning in a text and form an informed opinion. The objective today is to ensure the development of independent learning skills in children and this can only be achieved on a strong foundation of early grade literacy.
Sadly, stakeholders at all levels appear to be unprepared or ill-equipped on multiple fronts today. Firstly, there is a general lack of understanding about ”science of reading”, among teachers, both public and private. This does not in any way assign blame to the teachers. In contrast, the intention is to offer a sympathetic perspective. The majority of pre-service teacher education courses place little emphasis on reading pedagogy and use out-of-date content. The result is often an unprepared teacher having to deal with children speaking multiple home languages and coming with minimum or no quality preschool experience. Add to it the fact that they are pressured to teach multi-level, multi-grade classrooms with ill-designed curriculum, poorly designed textbooks and still show results. The in-service teacher training does little to help alleviate the problem.
Secondly, the state government also provides a cadre of academic officials known as Block Resource Persons (BRPs) or Cluster Academic Coordinators (CACs) to monitor and support the teachers in delivery of effective classroom instruction. However, they appear to be incapable of fulfilling their defined role due to inadequate academic abilities and conceptual knowledge. In addition, in the majority of states, they are generally perceived to be involved in administrative tasks that do not present them with any challenge and stifle their desire to concentrate on providing high-quality education. Even at the highest levels of government, senior officials “demand” results rather than working to improve systemic inefficiencies and capabilities due to a lack of understanding of early literacy. Thirdly, humble parents who are proud of being the first to send their children to school tend to be content with their children simply “attending school” and do not “demand” quality. These students from the first generation arrive at school completely unprepared, and they get lost in the textbooks and rote learning of the script. Last but not least, the majority of public schools lack adequate infrastructure and have non-functional libraries overflowing with low-quality, inappropriate early grade reading materials. Not helping matters either is the absence of a reading culture in both our communities and our schools. In this day and age, quality primary education must be guaranteed or else our demographic advantage may very soon become a “demographic burden.” A comprehensive literacy framework based on scientific pedagogical principles that provides scalable, sustainable inputs with built-in flexibility for state-specific contexts must involve language experts. Based on the framework, early grade curriculum needs to be reworked on and textbooks revised. Courses for teacher preparation and in-service training must be made more relevant and closely linked to the real world. Government-approved MOOC courses in teachers’ native tongue focusing on pedagogy should be created. It is necessary to modify the content and structure of in-service teacher training. These should be followed by ongoing, long-term mentoring and support on the ground, which cannot be accomplished without a group of qualified academic coordinators. As a result, specialized training in pedagogy and mentoring skills for BRPs and CACs is still a must. Through school libraries or classroom libraries, primary grades-appropriate reading material must be provided to schools.
