Age Discrimination in Indian Education
Well, not quite discrimination, but it comes close.
Indians seem obsessed with age.
If you are 26 and female, you are never far from the aunt who asks ‘OMG why aren’t you married yet?’ Add a few years and the males aren’t spared either.
Age is a useful stat for many situations, but it doesn’t always work for people when adhered to strictly in the context of education (or marriage!).
Being a member of many groups related to schooling and education on Facebook, I see a huge number of queries from parents on the age at which their child should start school.
‘My child is 2.10, is she ready for Nursery?’
or
‘My child is 5.8 years, and the school we are applying to is refusing admission for Grade 1. What can we do?’
Questions of this sort flood the forums every admission season.
The Government of Karnataka even tried passing a law (or has it already been passed? yikes!) where a child is required to be at least 5.10 years if admission to Grade 1 is sought. This makes sense as children who are too young tend to struggle as the pressure mounts in the later years. What I don’t agree with is a rigid rule which applies to every student in the country.
Currently, as it stands, students in this country have almost zero choice.
A strict adherence to age makes very little sense since the quality of teaching, curriculum and standards vary so much across schools, not only within India, but also within the same city. What a child is studying in Grade 1 in one school following the CBSE curriculum is usually quite different to what a child might be learning in Grade 1 under the state syllabus or even under an international curriculum. Also, abilities and skills of children of the same age vary too much, so age is no indicator of ability at all.
What makes more sense is if the different boards of education agree on what a child needs to have learned by the time a child finishes school. This of course can be split up into different modules, and it should be left to the children to finish these modules at a pace which suits them best. Some children might be able to grasp the material quickly and finish all required modules by age 15, while some others might need longer and finish at 16 or even 17.
Classes can be divided based on which modules children are studying. So for example, all children doing a certain level can be in the same class, without regard to their age. In an ideal scenario, a Level 8 classroom (for instance) can have all children who are doing the same modules, but they don’t necessarily need to be the same age.
Children don’t care about school leaving age as much as their parents do. To a student, finishing Grade 10 at 17 as opposed to 16 is not going to be much of an issue. But if they are allowed to do so without being made to feel like they are inferior or less capable simply because they could not cope with the demands of the syllabus, and are allowed actually finish school with a sense of self confidence and accomplishment, they would probably enjoy the experience of school a lot more. And find it more meaningful. And be equipped to deal better with the challenges that they are likely to face later on in life.
According to one article, a student commits suicide in India every hour, while this one talks about how ill equipped the Indian Education System is when it comes to handling depression and mental illness among students. While the stats might be exaggerated, the problem is not. So what I am proposing is not a fanciful wish — we actually need to do something much before a student reaches high school. And allowing students the flexibility to take the much dreaded ‘board exams’ when they are ready, as opposed to when the schools and parents deem them ready, will go a long way to ensuring mental well being of thousands of students around the country.
Having gone to University in the UK, a number of my friends started University when they were in their early twenties. By Indian standards, this is very late. But nobody called them out for being ‘late’ or ‘failures’. To them, that was what felt comfortable and there was no stigma associated with it. However, having gone through the Indian system, when I learned how ‘old’ they were, I remember thinking to myself ‘whoa, why so late?’ I now know the answer — in the long run, it really doesn’t matter.
What we really need to focus on is producing children who are confident and happy, as opposed to depressed geniuses who can crank out solutions to equations at top speed. A huge number of Indian teenagers are resorting to various forms of drugs at a very young age — and I think I know one reason why they are not only trying drugs, but becoming habituated to them.
A lot of the beliefs and perceptions that we have as adults have been formed when we were a lot younger. Given that we spend most of our youth in school, the least we can do for the next generation is to give them a good shot at becoming confident, happy and eager learners. The system as it stands does not cater to this at all.
I plan to explore some of these issues in the weeks to come — thanks for reading!
