Making The Republic Stronger
Happy Republic Day, India!
We celebrate India’s 71st Republic Day today, a celebration of our ownership of India, a celebration of the country’s stated desire to be governed by the very people who live in this land.
But honestly, we have struggled to ensure that the public is kept at the centre of the republic at all times. I am sorry to bear bad news today but India is staring at one of the largest learning gaps. With over 250 million children enrolled in school, India has the largest education system in the world.
And to cut the long story short, the system is performing extremely badly. The recent ASER Report says that only 1 in 20 students in Grade 1 (aged 5 years) can read a Grade 1 text, and research shows that this gap only keeps widening over time. With every passing year, these children will only keep falling behind and if not arrested at the earliest this gap might push more than 100 million children outside the education system.
Our highest priority must be to achieve universal foundational literacy and numeracy in primary school and beyond by 2025. [Draft National Educational Policy 2019]
The Draft National Education Policy 2019 also says, “with the quickly changing employment and global ecosystem, it is becoming increasingly important that children not only learn but learn how to learn.” It is of utmost importance to ensure that our children are ready to acquire the skills of learning by the time they are in Grade 3.
In 2014, when Rahul started Prayogshala, an after school learning community, with 21 students (Grade 5), with whom he had worked closely in Grade 3 and 4 — he noticed some incredible learning growth in the students. The students quickly learned how to learn and they amassed skills and knowledge at a rapid pace. But, when we tried doing similar work in other parts of India we failed massively.
What enabled Rahul to constantly support these children in their journey of learning was their mastery of foundational skills that Rahul had ensured when he worked with them in their early grades. This realisation has resulted in Simple Education Foundation’s decision to work with schools which start early and that has already shown great outcomes. Our students in primary school consistently perform 3 times better than their peers in other government schools and our interventions are only getting better with every passing day.
While learning how to learn is an important skill to master, it cannot be done before mastering Foundational Learning Skills of reading with comprehension and basic mathematical operations. Currently, there are several reasons why students across India are consistently struggling to master these skills and the education system is failing to provide them with conditions to thrive.
1. Poor Early Childhood Care and Education
Most children coming to Grade 1 in a government school receive minimum or absolutely no early childhood support as is evident from the 2019 ASER report. Wilima Wadhwa argues that children in private schools have a 122% advantage over their peers in government schools in Grade 1 itself. A major reason for this is the lack of proper early childhood care and education that ensures ‘school readiness’ for students entering Grade 1. While ‘home factors’ is possibly difficult to deal with at this hour, we can still go ahead and ensure that pre-primary learning is strengthened and our children are ready for Grade 1 at age 6 (as per RTE 2009).
In Simple Schools, we have seen how 2 years of strong pre-primary education can ensure that the students are ready to face the rigour of Grade 1 and make massive leaps in learning. A holistic curriculum and pedagogical practices that focus on the head, heart, hand and soul are the basic units of our program and that goes on to create a learning dividend that enables our students to perform better in Grade 1.
2. Lack of focus on the basics of early learning
The key to an extremely strong early education program is its focus on the basics, important things like motor skills, identification, grouping and sequencing skills and a range of other cognitive and physical skills are required to be built in before we start our children on their journey to learning numbers, letters and sounds. A strong focus on getting this right is required — and also doing this in the right way is necessary. The Draft National Education Policy 2019 refers to using play as a tool for building these basic skills and I cannot agree more.
We have seen major benefits of using manipulatives and play as a tool to work with students between 3 to 5 years of age. Using appropriate tools and methods, enable multi-dimensional learning and strengthening of skills in young children. Using play also makes the school / learning space more welcoming for the students and forms the basis of a positive relationship with the learning space, which further goes on to aid rigorous learning, attendance and learning continuity.
3. Limited avenues of involving parents
The ASER 2019 sample shows that almost 22% of mothers of students in Grade 1 did not go to school and almost 75% of these mothers had enrolled their children in government schools. With these numbers staring at our face it becomes extremely important to involve the parents in the learning journey of their children to ensure that they are able to create a learning continuum which aids accelerated learning. Also, the lack of education among these parents also surface the need to support them in their efforts to support their children. All pre-primary and primary schools need to have strong parent engagement programs that equip the parents with the necessary tools to support their children at home, irrespective of their own learning experiences and qualifications.
The community engagement team at Simple Education Foundation constantly engages and supports the parents to create awareness and ensure that they are equipped with the right skills and tools to build a learning continuum between the school and home.
Finally, I think with a massive demographic dividend waiting around the corner, we have little choice to ignore the learning gaps that our children experience inside our schools today. If we do not take the necessary steps to ensure that all students acquire foundational learning skills by Grade 3, we might be staring at the largest pool of unemployed youth the world has ever seen when we celebrate our 80th Republic Day in 2029.
I hope we all take steps to make our country stronger.
I hope we all take steps to make this country work for its people, with the children and youth at the centre of it all.
Happy Republic Day, India! Jai Hind! 🇮🇳
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