An emerging mystery in education reform

Over the last two decades, the number of professionals / resource persons /

researchers / academics has dramatically grown in two areas related to

educational improvement / reform — planning and evaluation — but not so much

in the part that comes in between: IMPLEMENTATION! We have more and more

data on learning outcomes, provisioning or the lack of it, \’non-performance\’ of

personnel, expenditure incurred and the like, but comparatively very little on, say,

emotional incentives that help teachers change, or practices that enable diversity

to become a resource rather than constraint, or ways in which debilitating

hierarchies and lack of equity can be addressed in large scale, or how systems

learn to be more responsive…

In particular, the ability to evaluate children\’s learning as well as programme

\’outcomes\’ has seen the greatest degree of rigour and academic/professional

depth. Suddenly, there is a large number of agencies undertaking research, assessment and evaluation, and \’data\’ related activities such as monitoring / tracking. And we have people who have studied in places such as Harvard / Cambridge etc. evaluating the work of those who went to somewhat less distinguished schools/universities, studied courses that didn\’t really prepare them to design or execute brilliant programmes…. And who, of course, are not really able to get teachers to be more committed or display innovation or even basic professional capabilities. Interestingly though, the various studies / data bases + analyses by the highly qualified minds come up with results that their less qualified counterparts can quite accurately predict beforehand!

So why are the highly qualified academics/professionals so involved with

evaluation and planning rather than actually getting things done? I believe

because it is EASIER – easier to point out what is going wrong than actually

make it better, easier to give \’recommendations\’ than nitty-gritty details that might

lead to improvement (and which you can learn only if you really dirty your hands

and undergo the deep frustration that teaches you what works or doesn\’t).

Perhaps all this is doing a disservice – certainly more and more people in the

system are coming to believe that whatever they do is not going to work, and will

probably not stand up to the \’scrutiny\’ of these \’intelligent and knowledgeable\’

people. There is also a tendency to focus on what will \’please the researchers\’ –

hence some states devalue all-round education to emphasize only reading and

writing and numeracy; or are forever \’piloting\’ aspects that should be well-known

after so many decades and therefore diverting energy from larger systemic

reform that is required post-RTE. Looks like the law of unintended consequences

is beginning to operate…

CEOs sacked for conduct don’t deserve severance pay

This blogger has been fascinated with lululemon for some time. The Vancouver based company has been peddling fashion wear for yoga and been successful at it. Firstly this blogger is amazed that you have fashion wear for yoga. Secondly, can a company really be named lululemon ? And spelt without a capital L ? There was also the business of yoga pants that, er, revealed too much, a few years ago. With that sort of pedigree, it is a “must follow” company !

(Wunder Under Hi-Rise 7/8 Tight Full-On Luxtreme 25″ for $98.00 USD – Note the price !)

They are in the news again. They fired their CEO yesterday. The gobbledygook announcement they put out said “lululemon expects all employees to exemplify the highest levels of integrity and respect for one another, and Mr. Potdevin fell short of these standards of conduct.” In plain English, the Board fired him. He did something wrong, relating to employees, and they fired him. Plain and simple. Nothing earth shattering about that – CEOs are fired for a variety of reasons and this happens all the time. But clearly he was fired, not for poor performance, but for something he should not have done with employee(s), but did. We should not speculate further.

So far nothing spectacular. But what got my goat was also the statement in the announcement that “Potdevin will receive a cash payment of $5 million, including $3.35 million upfront and an additional $1.65m over the next 18 months, according to a separation agreement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.” This is outrageous. He’s guilty of misconduct and you pay him $5 million ? I’m gobsmacked. Yes, there must have been a separation payment in his employment contract. That’s standard in almost all CEO contracts. Why CEOs – any employee’s contract. You have to be paid a severance pay (however measly it may be) if you are fired.

But this guy is being fired for wrong conduct. Would any low level employee guilty of the same conduct as Mr Potdevin ever be paid a severance pay ? No chance ? Then why should he be paid simply because he was the CEO. If there was an iron clad clause in his contract that said he would be paid no matter what the reasons for firing are, then the guys who drafted such a contract must be fired and made to pay a fine equal to this severance pay.

This sort of action is why companies are hated by the general public. Any corporate action must not only be fair, but be seen to be fair. The Board of lululemon deserves to be fried , roasted and hauled over coals. It is a listed company. What are the shareholders doing ?

CEOs are exactly the same as any other employee of a company. I have no problem with them being paid handsomely for the work they do. But they should not be paid for conduct that necessitates a firing.

Using Performance Standards to Improve Teacher Effectiveness

Here are some of the key principles that emerged from the ADEPTS experience over the last few years. ADEPTS (or Advancement of Educational Performance through Teacher Support) is an approach or a way of working, based on the use of performance standards. [More details and the standards themselves can be shared with those interested! In the meantime, here are some of the insights that emerged – feedback and your views are welcome.]

The most important way to generate teacher motivation is to enable them to experience success in the classroom. Hence a set of minimum enabling conditions being in place make a huge difference.
Teachers change when they experience the standards, rather than simply being told about them – towards this, the in-service courses themselves need to incorporate the standards expected of teachers. (A few of the states have begun this process of improving their own inputs to teachers.)
There is a sequence in which teachers learn (and indeed institutions and systems learn). It is also better to avoid overcrowding expectations. It would therefore be best to plan improvement in terms of stages of teacher development, broken down into three-month phases, each of which has a very limited number of indicators to be attained (4-8). As teachers attain one set of indicators, this motivates them as well as prepares them for the next, higher order, set. The support institutions, too, learn along with the teachers and grow phase-wise in turn.
Standards and indicators can tend to be vague! It is important to convert them into concrete steps that can actually be implemented by teachers. Thus, if an indicator agreed upon is ‘children ask questions freely, without fear’ there is a need to make clear exactly what the teacher needs to do for this to happen. Hence, as part of the roll out, all teams need to detail the concrete steps involved in converting the expectations into actionable steps.
Implementer choice and partnering with teachers is more likely to yield results than passing on a set of instructions. In sub-district meetings, teachers should get to choose the indicators they want to attain (from a given list of potential indicators for that stage, though) and identify / develop the steps needed to attain these. Their performance will be assessed against the indicators chosen by them. If possible, peer assessment will be introduced.
‘Target setting’ in terms of the degree of improvement in performance can now be practiced. Teachers and their resource persons can use the standards document to fix the degree of change they seek to bring about over, say, a year or six months. They can then assess their progress against this. As this was not possible earlier, improvement efforts tended to lose their way very soon.
Taking a ‘low-interference’ approach helps – that is, there is no pressure on the system to change curriculum or textbooks or introduce new model of teaching. It is more a case of ‘doing the same as before, but a little differently’; this reduces systemic stress and enables rapid implementation.

Have You Been Un-Hindu Today?

Once in a while I recall that I am born a Hindu. This is usually around times when a whole lot of people are suddenly finding the need to defend Hinduism.

1. This is a little ironic. Why do you need to protect that which cannot be destroyed? Can the words or images of another person kill or harm your religion? To those who believe in God/s: even if all the people who believe in God should cease to exist will God/s cease to exist? Similarly, does Hinduism need the acceptance and support of all those being fought against in order to exist and flourish? It seems very reductionist and belittles Hinduism for anyone to say that the religion needs protection.

2. This business of religious sentiments being hurt is even more ridiculous. Why are Hindu religious sentiments hurt only by words and images but not by un-Hindu actions such as rape, murder and the racism being practiced against people from the NE in Delhi, or the displacement of Muslims in Muzaffarnagar or a thousand such atrocious acts? We are a religion that believes in the whole universe being a family, isn’t it? Why are we not religiously wounded by such major offences that hurt millions of the universal family but hugely traumatized by minor pinpricks such as a book that will be read by a few thousand people?

3. Being the transcendent religion that believes animals and trees and various forms, animate and inanimate, have the element of the Divine running through them and are therefore nothing but mere manifestations of the Unified One, how can we even distinguish between ‘ourselves’ and ‘others’? Surely the distinction is impossible and the very idea of ‘not tolerating’ someone or some view would be inadmissible – for even the so-called offender is nothing but another manifestation of the same ONE divine. So the idea of ‘getting upset’ so militantly at someone’s view is, in my view, very un-Hindu.

4. In an ecological worldview that goes well beyond the physical world, the notion is that every component have a just and fair place, the justness and fairness of which is determined by the degree to which it links with others and desists from eating into others’ space and resources. Which is the idea behind being ‘content’ – to occupy that which fulfills your need without competing with another’s, thus maintaining the ecosystem. Wanting more than this justifiable space and resource takes you into the realm of that which does not (because it should not) exist – maya. And we are taught not to want more than our remit for this reason. This is a key principle by which the universe maintains its balance, and disturbances take place when this balance is upset. Every time we seek to dominate or attribute to ourselves the right to determine others’ activities in their spheres (such as what they may think or write), we are guilty of going beyond that which is justly ours – and again, being very un-Hindu!

5. And finally, like all great religions, Hinduism too believes that real victory is one that is over oneself. No matter how much you ‘defeat’ your enemies, if you are unable to overcome yourself, that is, your own limitations and the un-divine aspects of yourself, you cannot be considered a victor. So if anyone is claiming victory at having ‘vanquished’ something offensive, do desist, for you have not won.

Address by the Hon’ble President of India Shri Ram Nath Kovind on the Occasion of the Inauguration of the Constitution Day

I feel honoured to be here today to inaugurate the Constitution Day celebrations. Today I feel doubly blessed as before coming to the Supreme Court, I addressed a joint session of parliament on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of adopting the Constitution. I have the rare privilege of being associated with both the institutions, Parliament and the Supreme Court, which are temples of our Republic.

On this occasion I also feel humbled when I recall our Founding Fathers. Guided solely by the light of liberty and justice, they sat down to write this document of our destiny amid historic events and challenges. They created institutions and designed the right balance among them to ensure that their core objectives are not compromised. The co-existence of our fully independent judiciary with a vibrant parliamentary democracy is a testimony to their sagacity and foresight.

These sages put in words the noble vision of our Republic in the Constitution after marathon deliberations over three years. The nation will always remain grateful to all the members and office-bearers of the Constituent Assembly, particularly its President, Dr Rajendra Prasad, and the Chairman of the Drafting Committee, Dr Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar, who is rightly known as the architect of the Constitution. Their zeal and devotion to meet the task of such magnitude was matched by contributions from the titans like Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. They headed various committees and sub-committees, along with ‘Acharya’ Kripalani, H. C. Mookerjee, Gopinath Bordoloi and Amritlal Thakkar.

I would like to also pay homage especially to the 15 women members of the Constituent Assembly. They included Sarojini Naidu, Rajkumari Amrit Kaur, Hansaben Jivraj Mehta, Sucheta Kripalani and G. Durgabai, who spoke of equal rights for one and all, when women in many parts of the world were denied basic rights.

In his speech before the Constitution was adopted, Dr Rajendra Prasad rightly noted that the successful working of democratic institutions requires willingness to respect the views of others, and capacity for compromise and accommodation. He said, [quote] “Many things which cannot be written in a Constitution are done by conventions. Let me hope that we shall show those capacities and develop those conventions.” [Unquote] Seventy years later, we have reasons to believe that the nation has lived up to his hopes to a fair degree.

As Rajen Babu, Babasaheb and many others pointed out that day, a Constitution is after all a mere document, recording in words the inspired ideas. It can come alive and enter our world only when it is translated into life of the nation and its ideals put into practice. It is the scripture of our nation that has to be read in a sensitive and delicate manner. The Constitution gave this onerous task to the judiciary. Keeping the role of the Supreme Court as final interpreter of the constitution and the laws enacted under it, the judiciary assumes the role of its guardian. The authors of our Constitution took extra care in providing it the necessary powers and freedoms to function without any undue influence. Over these eventful seven decades, the judiciary has remained alive to the high responsibility placed on it. I am aware of the fact that it has initiated several innovative measures to reach out to people.

But for a large section of people, justice is still beyond reach. While we celebrate the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, let me refer to his views on the issue. Neither was the Father of the Nation a member of the Constituent Assembly, nor do we know his views on our founding document. What we know for sure is that he had played a crucial role in the making of the Constituent Assembly and blessed this historic endeavour. In a sense, the Constitution is the product of the values inspired by the Freedom Struggle. It, thus, very much reflects the democratic virtues Gandhiji lived by. Still, the closest we have as his views on a possible Constitution is a book called ‘Gandhian Constitution for Free India’. Shriman Narayan Agarwal wrote it in 1946, based on his understanding of Gandhian principles. The book had the benefit of being read and approved by Gandhiji himself, even though the words are not his.

The book is critical of the British judicial system in India. In panchayats of the old times, it says, [Quote] “Justice was cheap and fair. Modern courts, on the contrary, are very expensive; even very ordinary cases are disposed of only after months, if not years.” [Unquote] What I wish to point out here is that Gandhiji would have been unhappy at the high cost of justice.

Indeed, the Constitution itself calls for making justice accessible to all. Consider the Preamble, which is the ‘seed text’ of the whole document. Why did ‘We, the People of India’, solemnly resolve to constitute India into a republic”? Obviously this pledge seeks, “To secure to all its citizens: JUSTICE—Social, Economical and Political”. Like any religious scripture, this grand statement or “Mahavakya” of the constitution aims to secure liberty, equality and fraternity along with justice.

Ladies and gentlemen,

On today’s occasion, let us deliberate how we can make justice accessible to all. One way out of the high cost is the provision of free legal aid. Pro-bono service is a subject close to my heart. As many of you know, during my days as a Supreme Court advocate, I provided pro-bono aid to weaker sections of society in general, and women and the poor in particular. I remain grateful to veteran lawyer Ashoke Sen who showed me the way. In the multiple roles he played in the field over a long career, his sole objective was the pursuit of justice, for one and all. I hope more and more law professionals will take inspiration from the example of Shri Sen and distribute freely the fruits of their knowledge among the needy. I would like to stress here that the task of making justice more accessible to all has to be a collective effort of all the stakeholders in the bench and the bar.

The question of access is not limited to the cost factor alone. Language too has been a barrier for many, for a long time. On this count, however, I am happy that the Supreme Court has followed up my suggestion and started making its judgments available in nine regional languages. In the days to come, the list can include more languages, so that common people can read the verdicts of the highest court.

Another hurdle in the way of justice is the delay and the resulting backlog. Clearing this bottleneck requires detailed deliberations and systemic efforts. I also understand it is an ongoing process. Information and communication technology can bring about amazing results in this domain, and I am happy to learn that beginnings have been made to take help of technological innovations. In this context, I am glad to learn that three apps for mobile phones are being launched today. This litigant-friendly move will bring the portals of the apex court closer to the people.

Ladies and gentlemen,

In listing the obstacles before the delivery of justice, I have in mind the words of Dr Ambedkar. In his concluding speech before the Constituent Assembly, he exhorted us not to be tardy in the recognition of the evils that lie across our path and not to be weak in our initiative to remove them. He said, [QUOTE] “That is the only way to serve the country. I know of no better.” [UNQUOTE]

To answer Babasaheb’s call, we should also strive to spread the awareness about the making of the Constitution, its provisions and its fundamental principle of equality. We need to especially narrate to the young generation the grand vision of our founding fathers. After all, we stand as a mere link between two generations in the continuing saga of this nation. Interpretation of the Constitution is a work in progress, and it will be up to the youth of the nation to carry forward the task of realizing its ideals.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Let me share something with you on a personal note. As I mentioned before, I come here after having addressed the Parliament. Standing before you, I recall that in 1993-94, I had made a journey from here to there; from being an advocate here to being a member of the Upper House. Such journeys have enriched my perspectives on the functioning of the republic. The framers of our Constitution rightly underlined the doctrine of separation of powers among the organs of the state. This, however, was not to be a hurdle in serving the people. Indeed, it was meant to serve the people better. Observing the life of the nation from more than one station in my journey, I now better appreciate the vision of our Founding Fathers.

I thank you for inviting me to share my views. I congratulate the nation on the occasion of the Constitution Day, and extend my best wishes to all of you for the celebrations.

Thank you,

Jai Hind!

*****

What is (more) \’Educationally Responsible\’?

What is more educationally responsible from among the alternatives below. Anytime you feel it\’s all very clear, don\’t ignore the possibility that there may a trap somewhere…

Encouraging someone to ask questions or give answers to questions no one is asking?
Helping learners discover worlds of fascinating and worthwhile knowledge around them versus providing them information from books?
Setting challenging tasks versus \’telling\’ children, giving explanatory lectures ?
Encouraging reflection or ensuring memorization of the right answers?
Preventing errors or letting children discover for themselves when they\’ve made a mistake?
Giving feedback versus giving marks (and remarks)?
Ensuring all children get the same opportunity versus ensuring different children get different opportunities?
Doing everything oneself (if you\’re a teacher) versus passing on some of your tasks to children (e.g. marking attendance, ensuring participation of peers)
Maintaining all provided materials in good shape or using them at the risk of their getting spoilt, torn, etc.?
Asking community to help with their knowledge heritage versus asking community to contribute to improvement in mid day meal?
Using a textbook as a resource versus using a textbook as a definitive material (i.e. assuming it is the curriculum)
Reading this blog or reading a useful book on education?!