Listening Workshops – Or the Simplest Step to Educational Reform

Is \’bottom up\’ change really possible?
If you are an educational functionary, by now you must be fed up of hearing how planning and change have to be \’bottom up\’. By which is usually meant that those who are \’under\’ you must somehow begin to contribute, own and implement a range of actions. And you inwardly wonder if this is ever going to happen!

It was during a discussion on precisely such views that the idea of a listening workshop emerged. Colleagues in the Institute of Educational Development (IED) in BRAC University, Bangladesh felt that a \’listening workshop\’ might help them understand teachers and grassroots functionaries better.

Listening workshop – a straightforward structure
It was agreed that before forming any views, it is critical to simply listen to teachers and head teachers. Hence a straightforward meeting / interaction / workshop was designed around the following three questions that would be asked of teachers and head teachers:

What do you really do? Exactly what does your work involve?
What do you like doing?
What do you find difficult or dislike doing?

It was also agreed that IED colleagues initiating the discussion would only listen, and not prompt or provide leading questions or offer any comment from their side. In other words, they really had to listen rather than talk!

So why is all this worth writing about? Because around ten such listen workshops were actually conducted, and most turned out to have a very interesting pattern, followed by an unexpected twist.

What teachers felt
The listening workshops, it transpired, tended to proceed in the following stages.

Teachers found it really difficult to believe that anyone could come down from the capital only to listen to them! There had to be a \’hidden conspiracy\’ or an \’agenda\’ they were not aware of… It would take anywhere from 40-60 minutes to convince the participants that the intention really was to listen to them. (What do you think this tells us about the functionaries that teachers usually deal with?)
Once teachers believed the above, their initial reaction was that of giving vent to all their frustration and anger at \’you people who sit up there and form all kinds of views about us without ever visiting the field and observing the realities for yourself.\’
Finally, teachers would pour their hearts out on the three questions given above.

The teachers\’ replies have of course begun to inform the work of the institute in many ways. However, it was the completely unanticipated outcome below that left everyone (cautiously) elated.

The unexpected \’reform\’
In the case of a large number of teachers who participated, a few days after the listening workshop it was found that they were implementing many new pedagogical actions in their classrooms! In the entire discussion, at no point had they been asked to make any improvement in their classrooms. So it was not as if teachers did not know improved methods – a large number of in-service interactions had ensured that they had had exposure. It\’s just that they were not using them. But for some reason the listening workshops triggered a change process in the classrooms!

What do you think this tells us about teachers, about their motivations, and about the kind of relationships they experience? If you can bear the initial first hour, isn\’t holding a listening workshop the simplest way to initiate educational reform at the local level?

The Poor Make an Educational Choice

Though it had been around for a long time, in 2003-04, a disturbing trend began to be dramatically visible in the government school system: a large number of districts began to report a decrease in the number of children enrolled. However, this decrease was not due to any slowing down in the growth rate of child population. Nor was it because accurate data was now available in place of the earlier inflated numbers. And since the number of children reported to be out of school was not increasing either, what accounted for the children missing from government schools? Yes, you guessed it – they were shifting to the ever-spreading network of the low-fee private schools.

The number of districts reporting such decreased enrolment stood at 180 or nearly one-third the number of districts in the country. Nor was this confined to the so-called ‘backward’ states – for Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu also reported the phenomenon. In the year 2005-06, six new states reported districts with decreasing enrolment in government schools. And the situation hasn\’t really improved since.

The private schools that children migrate to come under the ‘unrecognized’ category, hence few government records are available on their numbers or growth. However, it is apparent that the increase in their numbers is astonishing. A World Bank study estimated that 28% of the rural population in the area studied had access to private schools in their own villages, and nearly half the private schools were established after 2000. Studies in Punjab showed that around 27% children studied in such schools and a similar picture obtained in Andhra Pradesh and Orissa.

This large-scale exodus has been occurring at a time when the government is spending an unprecedented amount of money and effort on education. Since 2000, tens of thousands of new schools have been opened in underserved areas and the infrastructure of existing schools boosted. Around 8.5 lakh teachers have been appointed and around 87% teachers in place provided 20 days of in-service training every year over the last few years.

Despite such efforts, anybody with any means whatever is choosing to walk across to a (usually) nearby school and pay for what they consider good education. This is in a context where education is available free in government schools, along with other incentives such as free textbooks and mid-day meals.

Like mobile phones, private education is no more the preserve of the elite. Surveys have found that 20% students in such schools are first-generation school-goers, with another 14% having parents with four (or less) years of education. Visits to such schools in the poorer regions of a state like UP put all doubts to rest. Without fail, it is the poor who are sending their children to schools that charge fees in the range of Rs. 30-100 a month. Schools manage this by paying teachers Rs. 1000-1200 per month – well below the minimum wage for unskilled labour. It is usually the educated unemployed who take this up as a means to gain experience while being on the lookout for other jobs. Therefore, teacher turnover is high, but there is a continuous stream of cheap labour available. The result is a commercially viable venture that provides subsistence level education.

In the meantime, who remains in the government system? For those hovering around the poverty line or below, there is no other recourse. Over 80% of SC and ST children in school are in government schools, which also have a higher proportion of girls and children with disabilities. In a telling comment, it is common for families with meagre resources to educate their sons in private schools and daughters in government schools. Indeed children are often enrolled in the government schools (for entitlements such as mid-day meals or uniforms) but actually attend the nearby private schools (for education)!

Unfortunately, the exodus of the more powerful and influential families has led to a greatly reduced sense of accountability in government schools. Those who are ‘left behind’ are usually the more disadvantaged groups, already disempowered due to economic and social reasons. Teachers, school heads and education officials tend to feel that it is almost ‘pointless’ to serve ‘these people’. In fact, a common refrain across the country is to complain of the ‘poor stuff we get to teach’ (and by \’poor stuff\’ they mean children!). There is an increasing tendency to blame the poor for not being able to support their wards at home or provide educational resource and the like. What is forgotten in all this is that education is not a favour being done to the poor – it is their right!

This is perhaps one of the reasons why the dramatic increase in inputs into the education system has not led to outcomes in terms of children’s learning levels, which continue to remain abysmal. Surveys by the NCERT and the NGO sector have repeatedly brought out how only half the children seem to learn half of what they should! During field visits to government schools, it is very common to come across children sitting unattended in class, with the teacher either absent or simply not teaching. Often, of course, the teacher has more than one class to handle and is therefore unable to teach. However, it is the sheer lack of concern for children that strikes any observer the most.

Many take the view that the expanding number of private schools is contributing to universalisation of elementary education in the country. While that is certainly true to an extent, a greater impact seems to be that in leading to reduced accountability, private schools are also contributing to a reduction in the government’s ability to universalise education in its own schools.

Are You An \’Education Survivor\’?

If you\’re reading this you obviously went through the education system. And maybe you are among those who are grateful that your school days were lovely. And that what you learnt is being put to use every day.

Or maybe not.

Conduct a group discussion with people (friends, colleagues, family members), around their school days. You will find a mix of smiles, frowns and giggles — and the frowns will usually be about their experiences inside the classroom. Almost everyone has a story of how they were wrongly punished or discriminated against or didn\’t receive their just dues for something or the other. Around half the people will recall the oppression they felt at different times — examinations, punishment being handed out, the subject/s they could make neither head nor tail of, the quiet acceptance by their families that they would be mediocre and their own realization that they would not be \’good enough\’ in a number of things.

Cut to the present, and many of them (now quite successful in life) will also be saying : \”Why did we learn all those things? And even what I studied in college, what am I doing with it now?\”

These are the symptoms of the \’education survivor\’. Are you one of them? Are there really as many of them around as my dire prediction indicates? Is it only our tendency to wallow in self-pity? Or just the usual, superficial user-critique of education? Finally, is school education really something like a dreadful disease (or at least a dreadful experience) which leaves behind \’survivors\’?

Are You An \’Education Survivor\’?

Or maybe not.

Cut to the present, and many of them (now quite successful in life) will also be saying : \”Why did we learn all those things? And even what I studied in college, what am I doing with it now?\”

Are You An \’Education Survivor\’?

Or maybe not.

Cut to the present, and many of them (now quite successful in life) will also be saying : \”Why did we learn all those things? And even what I studied in college, what am I doing with it now?\”

Are You An \’Education Survivor\’?

Or maybe not.

Cut to the present, and many of them (now quite successful in life) will also be saying : \”Why did we learn all those things? And even what I studied in college, what am I doing with it now?\”

Are You An \’Education Survivor\’?

Or maybe not.

Cut to the present, and many of them (now quite successful in life) will also be saying : \”Why did we learn all those things? And even what I studied in college, what am I doing with it now?\”

Are You An \’Education Survivor\’?

Or maybe not.

Cut to the present, and many of them (now quite successful in life) will also be saying : \”Why did we learn all those things? And even what I studied in college, what am I doing with it now?\”

What does \’taking pride in being an Indian\’ mean?

Anyone working on curriculum or materials or education in general, ends up wanting children to take pride in being an Indian. But what does \’taking pride in being an Indian\’ mean? Though the idea of \’taking pride\’ can be questioned, here are some things a person \’proud of being an Indian\’ would do / not do (not in any particular order):

celebrate the uniqueness and successes of those who are \’different\’ from us – whether belonging to different religion, ethnicity, language, region, profession…
not spit out in the open anywhere (surprised? well, this is a leading cause of diseases like TB still being active and killing people)
stop complaining about what is wrong (hoping someone else will do something about it) and start taking small steps to make things better, and also urging others to do the same (there\’s power in numbers!)
not restrict their sense of identity to a state or a region or a sub-set of India…
taking the responsibility of being at one\’s best (whether in health, or talent or work or socializing) so that one can ADD to what is already good in India
taking responsibility of keeping one\’s immediate surroundings at the best we can (in terms of things being well-organized and clean/hygienic as well as in an \’ecological\’ sense)
not simply keep harping on the \’golden days\’ of India\’s past but be aware of what we are at present… and hence
not be afraid to face what is really wrong, accept it and work to changing it (e.g. recognize the \’ugly Indian\’ who jumps lines, is rude and selfish, flouts rules and grins when he gets away with it. Or, of course, the bigger issues of poverty, security, discrimination…)