Month: January 2019

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Respected Deputy Chairman Sir, thank you for allowing me to speak on this Bill which amends the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009.

Sir, first of all, I have to remind the House that in 1976, ‘education’ by the 42nd amendment was taken out of State List and put in the Concurrent List. Sir, we must think about whether it can be put back in the State List, in the spirit of cooperative federalism.

Standardised testing is part of a bureaucracy that adds layers of surveillance mechanisms and procedures for students to follow. These examinations constrain our youth’s possibilities and freedom. Good students are shown to be smart and successful standardised test-takers, their talents and co-curricular performances are largely ignored. The media, coaching industry and society including peers play a part in perpetuating this pressure, thus creating a self-sustaining cycle.

Under the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, no child can be held back in any class until the completion of elementary school (classes 1-8). The Bill amends this provision to empower the central or state government to allow schools to hold back a child in class 5, class 8, or in both classes.

The Bill states that a regular examination will be held in class 5 and class 8 at the end of every academic year. If a child fails in these examinations, he will be given additional instruction and the opportunity for a re-examination, within six months from the declaration of the result. The child may be held back in class 5, class 8, or in both classes if he fails in the reexamination. The central and state government may also decide to not hold back the child in any class till the completion of elementary education. Further, the central or state government will decide the manner and the conditions subject to which a child may be held back.

We have waited for 4 years for the New Education Policy, with no results. Instead, NITI Aayog’s “Strategy for New India @ 75” released on 19th December 2018 has come out with excellent recommendations. It suggests testing teachers tri-annually on the same test designed for students and increasing expenditure on education to 6% of the GDP.

However, we must not only limit the role of education to test-taking. Examinations go beyond impacting children but also changes the nature of teaching, narrows the curriculum, and limits student learning. Teachers’ tasks increase because they take up work related to testing in addition to their regular teaching duties. As a result, teachers have less time for teaching.

Standardised tests also narrow the entire curriculum in many schools, often leaving out subjects such as music, art, sports, and, especially in elementary grades because they are not included in tests. Most importantly, standardised tests limit student learning because they focus only on cognitive dimensions, ignoring many other qualities that are essential to student success. Another limitation on student learning results from the negative perceptions standardised tests can give to students about themselves and their own abilities.

These examinations have different effects on various populations of students, and they usually lead to significant limits on learning among poor and minority students. For example, the scores of poor and minority students are often lower than their peers from better off socio-economic background, and these results can lead to a failure of recognising their potential.

Children primarily undergo stress due to two factors. The first is the hype that surrounds the board examinations. At present, if you see, from the time students enter Class IX, the pressure is relentless, with continual pressure to perform in time for the boards. The Bill has now preponed this stress by another 5 years. Now, the scores in Class V will be held as a certification of the child’s potential.

The second cause of stress is the students’ inherent belief in their own capabilities. Given the hype and pressure created, it is easy to start doubting one’s own capacity. Coupled with immense amounts of peer comparisons, large amounts of curricular material and long, continuous periods of focused study, stress generation is inevitable. Students continually study and memorize large amounts of information.

Careful consideration needs to be given to the students’ mental state throughout the year. Professional help is difficult to find because India endures an acute shortage of mental-health professionals. There are only 898 psychologists against 20,250 required in the country and less than 900 psychiatric social workers against the 37,000 needed. Mental healthcare is a much-neglected arena in our country. To cater to a population of 1.3 billion, India only has about 0.3 mental health professionals and 10 hospital beds per 100,000 people. Most Western countries spend 4 per cent of the budget on mental health while India spends only 0.4 per cent. Failing in exams or inability to cope with academics is the primary reason for student suicides. This step to test children at such a young age calls for mental health and wellness to be added to school curriculum. Student counselling must be made accessible to every child enrolled in school, before another set of board examinations to add to the existing stress on children.

Finland, for example, routinely tops rankings of global education systems and is famous for having no banding systems — all pupils, regardless of ability, are taught in the same classes. Sir, on the front of education, West Bengal has been taking rapid strides in the last seven years, under the leadership of Mamata Banerjee. Many of the successes, which have been proven in Bengal, can be duplicated at the national level.

Present system of education and examination in India is a major hindrance for child development. Standardised testing, through board exam in Class V and Class VIII, goes on to institutionalise stress on children even before they are old enough to understand, let alone handle the pressure. The system seeks to categorise some students as ‘unsmart’ as opposed to an ‘ideal, smart’ student.

In an age where multiple literacies and talents are valued more and more, standardised testing acts as a form of social control. The objective of standardised testing has become a normal mechanism to test, monitor and ‘improve’ children’s performance. The idea is to help identify those youth who are not maximizing their potential and may not be productive citizens.

Sir, I would like to add a couplet here:

Hadh se bade jo ilm, toh hain jahal doston,
Sab kuchh jo jaante hain, woh kuchh nahin jaante.

Sir, I support this Bill, but with caution. The Government must therefore, not merely limit its role in taking examinations, but contribute to the holistic development and well-being of the child.

Thank you.

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Respected Sir, I rise to speak on National Council for Teacher Education (Amendment) Bill, 2017. I thank you for giving me this opportunity.

It is the responsibility of the National Council for Teacher Education to regulate and ensure that the norms and standards in the teacher education system are maintained. Certain State and Centrally funded institutions failed to obtain recognition and permission from the Council required by sections 14 and 15 of the Act. The Bill seeks to safeguard the future of those currently enrolled as well as those who have already undergone the teacher training courses in these institutions. The Bill attempts to protect their livelihoods through a one-time measure to grant retrospective recognition until academic year 2017-18 by amending sections 14 and 15 of the Act.

I support the Bill’s intention for protecting the careers of the hapless individuals who joined these institutions with the dream of becoming trained teachers. However, these institutions clearly did not meet the National Council for Teacher Education minimum quality standards and were therefore not permitted to train teachers. Therefore, granting retrospective recognition to teachers who have emerged from these institutes after a half-baked training programme could very well jeopardise far more careers of the children emerging from such a system in the future, than the bill seeks to safeguard in the present.

Sir/Madam, if you look at the Bill from the perspective of the Domino theory- if one poorly trained teacher enters the Education System, classrooms full of students would be receiving a substandard education year after year, till the teacher retires. So the entire education system would bear the brunt of this one misstep, causing it to topple like dominoes. While the bill might be safeguarding the careers of teachers from substandard institutions, it is important to bring them up to mark as teachers. Otherwise, this will definitely adversely impact the careers of several students.

Those being granted retrospective recognition must be assessed and made to pass a remedial course or training programme by the National Council for Teacher Education. This would fill any gaps that may have arisen during their training at institutions which were deemed not worthy of being granted permission for reasons what may. In the absence of any corrective action by the council, these teachers will be denied their opportunity to realise their full potential of quality-trained teachers. Likewise, thousands of children would likewise will be denied their right to quality education.

Almost 1 in 4 government schools have a teacher-student classroom Ratio greater than 30 according to DISE data. The need for teachers is very important, but the Government should not overlook the importance of recruiting teachers with quality training. The Dakar Framework recognized the preeminent role of teachers in providing basic education of good quality. In order to achieve the ratio prescribed under the Right to Education Act, at least 10 lakh teachers have to be appointed. 1 in 6 teaching positions in government schools is vacant. Assistant teachers are being filled up for the headmaster’s posts. The overstretched teachers find it difficult to concentrate on academics. This eventually affects the quality of education. Further, teacher absenteeism in government school is estimated at 25%, so here is a situation of teacher shortage coupled with teacher absenteeism.

The West Bengal State Government gives their children the best when it comes to Education. The focus in Bengal is not just restricted to high enrolment and attendance among students, particularly girls – through the UN Award winning Kanyashree Prakalpa Scheme and Sabuj Sathi scheme. Equal focus is given to recruiting quality teachers. Bengal has risen to the challenge of teacher shortage and recruited 50,426 primary school teachers and 27,572 teachers for upper primary and secondary schools in the past 6 years.

Educationists have long been pointing out that shortage of teachers is a big hurdle in ensuring quality education, and the only way to improve the situation is to recruit adequate number of qualified teachers. India is facing difficulties in ensuring the maintenance of the standards of teacher education and preventing the increase in the number of substandard teacher education institutions in the country.
India continues to fare badly in the well-regarded Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) by Pratham. Only 27.7% Class III students who could perform a simple subtraction. Among Class III students, 32% could read simple English words. The proportion of Class VIII students who could read simple English sentences was just 45.2%.
In their book ‘An Uncertain Glory: India and its Contradictions’, Amartya Sen and Jean Dreze, found that only half of the children in classes five to eight could use a calendar. The OECD’s global survey, Programme for International Student Assessment, compares the most-advantaged quintile of students with the least-advantaged students in the bottom quintile. How did India rank? We will never know because India has refused to participate.

In this context, India must first and foremost improve monitoring at various levels. This would call for robust and reliable education statistics. Nevertheless, two concerns remain: timeliness, and continuing gaps in several series of indicators. Government data such as DISE, NSSO as well as data by credible institutions such as ASER capture the quality of learning by the students, but there is no credible data source for collecting the quality of teaching by the teachers.

Secondly, equitable deployment of teachers is as important as training them. Populations newly entering the school system are more likely to come from marginalized groups. Policies should aim at improving performance of low achieving schools and students by allocating more resources to the regions and schools most in need. The National Council for Teacher Education must step up its role by establishing a Teacher Training Commission to begin with. Improved data and transparent management can help in implementing teacher deployment policies.

Thirdly, two gaps relating to the cornerstones of the quality of teachers is, equity and quality. Deploying information and communication technology (ICT) can improve access to education for disadvantaged communities and education delivery. Integrating ICT into education systems to improve learning. However, ICT effectiveness depends on trained teachers who can use it to maximize teaching and learning. Only 9 in 100 primary schools and less than 1 in 4 of all schools have access to both computer and electricity. Teachers must be trained and infrastructure in schools has to follow.

Fourthly, improving the quantity of teachers will not be enough; quality needs improvement too. Quality education is a prerequisite for achieving the fundamental goal of equity. Access to an education of good quality is the right of every child.

Contract teacher recruitment has expanded rapidly. They have little or no training, poorer working conditions, job security and salaries than permanent teachers. While regular teachers have to complete two years of initial teacher education, contract teachers are only required to undertake a short induction programme.

To be more transformational, Government should not overlook the need to ensure quality teaching for all are deployed where required. The existing laws governing the National Council for Teacher Education in India needs to be reformed to address these requirements, towards which this bill has taken a step in the right direction. However, I would recommend that the Bill be sent to Committee for scrutiny before any further consideration.

Thank you Sir.

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Sir, along with 25 colleagues of mine, Members of Parliament both from the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha, I had the good fortune of spending a good four to five days on a parliamentary Standing Committee tour about four months ago.

The people made two requests to us. So I said, the next time I speak in Parliament we will try and keep both your requests. The first request is this: Jammu and Kashmir le ke charcha hota hain, lekin Ladakh aur Leh ka naam koi nahin leta. So please keep us in mind. So I kept my first promise. T

The second promise, I hope will also be kept, was a verbal promise. In the last two days I think we have seen parliamentary history being created. The Defence Minister is sitting down in one House while the Finance Minister speaks on Defence. The Home Minister is sitting down in this House while the Finance Minister speaks on Home.

There is a message here – there is a churn happening, and all political observers in Kashmir and around the country are watching this very clearly. And I was just hoping, since the Finance Minister has handled guest appearance for defence and guest appearance for home, I’ve got one suggestion.

My request is to the Finance Minister in his own department on behalf of the young people of Kashmir, the youth, the entrepreneurs and the tourist operators. The one thing they all told us is that tourism can be revived, but to revive tourism they need a break on GST. So since the Finance Minister is not here, maybe the Law Minister will convey to the Defence Minister who will then convey to the Finance Minister that this should be done.

Let’s come to the Resolution. The two basic issues here are security and environment. Who is responsible for the security and the environment? We know who is responsible. Our straight request to the Home Minister is please tell us because we are stuck with the President’s proclamation. We want an assurance from the Home Minister or the Finance Minister to please tell us that the elections there would be held either now or latest, with the Lok Sabha elections. We need thus assurance to happen from the Home Minister.

Third is the role of the Raj Bhavan. Now, in the history of Jammu and Kashmir, a new name has been written which even the experts on Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh don’t know. And that name is Alexander Bain. Alexander Bain fax machine invent kiya, dedso saal pehle. Fax machine lekar itna natak hua. A Government which talks about Digital India can’t operate a fax machine through the Government.

Regarding Jammu and Kashmir, there are some very solid points, but I want to take just one – Jammu and Kashmir and the rest of the country. What is happening in these Raj Bhavans? Are they becoming branch offices of a Government in power? Because it is not only the Raj Bhavan as an institution, we are concerned with all other institutions. There is not enough time today to discuss all other institutions but at least let me try and discuss one little institution for one-and-a-half minutes, and that is Parliament.

Parliament Bills are scrutinised by Select Committees and Standing Committees. The last two Governments – and Trinamool was not a part of the last one-and-a-half Governments – 65 to 70 per cent of Bills went for parliamentary scrutiny. This Government has set a new record – 19 per cent of Bills get scrutinised. We are being killed as an institution. Four out of every five laws are being passed without any committee scrutiny. Nine out of ten Bills passed on security, home affairs and important issues like that, have not gone through parliamentary scrutiny. I can give you more examples. None of the six Bills introduced in this session have been scrutinised by Parliament. The Railway Budget – please look at it for the last 70 years – Rs 9 lakh crore – passed… guillotined, no discussion on the Railway Budget. We don’t even know where the money has gone.

Institutions are at stake. A Raj Bhavan with a fax machine was only one example of an institution at stake. We are discussing in Parliament. It would have been beautiful if – it is not about a BJP Prime Minister or any Prime Minister, it is our Prime Minister – the PM came and sat here today and listened to our discussion; maybe then he would change his attitude. If you look at the records of Parliament, he has spent 14 hours in Lok Sabha, 10 hours in Rajya Sabha in the last one year; 24 hours he has spent here. Good. Thirty-seven hours spent giving speeches in Gujarat during the elections. I have got no problem about giving speeches, Mamata Banerjee also gives speeches all over but where is the balance?

If we don’t look at institutions like this, what will happen? The last time President’s Rule was introduced was 20 years ago. I don’t want to get into the statistics of pellets because this is not about statistics, these are human stories. In 2018, 586 people have died. When the House breaks for the weekend, please go on to WhatsApp and see those pictures; they are available. Children, mothers, fathers – they are not terrorists, they are civilians. Through you, Sir, I wish to appeal to the Government, the Trinamool Congress and everybody wishes to appeal to the Government, that you have to have the local people on board. If you don’t the local people on board, we will not be able to solve these issues.

Sir, yeh jo sab sanstha hai, sab sanstha, all institutions, everyone, Parliament, Select Committee, Standing Committee, CBI, RBI – ‘is my private account’, it doesn’t work like this. To come back to this discussion, nationalism is not a copyright of one party and we don’t want to listen to lectures on nationalism from one party. Please don’t tell us about nationalism, we are from Bengal, but I have to say this: when nationalism, when you claim to be a nationalist, then don’t mess around. Heal Kashmir because otherwise if you pretend to be nationalist, you pretend to be an ultra-nationalist and to actually think about, you may be anti-national.

I have only been sadly to Kashmir once, for five days, but I have seen a lot of movies. It’s a paradise. I would urge this Government, I would urge everybody here to not to turn it into Hell.

Thank you, Sir.