Context: There are various challenges associated with school learnings which need to be resolved.
School education and social reality: An overview of challenges
School learning and rising criminalisation: Recent events of lynching and similar acts are deep-rooted prejudices, stereotypes, expressions of self-righteousness, mistrust and hatred for weaker sections.
Cleavages in society reflected in schools: As schools are a microcosm of larger society.
Eg. A Dalit girl’s experience will be different from a Brahmin boy, in the same school.
Distinction among students on the basis of marks: It separate students from each other, high achievers are rewarded, made to wear marks of distinction, sometimes even physically separating them from weaker scoring students.
Schools and policies give little weightage to different forms of capital, like economic, social and cultural resources that influences student’s performance in school.
Schools pretend that all is well in the world outside and shut themselves off from divergent experiences that different children may have.
Regressive syllabi and approach: Syllabi, prescribed textbooks and examinations ensures that the child’s world (knowledge, language, culture, experiences) is not allowed to develop in a holistic way.
Textbooks are responsible for perpetuating symbolic violence against certain social marginal groups.
Eg. Women and other social groups on gender spectrum, people with disabilities, hardly find any presence in textbooks.
Loose, irresponsible statements are made in textbooks, which are then reinforced by teachers. Eg. Men going for work and women staying at home.
Textbook’s tendency to sanitise: With no mention of any social evil/conflictsto keep them away from ill-effects.
Eg. A child wearing a skull cap being teased outside the class and accused of being a terrorist on entering the classroom reads a textbook, which says, “Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Isai apas mein bhai bhai”.
Way Forward:
Holistic approach to education: Taking into account right values addressing the social inequalities in society.
Curriculum centricity should go: Implement National Education Policy in letter and spirit.
Bring in subaltern literature and voices, and accorded legitimacy to multiple world views.