The grey, and the sunshine of education
Here is the truth as I have seen it. The vast majority of Indian children do not reach their potential. By grade 3, over 75% of children already face a learning gap. In grade 5, more than half our children can’t do basic division, or read a grade 3 text. Less than a third of children who start school will actually graduate from college. For rural, Muslim girls, only 3% make it to college today.
At Teach For India, we call this the Grey of the Education System.
The truth is, across the education system there is brokenness. We aren’t attracting our top talent into education. For those who choose to be a teacher, our teacher training institutes are largely sub-quality. Our school leaders are usually veteran teachers who don’t have the skills or training to effectively lead schools. Once in school, our teachers and leaders lack autonomy and are often burdened with a range of non-teaching tasks. Our curriculum doesn’t embed the 21st century skills needed to prepare our kids for the present, and future. Our teaching methodology is largely rote. Our examination system does not test understanding or measure holistic outcomes. Across the country today kids are often unsafe. And power is in the hands of adults and not shared with children.
I have seen a school of 1000 children where all the teachers in the school sit in the sun, sipping chai, while the kids run around all day. I have seen inspiring quotes written in beautiful cursive on a blackboard only to see mindless copying from the board in class. I have seen kids get whacked across the wrist, hand, back, legs, face with belts, sticks or a hard hand.
I have seen too much Grey; there is a lot to be fixed. At Teach For India we strive for the Sunshine. And there is lots of hope across India.
Thanks to tools like ASER, and policies like the Right to Education and the National Education Policy, there is increased awareness and acceptance that the system needs to change. There is a growing openness to work together – government, NGOs, civic society – to bring about that change. There is a rising sense of empowerment in students that is making them stand up for what they believe is right. There are classrooms and schools that are showing us that a new type of education – one that can make the world better - is possible. There is the potential of what technology can do for education. And perhaps most significantly, there are driven, passionate people who are choosing to be in education.
I have seen teachers with unthinkable dedication and courage – who have set up girl’s football teams, fasted with their children to show them that fasting and studying are both possible, who hand out their phone numbers so that kids can call them at night with homework queries, who spend endless hours just listening to the many challenges that their students’ face. I have seen students, as young as ten, facilitating study centers for younger children, lobbying the government to clear the dumping ground near their home, setting up a healthy food business to stop junk food being sold at their school door. I have seen a group of children study the preamble of the constitution to deeply understand the meaning of the word fraternity, and then champion an approach of love by holding safe circles across cities for people to come together and discuss democracy.
I have seen such potential in children given opportunity. So much that I actually published a book, Grey Sunshine.
Thirty years into this work, I ask, with all the grey, what will best bring the sunshine?
While much has been written about – a focus on early childhood, teacher training, technology in education, a focus on gender - here are my top 5 bets.