Terrorism – 0 Education – ∞

As 2014 draws to a close, it will be marked by one of the most tragic and spine-chilling incidents that history has witnessed so far. The massacre of 132 school children in Peshawar, Pakistan. The world gasped in horror as terrorists wreaked a savage blood bath in the institution. Innocent lives, whose only fault was of belonging to a particular background and for attending school, eager to learn. While it wasn’t the first time that children were victims of terrorist attacks, what made it more gruesome was the planned and systematic way the terrorists went about the murders. How a human could do such an act, we wonder.

As the government in Pakistan vowed to clean its backyard of these weeds they grew for regulating their external power struggle with India, and it yet remains to be seen how much they will walk the talk, will just retaliating and killing more terrorists suffice? Clearly, killing more people can hardly contain violence which is more often than not, an outcome of a society reeling under marginalisation, division and exclusion. The have and the have-nots; the masses who continue to wait along the side-lines, as the majority progress towards ‘development’. And what serves as a greater leveller than education to remove such socio-economic disparities while also broadening the outlook of people?

HG Wells in Outline of History mentioned – “human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe." Closer home, around 80 million adivasis, who live mostly in poorer states like Chhatisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, have barely been participants in the ‘shining India’ era; they earn as low as Rs. 20,000 annually. Is it any coincidence that Naxalite activity has thrived on such alienated and marginalised tribal belts in eastern and central India, stripped of basic amenities that should constitute their rights rather than be considered a privilege, defining development?

Unfortunately, we have yet to understand the importance of education in removing such disparities. Like its Indian counterpart which spends a miniscule 3.5 % of GDP on education, even Pakistan spends a dismal 2.3% GDP on education (compared with 8-10% in OECD countries). In fact, in June 2014 the Pakistan media reported that the education budget had been reduced by 11% over last year. This while the country has the second largest number of out-of-school children after India as per a UNESCO 2012 report – ‘Education for All Global Monitoring Report 2012. There is marked discrimination in terms of girl child education in lower economic households with less than 5% young women having completed lower secondary school while a paltry 16% of poorest men had completed so, compared with 70% richest young men and women. The country ranks 113 out of 120 countries in the Education Development Index.  One in three young people in Pakistan have not completed primary school and the country has the third largest number of illiterates.

How can any country progress when several live in various degrees of unfreedom? Significantly, Dowrick and Kruege Lindahl had observed that an increase by one year in a country’s average level of schooling could increase economic growth by 6-15%.  Since lack of education is both the cause and effect of underdevelopment,   it becomes a vicious cycle to break. And violence is often born out of such disparities. Education enables people from all streams to actively participate in nation building rather than be silent and at times harmful participants.

We need to not only spend more on education and health and make it inclusive across aspects, but also invest time and energies in thinking about how we want to shape our youth’s minds. What is it that they are learning and what lessons are we imparting? For instance, is it just a mere coincidence that Pakistan spends SEVEN times more on military education than on primary education! We will reap as we sow and education is a powerful tool.

We need to focus on shared cultural, intellectual and physical history as a people rather than let a few in power create dissent and divide us. In what will remain as of the most brazen and dastardly acts on an education institution, ironically, isn’t it time we sat up and take notice of what is it that we are teaching our children or rather what is it that we aren’t?  Tolerance, mutual respect and understanding, cooperation and unity should not merely be restricted to moral science/value education lessons but rewarded and incorporated within the curriculum. Since it is in our schools that our minds are being shaped continuously.

Undoubtedly, in every war between terrorism and Education, the former has always lost. For there can’t be a more befitting reply than that given by the young school children who survived the dastardly act to those who cowardly plot such terror attacks to imbibe fear and hostility, by turning up the very next day at school. While you might inhumanly push bullets into our heads, how will you destroy awakened minds? 

The Sanskrit-German controversy

The recent controversy of Sanskrit ‘replacing’ German as the third language has indeed opened a can of worms with respect to the status of language education in India. While various factions have defended this move led by an almost extinct group of Sanskrit scholars many have opposed it too. As tempting as it might seem to derive that the move has been conjured through saffron-tinted glasses, it has nonetheless highlighted critical issues plaguing our education system.
  

One, that teaching of German in Kendriya Vidyalaya schools isn’t truly in-sync with the three language formula as drafted in the National Education Policy, 1968 (revised in 1986 and 2005) which has stated that the preferred medium of instruction should be the mother tongue with a progressive introduction of other languages like Hindi, English and a ‘modern’ Indian language from middle-school (grades 6 to 8). Whether Sanskrit now falls in the purview of ‘modern’ Indian language, is up for debate, but definitely German doesn’t fall into the picture.

How did we even come to pass such a massive blunder? German was introduced as a supplemental activity outside school hours in 2009. It wasn’t part of the core curriculum. It was only when it started becoming popular that in 2011, it was introduced as a third language option at the middle school level in 2011 in Kendriya Vidyalayas. Understandably, one has to question the legitimacy of introducing a language as restricted as German (spoken mainly in Germany and Austria). Why was the government sleeping for all these three years? Also, the shift from Sanskrit to German had hampered the situation with teachers of Sanskrit being forced to learn German through short tutorials and teach the students! One can only imagine the resultant quality of teaching.

It also brings us to the main issue which is the ironic failure of dispensing an effective language education in a multi-lingual nation such as ours. How can any language be taught in isolation? For a language to thrive it needs to be spoken and hence such avenues for speaking the language are critical. Naturally, the more the number of avenues to apply the language skill, the more is the hunger for getting back to it and deriving more from it.

Why must we pit one language against the other or politicise the issue? Numerous research papers have indicated that children are known to pick up to 21 languages simultaneously if exposed to it consistently since infancy.  So, clearly the issue isn’t of adding another language to the curriculum. The question isn’t as much in terms of utility too especially when it comes to languages since it is deeply entrenched within the culture of a people. Especially Sanskrit, which contains the ancient wisdom of Vedas, Puranas and Upanishads, and which has now caught the fancy of the western world.

I remember studying Sanskrit during my school years. It was hardly pleasant as is the case due to improper comprehension of the principles governing a language. The grammar in Sanskrit is extremely structured but given the basic principle of rote learning and mugging up information, it makes it even tougher. How do we inculcate a genuine love of learning for the language/subject?  The real issue has been universal across all aspects of Indian education system. The issue has always remained of dispensing quality and outcome-centric education through trained and expert faculty, guided by a well-researched and effective pedagogy. 

Each year lesser number of students are opting for Sanskrit in universities in spite of falling cut-offs. Apart from teaching there are hardly any other career opportunities for students majoring in Sanskrit. There is a gross lack of funds for students pursuing doctorates and research work. Clearly, language education and interdependence of cognitive-linguistic skills has been grossly misinterpreted and delved into. Pedagogy needs to be reinvented in its entirety. Research and study in languages also must be promoted and funded in a consistent and well thought out approach. Teacher education programmes must be tailored to cater to the current context and its challenges. The essence of language education in terms of its extension to learning across spheres must be realised.

A language needs to be well integrated into the lives of people to be duly propagated. It’s time we analyse the outcomes we are aiming for in terms of language education, define them when none exists and redefine the obsolete.