TIME TO INTRODUCE EDUCATIONAL REFORMS
Development of rigorous standards and better assessments need better structure
By: RAYEES MASROOR
Education Reform refers to the goal of changing public education and the motivations for reform usually come from the present needs of a given society to ensure modern educational standards that have high potential of betterment in all aspects of life. We need to reform, revolutionise and modernise Education system in order to empower modern global citizens and to build a strong workforce for our society.
The current administration has shown a keen interest in the education sector and has already created a task force in the form of education reform committees at different levels of the hierarchy. The education department has also seen a dynamic and dedicated Principal Secretary, Mr.B K Singh, who is willing to work hard in streamlining things to produce better results. In Kashmir division, Mr.Singh has been ably supported by a visionary Director school Education Kashmir, DrTassaduqHussain Mir, who has generated a lot of goodwill for his kind approach and professional dealings of the stakeholders. As part of the reformation, many steps like introduction of Kindergarten in Govt. primary schools and detachment of teachers from various nonteaching assignments have already been taken and some more are in the pipeline.
While all this is quite appreciable, many educationists and experts have their point of view which could make the process of reformation more beneficial and result oriented. Some of the steps that can be considered for the implementation include:
- Teachers Transfer Policy: The transfer policy for JK teachers needs a comprehensive review. It was stated by the government that transfer of teaching personnel shall be made in the beginning of the academic year only but we are already in May and the Teachers are still waiting for the ATD. Some experts firmly believe that instead of ATD at the highest level the job of transfers should have been assigned to the chief Education officers and the Zonal Education Officers with clear cut guidelines from the higher authorities. Ideally a teacher’s transfer should take place after every three years and must be in the interest of the students only.
Since the government has done away with the academic arrangements in the higher secondary schools and over the last three years teachers with subject specific qualifications have been deployed to such higher secondary’s where there is a need. ATD being an automatic system won’t cater to such requirements and also in case of female teachers ATD has many shortcomings. Some Govt. schools, especially in cities and towns, have lesser enrollment and would need fewer teachers but ATD won’t be able to address the matters of ratio. There are already education reform committees at District and zonal level and for the smooth conduct of the process they could have efficiently helped the officers in the transfer of teachers. It is also important to highlight that CEOs and ZEOs are in a much better position to know the staff position, Enrollment and even the competence of teachers in their jurisdictions.
- Rationalization of teachers: In order to promote a better PTR (Pupil Teacher Ratio) in the schools the department has been carrying out the process of Rationalization for sometime now but it has not served the purpose because it is being done at the Zonal level only where one subject specific teacher from one school is deployed to another or a higher secondary school without considering the PTR. It is very important to highlight that there is a low PTR in cities and towns as most of the Educational institutions in urban areas have lower enrollment but higher number of teachers which defeats the purpose of Rationalization. A better Rationalization would have been to deploy the teachers from the cities and towns to nearby rural educational zones where larger number of students are enrolled. It has been observed that the government schools in urban education zones have more teachers than required and the nearby rural education zones even at a distance of two or three kilometers have huge enrollment but lesser teachers. The schools at various administrative headquarters have usually more teachers than required. This discrimination needs immediate attention.
The teachers whether transferred or deployed to difficult areas should be given special incentives while as the female teachers should be given certain concessions during the annual transfers. As already mentioned government, instead of appointing candidates for academic arrangements in higher secondary schools where there are vacancies has preferred the deployment of higher qualified teachers to fill the gaps-it is not a bad move but such subject specific teachers should be given some weightage during promotions for their contribution.
- Promotions: All professions offer their recruits the opportunity of pursuing a career in the sense that individuals can be promoted through a clearly delineated promotions hierarchy. Promotion is the passage to a higher rank and is one of the promises of the rewards system to help motivating employees. From a motivation perspective, if rewards are allocated only on nonperformance factors like seniority, job title etc employees are likely to reduce their efforts. On the other hand in a hierarchy using promotion solely as a reward for good performance people tend to enhance their performance, in fact ‘pay for performance ‘programmes are gaining more popularity but we in J&K continue with less motivational promotion policy of employees especially the teachers which is one of the reasons of declining performance of government teachers.
There are so many other departments which offer promotions to their employees through departmental examinations, why no such opportunities for teachers who deserve to be rewarded, recognised and motivated on the basis of their performance. There is no rational behind promoting an employee or a teacher merely on time bound basis. Many a times teachers are promoted as lecturers or masters when they are at the verge of retirement or have lost their interest in assuming a new role .It would be really beneficial even for the students and the department itself if after 5 or 6 years service in the school education department a teacher is given an opportunity to appear in a departmental examination to enable himself to become a master or a lecturer .it would always keep a teacher motivated and up for the challenge.
- Special attention to kindergarten: Over the last decade, government schools in J&K faced a huge issue of declining enrollment in the schools but since last two years the school education department has been able to enroll a good number of students and for which the due credit goes to the Principal secretary and the DSEK. But there is an apprehension that if these new entrants could be retained and to address this issue the integration of AnganwadiCentres with the nearby primary or upper primary schools should be done without any further delay.
- Curriculum and text books: A carefully designed and well-executed curriculum plays a significant role in the success of a school and its students and teachers. Strong curricular design, when delivered by well-prepared and qualified educators, ensures that the students can achieve the appropriate learning outcomes. In J&K schools the curriculum needs a revision while as the text books are not upto the mark. The text books at primary and upper primary level are outdated, boring and devoid of any attraction.
Assessment and Evaluation: The assessment of the students is to measure effectiveness and evaluation adds a value component to the process. A teacher may assess a student to ascertain how well the individual successfully met the learning target but there are various faults in the process which needs to be addressed. Also, the teachers with better outcomes need to be awarded and appreciated. While those teachers with poor results are punished but surprisingly the officers are not held accountable- it is important that the officers are also ranked by their performance and held accountable.
- Teachers Training: In-service training or staff development and skill enhancement programme for teachers play an essential role in successful education reform. It also serves as a bridge between prospective and experienced educators to meet the new challenges of guiding students towards higher standards of learning and self-development. In developing the professionalism status of teachers, the training program, such as in-service training, should not be done away from the reformation that occurs. In-service training offers one of the most promising roads to improvement of instruction and as such the SCERT and DIETS should be made more vibrant and goal oriented. Unfortunately our B.edProgramme is the most outdated and obsolete one and it needs immediate revamp to cater to the modern educational standards of the Educators and Teachers.
Further government should introduce special monthly scholarship schemes for BPL students, provide smart gadgets to such students and try to provide a better infrastructure for better results. Teachers acquiring higher education should be encouraged and facilitated as it would ultimately benefit the students and the community at large.
The writer is a freelance columnist and can be reached at [email protected])
