APPENDIX Q :
NOTE BY SHRI G. RAMACHANDRAN ON
 BASIC EDUCATION AND SHIFT SYSTEM.
 

(1) The Proposal

The proposal is to combine the Shift System and Basic Education in order to get quantity plus quality under the present conditions, i. e. (1) lack of adequate finance and (2) the pressure to expand Primary education without delay.

(2) The Period

Uptil now Basic Education and the Shift system have been considered incompatible and perhaps rightly. The present proposal is, therefore, a compromise for an interim period of urgency only. The period may be limited, therefore, to the second Five-Year Plan after which the whole matter should be carefully reconsidered.

(3) The Broad Features of the Proposal

(i) The shift system may not tit in every where in the various States. Where it will fit in, should be studied carefully.

(ii) Under the shift system, every 'one' school will become 'two' schools to take in double or nearly double the present number of children. The shift may be on the basis of two shifts on every working day or two shifts every week. In the first case, there will be two three- hour shifts every day in the second case, different groups of children will come into full-day schools on alternate days or three days at a stretch each week. A daily shift must be at least for three hours and a weekly shift at least for three days.

(iii) Every school introducing the shift system should have one extra teacher in addition to the normal strength of its teaching staff to relieve or strengthen or alternate in the teaching work.

(iv) All teachers should get an increase of Rs. 10/- at least in their salaries as they will have to do some extra work.

(v) The Basic Education syllabus must be accepted without reservation and the time-table re-arranged suitably.

(vi) The methodology of Basic Education must also be accepted.

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(vii) Sine lesser time only will be available, it must be carefully divided between practical work and correlated studies of subjects.

(viii) That time, which represents the difference between the time available in a full-day Basic School and the time available under the shift system during which children will be out of school, should be planned as an integral and vital part of the educational programme with the utmost care. It may consist of carefully planned assigments of work which the children Will have to do at home and which will be in easy continuation and organic extension of the practical work done inside the school. The results of such practical work should come back to the schools next day for discussion, study and correlation. If all this is not done, very carefully, the combination of the shift system and Basic Education will lead to an unwholesome carricature.

(ix) Even now, as generally accepted by every one concerned, all Teachers' Training at the Elementary School level must be Basic Training and teachers thus trained should handle this combination of Basic Education and Shift system. In the hands of teachers without Basic-training, the whole scheme will miscarry. Till Basic trained teachers step into the scheme, all schools converted to the Shift system should adopt the various features of Basic Education like kitchen- gardening, craft, work, sanitation, student-self-Govern- ment etc. The only thing which will wait for the trained teachers will be the technique of correlated teaching.

(x) This combination of the Shift system and Basic Education should apply only to the first three years of the Primary schools. Even in Travancore where the shift system has been in vogue for several years, it applies only to the first four years without Basic Education. With the addition of Basic Education as contemplated herein, the period should be limited to three years. Whether the Shift system and Basic Education can continue at all afterwards, should be a matter for careful assessment at the end of the trial for three years.

(xi) Even in areas where the Shift system is applied, it would be necessary to keep a few schools in every district which would be fulltime or whole day Basic Schools which will present the picture of Basic Education at its best in order to serve as inspiration to the other schools. Since the adoption of the Shift system will only be for a period of emergency, it would not do at all to miss the value of whole day Basic Schools which will ultimately come into the picture after the period of emergency. This point is very important and should be treated as an integral part of my proposal.

Sd/- G. Ramchandarans,

Director, Gandhigram.

1st January, 1956.

Gandhigram, Madurai district,

South India.

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