APPENDIX `I' MEMORANDUM ON ITEM 11 : TO SUBMIT INTERIM REPORTS OF THE 4 RECONSTITUTED STANDING COMMITTEES OF THE CENTRAL ADVISORY BOARD OF EDUCATION.
The reports are enclosed. No report was submitted by the Primary Education Committee.
STANDING COMMITTEE OF THE CENTRAL ADVISORY BOARD
OF EDUCATION ON SECONDARY EDUCATION-AN INTERIM In June 1962 the Union Education Minister as Chairman of, the Central Advisory Board of Education re-constituted four Standing Committees on primary, secondary, university and social education, in order that they may make from time to time recommendations for the improvement of education based on a constant study and critical examination of the problems related to their field-and assess the progress of various development schemes.
The terms of reference of the Committees are:
(a) assessment of the present position of education in the particular sector in all its aspects ;
(b) evaluation and assessment of the extent to which the previous recommendations have been implemented and the problem arising therefrom;
(c) formulation of the aims and objects of education in that sector in relation to changing conditions and needs;
(d) formulating the plans for future development and indicating the priorities for them; and
(e) estimating the cost of the programmes it may suggest.
2. The first meeting of the Committee on Secondary Education was held at New Delhi on the 1st August, 1962.
The terms of reference and composition of the Standing Committee were noted and the work already done in the country during the last two plans in the field of secondary education was surveye by the Committee.
The Committee also discussed in detail the various problems in secondary education and decided to issue a questionnaire to elicit public opinion on these problems.
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3. For training and finalization of the questionaire, a sub- Committee appointed consisting of the following members:
1. Prof. G. C. Chatterji (Chairman)
2. Dr. S. D. Sharma
3. Shri A. E. T. Barrow
4. Shri M. N. Kapur
5. Dr. P. D. Shukla (Convenor)
A detailed questionnaire was thus framed which consisted of 22 Sections on various aspects of secondary education. 1,800 copies of the questionnaire were issued to different agencies working in the field of education viz. State Departments of Education, State Boards of Secondary education, Universities, Teachers Training Colleges, Technical Institutions, Central Ministries, All India Federations and Associations of teachers and others.
223 replies have been received upto 22-3-1963. These are being tabulated and analysed.
4. The second meeting of the Committee was held at New Delhi on the 24th and 25th September, 1962. It examined the organisational pattern of secondary education and the multipurpose schools. It also considered the future programme of the Committee.
It was, felt that there was too much emphasis on the structural pattern of secondary education. It was important to lay down the objectives of secondary education and the content of courses to achieve those objectives and the pattern should emerge as a result of these considerations. Other points raised in the meeting related to the age of entry at different stages of education, the stage at which general education should end, the question of keeping students upto the end of secondary education, and the question of general and special education. It was also felt that the economic pattern as it would emerge, say 15 years hence, had to be taken into consideration and for this purpose economists, industrialists and others had to be consulted.
5. As regards multipurpose schools, it was felt that the -purposes of multipurpose schools had to be clearly defined, the relation of junior technical school and the technical stream of multipurpose schools had to be clarified and a careful enquiry had to be made regarding the usefulness of the technical stream.- The discussions at the meeting were more of exploratory nature and decisions were deferred till the Committee had an opportunity to study the replies to the questionnaire and had discussions with State Governments and other educationists.
6. In considering its future programme, the Committee decided to visit certain important places in India, starting their work from Udaipur or Jaipur from 5th to 8th November 1962. The tour to Udaipur had however, to be cancelled owing to the sudden illness of former Chairman, Prof. G. C. Chatterji. Owing to national emergency it was also desired that visits to States may be postponed. Hence for some time such visits were not undertaken by the Committee.
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7. The Third meeting of the Standing Committeeheld at Chandigarh from 28th to 31st January, 1963. The programme of the Committee included visits to selected educational institutionsin and around Chandigarh and discussion with State education authorities. university and school teachers and other educationists and persons interested in the problems of education. The Committee-here also had a meeting with the Directorate of Education and two members of the territorial council of Himachal Pradesh at which the special problems of secondary education of Himachal were considered.
8. A suggestion was made by the Chairman that the various subjects with which they were concerned may be divided among the members for their special study. These members will also prepare the first draft of the report on the relevant portions allotted to them. Such a distribution was accordingly made.
9. The fourth and fifth meeting of the Committee were held at Madras and Trivandrum from 5th to 7th and 8th to 11th April, 1963, respectively. The programme of visits to schools and discussions with educational authorities, official and non-official, was similar to that followed at Chandigarh.
10. The sixth meeting of the Committee was held on 5th May, 1963 at Pachmarhi along with the CABE session in order to consider the agenda of the Board.
11. A view has been expressed at many places that the higher secondary system of education has -not proved a success and should. therefore, be reviewed. The main difficulties pointed out are that teachers with requisite qualifications have not been available and these have been considered necessary in order to raise the standard of education. There has also been the inadequacy of the required textbooks, equipment, apparatus and other teaching aids to teach the new subjects introduced in the multipurpose schools. It has been particularly stressed that the academic achievement as well as age of the pupils coming to universities for higher education is rather low. One of the solutions suggested is that the old 10 year high school should be restored and it should be followed by a 2 year higher secondary or-pre-university course. The university teachers prefer that these two years should be part of the colleges/universities Some people have, however, suggested that these two classes should be attached to selected high schools which because of their location, buildings, staff, equipment etc., can be conveniently upgraded to the 12 years high secondary schools. The Committee has also noted that one State Government, which had earlier accepted the scheme of higher secondary (11-year schooling education and introduced it in the new IX and X classes, has reconsidered the whole matter and decided to restore its previous 11 year high school with 1 year of pre-university class attached to the colleges.
12. The other view presented to us is that it would be unwise at this stage to bring about any change in the reorganised pattern of secondary education, viz., the 11 year higher secondary schools. This view emphasized that the difficulties standing in the way of proper functioning of the higher secondary pattern -should be removed, so that a good trial was first given to it. It has been expressed that
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frequent changes in the pattern of education are wrong because they confuse parents and others and have a severely dampening effect on the enthusiasm of teachers and other educational workers for the new type of work. It is not possible to say firmly that the 11 year school cannot succeed in raising the standard of secondary education. The example of Delhi, Where the pattern has been worked over a larger number of years, can be conveniently quoted in favour of the 11 year pattern. In Delhi, as anywhere else in smaller measure, whenever the higher secondary schools have been well-staffed and well-equipped, they have undoubtedly shown satisfactory results.
13. In this connection, the desirability of their being a uniform pattern of secondary education in all the States and Union Territories is also under consideration with us.
14. We are, therefore, still studying this aspect of secondary education and we will, for the present, like to defer our recommen- dations on the pattern of secondary education for the country till we have collected more evidence and further analysed the situation.
Teachers 15. The teacher is apparently the most important element in any scheme of reorganisation and improvement of education. We are not attending to Matters relating to teacher-training for the present, because that is being separately studied by a Panel of the Committee on Plan Projects. We have, however, been able to devote attention to some other aspects of teachers, viz., their age of retirement, quali- fications, supply etc.
Age of retirement of teachers 16. We have noted that the age of retirement of secondary school teachers varies to some extent from state to state. There is also in some places a difference in the age of retirement of the Government and of the private school teachers. The Government school teachers in any state are covered by the rules laid down for all Government employees in the state. Sometimes the age of retirement of private aided school teachers have been kept a little higher than the Government school teachers in order to compensate to some extent for the non-admissibility of pension for the private school teachers. We have also noted that the age of retirement of the university and college teachers too varies to some extent among different universities, and in some of them it is as high as 63 years.
17. Government of India have recently raised the age of retirement of its employees to 58 years. It is presumed that the same will, in due course, be done by most State Governments for their own employees as well.
18. In so far as secondary school teachers are concerned, we re- commend that their age of retirement should be 60 years, for, it will not be in the national interest to lose the services of experienced teachers by retiring them at an earlier age. Even in the case of teachers in Government employment, we recommend that 60 years should be the age of retirement of school teachers even though it
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may mean a distinction among employees of the same State Government. We also recommend that in view of the shortage of experienced teachers in subjects such as science, English, mathematics, crafts etc., further extension or re-employment should be given to teachers of the shortage categories on year-to-year basis, provided they are physically fit to work.
Supply of Science and other Teachers 19. It is expected that by the end of the Third Five Year Plan there will be about 21,700 secondary schools and out of these nearly 9,500 will provide science of the elective standard. About 4,500 schools already provide the teaching of this subject and thus 5,000 more will need qualified and trained science teachers to handle the subject. On an average, two additional M.Sc. trained teachers are needed for teaching elective science in a secondary school with one section in each of standards IX to XI. The total teacher requirement would thus come to 10,000 and the break-up for elective science between chemistry, physics and biology in the ratio of 40:35:25 gives the following figures:
Chemistry 4,000
Physics 3,000
Biology 2,000
This calculation does not take into account the existing shortage of M.Sc. teachers which is as high as 80% in some states, nor the replacements that will be required in the normal course.
20. In the year 1959-60, 3,971 passed the M.Sc. examination in the whole country. In the Third Plan, the universities propose to increase their proportion of science students from 30% to 40%. Accordingly, the total enrolment in the M.Sc. classes in March, 1962, had been raised to 12.062. On this basis the average annual output of M.Sc.'s during the Third Plan will be 4,500. On the present condi- tions, not even 20 to 25% of these may be available to teach science in secondary schools. This means an average supply of only about 1,000 teachers per year to secondary schools. Even if we place the requirement of teachers as 1,000 1,500, 2,000 and 3,000, respectively, we shall have a total shortage of not less than 5,000 persons, i.e., 50% of the total need during the Third Plan alone.
21. Teachers with postgraduate qualifications are observed to be in short supply in some other subjects also, e.g., English, mathe- matics.
22. The difficulty in obtaining for secondary schools teachers in science and other shortage categories is because of several factors : (1) The facilities for post-graduate in the universities are not adequate (ii) There are more lucrative jobs available to them outside the teaching profession, and (iii) A further period of one year and the needed expenditure is to be spent in a training college before becoming qualified to teach in a higher secondary, school.-
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23. if the higher secondary education in India is to be improved several steps will have to be taken to provide suitable qualified teachers. After carefully looking into this matter, we have concluded that the teachers of the higher secondary classes And lecturers in colleges should be of equivalent qualifications and should be given the same salary scales, for the pre-university class is, in the educa- tional ladder, at par with class XI of the higher secondary school. In view of the fact, however, that post-graduate teachers would not be available to work in higher secondary schools, we recommend that trained Honours graduates may be appointed to teach in these classes as an interim measure. Some of us are, however, of the opinion that trained Honours.graduates of certain Indian universities and 1st class trained graduates have been found competent to teach in higher secondary classes and that therefore, teachers possessing such quali- fications should be academically qualified to teach higher secondary classes.
24. Implementation of the above recommendation relating to post- graduate teachers particularly with respect to the salary scales may take some time more so during the present emergency conditions when sufficiently increased resources may not be available for social services. But we consider the question of suitable salaryscales for the secondary school teachers to be so important that any amount consistent with the country's economic resources, spent on improving their emoluments will be very rightly spent.
25. Till the above can be achieved, a few interim measures are being recommended in order to improve the present situation. These are
(i) The output of post-graduate and Hons. graduates particularly in science, should be increased by maximum utilization of the available laboratory facilities.
(ii) Depending upon the supply and demand position in an area higher initial salaries should be paid to teachers of categories which are in short supply, and the possibility of a higher start should be mentioned in the advertisement for inviting applications. (We have considered a suggestion to create a specially higher salary scale for teachers of only science and other shortage categories, but we do not favour this distinction between teachers of different subjects working in the same institution. We, however, strongly recommend the giving of advance increments within the same scale for all teachers in shortage categories.)
(iii) The condition of teacher training qualification may be temporarily relaxed in the case of science and any other subject where found necessary.
(iv) Extension or re-employment in service may be given to retiring teachers of categories in short supply provided they are found fit to work.
(v) Re-employment on part-time basis may also be given after retirement to those teachers of science and other shortage categories who are willing to work and are fit to do so.
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(vi) In particular subjects where teachers are in short supply, co-operative or pooled teaching among schools in the same locality with provision of transport facility or a suitable allowance may be permitted.
(vii) Teachers working in colleges and other institutions of higher learning or other academically qualified persons of the same area may be invited to help on part-time basis in teaching the higher secondary classes.
(viii) With the help of U.G.C., and the universities, condensed courses should be organized for the graduate teachers in order to equip them to teach higher secondary classes. The syllabus in these courses should aim at the Hons. standard with emphasis on the topics taught in the school. The course should cover all practicals in the higher secondary school and it should give adequate workshop practice for the upkeep and repair of apparatus in the school. Incentive should be provided to successful teachers in the form of special in- crements. The creation of a training reserve to provide for the ap- pointment of substitutes in place of teachers sent for such training Will necessary for the success of any scheme of this kind.
(ix) Promising students in the 2nd or 3rd year of B.Sc. course should be selected and given a stipend to complete their course if they agree to enter into a contract to serve as teachers for a minimum period of 3 to 5 years.
Private School Teachers 26. We have also given thought to the functioning of private secondary schools and the teachers working there. A more compre- hensive study and examination will be needed before we can make detailed recommendation, on such schools. However, one thing is very clear to us. The curriculum laid for the Government and private schools is the same. Pupils in both types of institutions are prepared for the same examinations. Thus the work and responsibilities of teacher employed in Government and private schools are indentical. We therefore recommend that the salary scales and allowances prescribed for private school teachers must not be lower than those for Government schools of corresponding stage, provided of course their qualifications, conditions of service and discipline are similar to those prescribed for teachers of Government schools.