INTRODUCTION
The `Janvani' programme on the Delhi Doordarshan initiated in February 1985 can be viewed as an attempt to introduce the concept of responsive democracy. The objective of the programme seems to build up a channel of communication between the common man and the highest political authority i.e. the Ministers. In the programme the concerned Minister is invited to answer the question of a few selected people in a face to face situation on the National network of Delhi Doordarshan. The questions selected are a very small fraction of the communications received by the Doordarshan in response to the announcement made by it two weeks in advance.
In this series of programme, the Delhi Doordarshan invited the people to send their querries with regard to the education system of the country in the first week of May, 1985. On May 21, Shri K.C. Pant, the then Education Minister was invited to respond to the questions of selected invitees on the subject. The entire correspondence was sent to the Ministry if Education which then sent it to NIEPA along with other correspondence received by the Ministry in response to the
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proposed debate on New Education Policy.
In an urge to crystalise public opinion, NIEPA engaged itself in an objective content analysis of the correspondence received by it. To make the analysis meaningful the entire series of correspondence numbering about 5000 in all has been grouped in the following categories:
1. Individual letters which have been written by mostly those people who are educated and are keenly interested in the educational development of the country.
2. Letters from Organisations or Seminar Proceedings sent in the form of memorandum or proposal recommendations made by different formal and informal bodies. These organisations include Teachers' Organisation, Organisations related with Education and other Social and Cultural Organisations.
3. Press-Cutting include the 'Editorials' and other articles written by well known people in different newspapers during the last six months or so.
4. Letters in Response to Janavani Programme sent to the Delhi Doordarshan Kendra to be included in the Janvani programme on Education.
Out of the above mentioned categories of letters one exercise has already been completed
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which was based oh the responses of about 1000 individual letters. The monograph entitled 'Towards Restructuring Indian Education: Citizens' Perception' prepared by the Education Policy Unit, NIEPA was distributed in Education Ministers' Conference held in New Delhi on August 28-29, 1985.
The present paper, second in the series, is based on a content analysis of 2255 letters received by Delhi Doordarshan for 'Janvani' programme. The people who have written these letters are from all corners of the country and from every walk of life and it really represents the category of common people of our country.
Most of the letters have been written by the people in the first week of May, 1985. These are mostly in form of questions which have been asked from the Education Minister and are all concerned with the problems regarding the system of education India. On the basis of the nature of letters received one can classify them into following categories;
(i) Letters wherein question/questions have been directly asked;
(ii) Letters wherein problems have been discussed and in the end question/questions have been asked;
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(iii) Letters which start with question/ questions and end up by offering suggestions; and
(iv) letters wherein problems have been discussed in detail and also some suggestions are made for solving them.
Out of the four categories mentioned above, majority of the letters (about half of total number) come under the first category i.e. containing direct question/questions. The remaining three categories account for the other 50 per cent.
DESIGN OF ANALYSIS Just as in the case of analysis of individual letters done earlier, it was planned to broadly study the responses in regard to the background of the respondents and the areas of major concern to them. Background of the persons is analysed in respect of (i) their spatial distribution i.e. the state to which they belong and, (ii) their status i.e. if the person is a teacher, a student, a parent or a businessman, etc. Similarly areas of major concern are grouped under various heads (themes) i.e. content and curriculum evaluation, management of education etc. An attempt is also made to see as to what level of education major questions relate to.
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Quantitative analysis is attempted with regard to percentage distribution of responses under various classifications. An attempt is also made to relate the background of the person with the issues of concern. For this bivariate classification of suggestions is attempted.
Besides quantitative analysis of the responses, an attempt is made to study the responses in terms of content. This mainly focusses on what people in general expect from the new educational policy.
The presentation is divided into following two main sections:
A. Quantitative analysis of responses
B. Qualitative analysis of responses
Quantitative analysis presented in Section A analyses the background of the respondents in term of (i) State-wise representation (ii) Major Occupational Categories. It then proceeds to areas of major concern studied in term of frequency of responses with regard to (i) each of the 'Level of Education' and (ii) the Themes to which the major questions relate.
Qualitative analysis of responses is given in Section B under the themes: Goals of Education, Structure of Education, Content and Curriculum,
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Languages in Education, Evaluation and Examination Reforms, Planning and Management, Financing of Education, Teachers, Social Justice, Delinking Degrees from jobs, Access to Higher Education, Vocationalisation and Job-oriented Education, Discipline, Corruption and Politics and Infrastructural Facilities.
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