 SCHOOL EDUCATION : PROBLEMS OF EXPANSION

7.01 We have divided the entire period of formal education into two main stages-school and higher-and we have so far treated school education as one continuous unit. Some explanation for this procedure is necessary. The traditional practice has been to divide the period of school education into three stages-pre-primary, primary and secondary and to discuss the problems of each separately.This is based on several considerations. In the first place, the three stages of education are regarded as corresponding to the three stages in the development of a child-infancy, childhood and adolescence. Again, from the social point of view, primary education has long been considered as education meant for the masses and secondary education for the select few. In our own country, distinctions have been made sometimes even on cultural grounds; primary education was defined as education through the modern Indian languages while secondary education was regarded as education in English. in recent years, however, these distinctions are either becoming blurred or have vanished altogether. For instance, it is increasingly realized that the dividing lines between pre-primary and primary or primary and secondary are arbitrary and variable. Similarly, the traditional view that primary education should provide undifferentiated general education while secondary education should be diversified to meet the varying aptitudes, interests and abilities of children is no longer universally held; and in some countries, such as the USSR, the entire course of school education-primary and secondary-has been designed on one set of principles. With the phenomenal expansion of secondary education in India, the social distinction between primary and secondary education as meeting respectively the needs of the masses and the classes has already ceased to be valid; and so has the justification for classifying primary as `vernacular' education and secondary as `English' education. We have found it, therefore, more convenient and appropriate to treat the entire pre-university period of education as one stage and have structured our Report accordingly. Such a treatment is almost inescapable for a proper planning and development of the school curriculum. It is true that in this chapter, which deals largely with problems of

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enrolment, the need to divide the school period into several substages-pre-primary, primary (lower and higher) and secondary (lower and higher) has been recognized. But our general approach in the Report has been to regard the similarities between the problems of the different stages as being far more significant than the differences and to treat school education as a single whole.

7.02 Some general programmes of educational reconstruction which affect the school stage have already been considered in Part one of the Report, for instance, the problems relating to the structure of the educational System,*61 the status and education of school teachers*62 and equalization of educational opportunities for school children through such measures as the abolition of tuition fees, free supply of books and materials and award of scholarships,*63 have been discussed in the earlier chapters. In this and the next three chapters, we shall consider some important issues which are specially concerned with the school stage only. The present chapter will take up all aspects of preprimary education and the problems of expansion in primary and secondary education. Chapters VIII and IX will deal with the curriculum, textbooks, teaching and learning materials, methods of teaching and evaluation and educational guidance. In Chapter X, we shall examine in detail certain vital problems relating to supervision and administration.

PRE-PRIMARY EDUCATION

7.03 The objectives of pre-primary education may be stated as follows:

- to develop in the child good health habits and to build up basic skills necessary for personal adjustment, such as dressing, toilet habits, eating, washing, cleaning, etc.; - to develop desirable social attitudes and manners, and to encourage healthy group participation, making the child sensitive to the rights and privileges of others; - to develop emotional maturity by guiding the child to express, understand, accept and control his feelings and emotions; - to encourage aesthetic appreciation; - to stimulate the beginnings of intellectual curiosity concerning the environment and to help him understand the world in which he lives, and to foster new interest through opportunities to explore, investigate and experiment;

61 Chapter II. 62 Chapters III and IV. 63 Chapter VI.

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- to encourage independence and creativity by providing the child with sufficient opportunities for self-expression;

- to develop the child's ability to express his thoughts and feelings in fluent, correct and clear speech;and

- to develop in the child a good physique, adequate muscular coordination and basic motor skills.

7.04 Importance of Pre-primary Education. Pre-primary schools were first established to meet social needs such as looking after the children of working mothers or providing a suitable environment to little boys and girls from urban families whose small tenements or flats were hardly appropriate for the children's proper growth. These schools also attempted to compensate for the unsatisfactory home environment of children from slum areas or poor families. Recently, however, the educational significance of this stage is being increasingly realized. Modern researches have shown that the years between three and ten are of the greatest importance in the child's physical, emotional and intellectual development. It has also been found that children who have been to a pre-primary school show better progress at the primar stage and help in reducing wastage and stagnation.The modern trend in educational policy,therefore,is to emphasize pre-primary education especially for children with unsati- sfactory home backgrounds.This is the direction in which we also should move.

7.05 Recent Developments in Pre-primary Education. Prior to 1947, little attention was paid to pre-primary education and it was not even regarded as a State responsibility. For the first time in our educational history, the Report of the Central Advisory Board of Education on Post- War Educational Development in India (1944) emphasized its significance and recommended that an adequate provision of pre-primary education should be an essential adjunct of a national system of education. We are happy to note that pre-primary education has been rapidly gaining in popularity in the post-Independence period. In 1950-51, the number of pre-primary schools was only 303 with 866 teachers and an enrolment of about 28,000. The total direct expenditure on pre-primary education was about Rs. 1.2 million or 0.1 per cent of the total educational expenditure. In 1965-66, the number of primary schools increased to 3,500 with 6,500 teachers and a total enrolment of about 250,000. The total direct expenditure also rose up to Rs. 11 million or 0.2 per cent of the total educational expenditure.*64 These are mainly urban institutions. In rural areas excellent pioneering

64 In addition to these officially reported institutions, there are a large number of unrecognized schools, especially in rural areas, in respect of which statistics are not available.

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work has been done by the Central Social Welfare Board (CSWB) and the Community Development Administration which, taken together, run about 20,000 balwadis having a total enrolment of about 600,000. The progress is no doubt small in relation to our goals, but it marks a tremendous advance over earlier achievements.

7.06 Recommendations. While we recognize the need to develop pre-primary education as extensively as possible, our advance in this sector will necessarily be restricted on account of the inadequacy of the resources available, and especially because primary education must be accorded a higher priority. It is also necessary to reconcile the competing claims of quality and quantity. Some educationists are of the view that the pre-primary education to be provided must be of the proper quality, and they insist on maintaining standards which increase the cost per pupil to a level where any large-scale expansion becomes impossible. Others deliberately advocate the adoption of less costly techniques so that the benefit of pre-primary education, may be extended to a larger proportion of children. There are also differ- ences of opinion regarding the agency of development; some would prefer the responsibility for pre-primary education to be largely assumed by the State while others would leave it mainly to private enterprise. In these circumstances, we shall have to take a pragmatic view and adopt a policy which promotes experimentation and the best utilization and combination of existing resources and agencies.

7.07 We make the following recommendations for the development of pre-primary education during the next 20 years:

(1) There should be a State-level centre for the development of pre-primary education located in the State Institute of Education. In addition, a pre-primary education development centre should be established in each district in a phased programme spread over the next 20 years. The main functions of these centres would be to train pre-primary teachers, to provide supervision and guidance to pre-primary teachers working in the area, to hold refresher courses and in-service training programmes for them, to undertake the preparation of teaching aids out of the locally available materials, to conduct experimental pre-primary schools and to provide education to parents regarding child care. They can also advantageously undertake programmes of initial training of pre-primary teachers.

(2) The establishment and conduct of pre-primary schools may be left, as at present, mainly to private enterprise. The State should assist through grants-in-aid on a basis of equalization. Accordingly, pre-primary schools catering to the needs of children from

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the under-privileged groups will have a higher claim on State funds. (3) Every encouragement should be given to experimentation, particularly in devising less costly methods of expanding pre-primary education. We strongly commend the scheme recently adopted by the State of Madras. Under this programme, a local woman is selected as a teacher on a small honorarium, is given a short course of training, and is assisted in her work by the local Mahila Mandal. The outstanding features of the scheme are its low costs (the cost per child per year is less than Rs. 20) and its adaptability and suitability to rural areas. It works well and, under active teachers, children show better health, more mental alertness and a lively interest in the environment.

(4) Another important experiment of this type, which has been tried with success in some parts of the country, is the establishment of children's play centres in close association with the primary schools. These are conducted by a specially trained teacher in the primary school, who is given an allowance for the purpose, or by a separate teacher. The programme, which last for about two hours a day, is simple and consists of group singing, story-telling and games, with considerable attention being given to personal hygiene and health. These centres serve as pre-school classes and smoothen the transition of the child from its play-dominated world of infancy to the formal atmosphere of the primary school. They are comparatively less costly to run and serve a very useful purpose in reducing wastage and stagnation, particularly in class 1. Such centres should be attached to as many primary schools as possible.

(5) The role of the State should be to maintain such centres at the State and district levels, train pre-primary teachers, conduct research, assist in the preparation of materials and literature needed for pre-primary education and provide supervision and guidance to pre-primary schools and training institutions. As suggested above, it should assist private institutions at this stage through grants-in-aid; and in exceptional cases, it may also conduct some pre-primary schools to serve the needs of urban slums or rural areas or to serve as model institutions.

(6) We can hardly talk about a curriculum for pre-primary schools; it is more appropriate to think of it as a programme of activities. We agree with the suggestion of the Committee on Child Care (1961-62), appointed by the CSWB, that the programme should consist of the following activities: (a) Play activities:

266 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT 7.07

(i) Free play including educational and constructional toys, indoor games, and outdoor activities in association with other children; (ii) Physical activities involving muscular and limb movement; (iii) Play involving contact, acquaintance, imitation and experience of physical, family and social environment; (iv) organized play, group activities and directional play; (v) Playground activities using playground apparatus.

(b) Physical training including simple exercise, dance and eurhythmics.

(d) Sensoria education using natural objects and specially constructed apparatus. (e) Handwork and artistic activities involving the use of finger skills and tools; and activities like drawing, painting, singing, music,and dancing.

(f) Learning activities including language; personal hygiene and health rules; elementary nature study involving contact with the physical, plant and animal world; counting and arithmetic, etc. (g) Self-service in school eliminating as far as possible the use of servants and adult helpers.

We have often found that the programmes tend to be rigid and authoritarian, that adequate opportunities are not given to children to know their environment, that group work tends to be emphasized at the cost of the children's needs, and that the educational possibilities of the provision of mid-day meals and snacks are not utilized fully. To overcome these, it is necessary to improve the training of teachers and to give them greater freedom in planning their programmes.

(7) There is need for more coordination among the different agencies that work for child-care and pre-primary education, both at the national and at the State levels. In particular, it is necessary for the State Education Departments to develop close relations with the CSWB, the Indian Council of Child Welfare and the Community Development Administration.

(8) With regard to enrolment, we consider that a feasible target would be to enrol five per cent of the children in the age-group 3 to 5 by 1986. This will mean an enrolment of about 2.5 million. If the inexpensive techniques we have recommended above are adopted, this enrolment could be higher. We have also

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recommended the addition, on as wide a scale as possible, of a pre-school class to which children of the age 5-6 will be admitted. We anticipate that it may be possible to cover about 50 per cent of the children in this age-group by 1986. This will mean an enrolment of about 7.5 million. The total enrolment at this stage would thus be about 10 million.

PRIMARY EDUCATION : FULFILMENT OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL DIRECTIVE

7.08 Targets. We shall now proceed to discuss another highly significant programme of educational reconstruction, namely, the fulfilment of the directive principle contained in Article 45 of the Constitution: that the State should strive to provide free and compulsory education for all children up to the age of 14 years. This was to have been achieved by 1960. But in view of the immense difficulties involved, such as lack of adequate resources, tremendous increase in population, resistance to the education of girls, large numbers of children of the backward classes, general poverty of the people and the illiteracy and apathy of parents, it was not possible to make adequate progress in primary education, and the Constitutional Directive has remained unfulfilled. There has, therefore, been an insistent demand that Government should fix an early deadline for its fulfilment and prepare a concrete programme of action for the purpose. We are in sympathy with this demand and we believe that the provision of free and universal education for every child is an educational objective of the highest priority, not only on grounds of social justice and democracy, but also for raising the competence of the average worker and for increasing national productivity. In view, however, of the magnitude of the problem, the uneven development of primary education in the different parts of the country*65 and the large financial resources needed for the programme, we think that the best strategy for fulfilling the Constitutional Directive would be as follows: