Students promoted without foundational skills; gaps become insurmountable by higher education. Teachers, institutions must embrace result-oriented, objective-specific teaching.
Mohd Ishq Shah
Education has been the topmost priority of every civilised society since time immemorial. From caves to colonies, the world has experienced the contribution of education in the development of nations and societies. But the topic under discussion is not about the development of educational systems across the world, but about how the educational process becomes result-oriented and how learners become real-life intellectuals. What makes their foundations strong so that the edifice of education remains intact?
My personal inclination has always been towards thinking outside the orthodoxy and dogmatism that still leave their imprint on our education system. Despite having well-developed infrastructure and qualified staff, why do we, as a system, often fail to achieve the desired results and goals in educating our young generations? In our government and private education sectors, students are enrolled in thousands and lakhs, yet it is deeply concerning that we remain far behind in achieving universal educational goals. The reasons that I consider worth mentioning are recorded here.
Mere promotion and zero-detention policies have further aggravated the situation. Only those in the top ten per cent are educated in the real sense, while the rest remain as backwards as they would have been if they had never been enrolled in schools and colleges at all.
As a student, my experience was that stress was laid upon basic literacy and numeracy up to the fifth standard. The focal areas used to be Mathematics and Urdu, as English was not yet the medium of education in Jammu and Kashmir. The transition could only be seen in the 2000s when certain changes took place in the curriculum and methodology of teaching. The Bachelor of Education (B.Ed) degree became mandatory, unitisation came into vogue, and stress was given to covering a wide area of knowledge at the college and university level. However, primary and middle standards still followed the old trend of giving notes to students and making them memorise those notes.
During the early years of my teaching career, I could hardly see any management giving stress to foundational literacy and numeracy. No doubt, students were made to memorise the alphabet (A to Z) and numbers (1 to 100), combined with mathematical tables (only up to the table of ten). But what the use of these letters and numbers was was never explained to students. Consequently, students would not become capable of creating words and large numbers on their own. Students were never asked to try using their own minds to write an essay, letter, or story. Instead, only readymade material was served to them, and they were compelled to memorise it for examination purposes.
Understanding Foundational Literacy and Numeracy (FLN)
FLN is the building block of a strong and enduring, intellectually structured society. So let us understand what FLN truly means.
Foundational Literacy: At the primary level, if a student is able to read and write the textbooks given to them, if they are able to recognise the alphabet and create words on their own, if they are able to form new words and sentences and comprehend the text, we can confidently say the student possesses foundational literacy.
As they reach the middle stage, they should be able to rearrange jumbled words into meaningful sentences. They should be able to arrange sentences into meaningful paragraphs. For example: Goes/Ram/to every day/school → Ram goes to school every day.
At the secondary and senior secondary level, students must be introduced to phrases, idioms, proverbs, and sayings that will strengthen their speaking and writing skills. Introduction to creative writing will surely help them develop strong writing skills—skills that are immensely helpful in qualifying for higher-level descriptive examinations.
Foundational Numeracy: A child should be able to count and arrange numbers in ascending and descending order. They should be able to add, subtract, multiply, and divide. At the middle level, they should be able to solve problems involving these four basic operations. They must be able to apply the BODMAS rule to simplify complex operational problems.
For instance, a problem like `[50 × 60 + 90 – 30 ÷ 10]` should be within their range. It can be solved as:`[50 × 60 + 90 – 30 ÷ 10] = 50 × 60 + 90 – 3 = 3000 + 90 – 3 = 3087`
The complexity of such problems can be gradually increased over time.
At the secondary level, children should be given firsthand exposure to problems related to mensuration, trigonometry, arithmetic progression, and other concepts that are present in the curriculum. Unfortunately, students often cannot apply these in real-life situations or during board examinations. The irony is that while most state and central-level examinations test these basic concepts, students from the same background and with the same qualifications often fail to crack such exams.
Let me highlight a paradoxical scenario: a twelfth-grade graduate cannot crack a competitive exam of the same level, and a graduate cannot crack a competitive exam at the graduation level until they reach the postgraduate level—and only then, some of them succeed. This can only be described as slow performance and development.
The sole reason behind this is that students are promoted to subsequent grades without any meaningful attention to FLN. The foundational gaps accumulate, and by the time they reach higher education, the deficiencies become insurmountable.
To conclude, let me put forward some modest proposals to the concerned faculty, heads of institutions, and officers. As a joint venture, we should embrace a new teaching trend that serves the basic objective of creating an intellectually strong student community. Only then can we expect intelligent, creative, and impactful public servants, officers, and employees for the future.
This must be treated as a moral and professional duty—to work in a way that is result-oriented and objective-specific. I am quite sure this process will yield homogeneity in intellectual output, making competition more perfect, akin to an economically perfect competitive market. This will further pave the way for curbing social evils such as corruption and nepotism.
If we prioritise intellectualism over favouritism, we will undoubtedly build a strong nation that no one can defeat. And all the lamentable stories, along with the accusations they bring, will finally come to an end.
is*******@***il.com