Old-school values: A hard look at school system

Shantanu Thakur

(thakur.santanu@gmail.com)

Some years back, when Dr Duvvuri Subbarao visited Assam as Chairman of the then Finance Commission, he, on the sidelines, held informal interactions with senior officers of the Government of Assam on general issues of concern. During the deliberations, Dr Rao made an insightful remark on the state of affairs in our school-education system. He was pained to have observed that while most of the successful people of his time and after, were products of the then vast network of Government, or, Government-aided schools in the country, the very same schools have now fallen into disrepute and hardly any senior officer of the Government would send his, or her children to a Government school today. When he asked the audience how many of them sent their children and wards to these schools, the silence was understandable. Dr Rao had also pointed out that the case with the Government hospitals was no different; but of that, later.

This sad state of affairs is so downright true that it compels one to ponder. There is no doubt that the government schools in the country seem to have lost their soul. If the trajectory of these institutions is looked at in hindsight, they stand out as production-houses of students with high qualities of the head and heart in the past. Elitist English-medium schools were a few in those days and not many families could access them. The vast majority of the country's children had their education in government schools. Whatever may have been the colonial objectives of Macaulay's policy of education for India, it could not at least be accused of being in favour of the elite alone. The policy applied to all government schools. Another aspect which proved to be beneficial was the fact that although the teaching of English, English and European history received emphasis, the system did not outright marginalize the vernacular. Even with their imperialist intentions, Queen's government wanted their civil servants to be well acquainted with the character and history of the colony country. Probationers in the ICS were introduced to a series of discourses by scholars like Max Muller on 'What India has to Teach Us' (available separately now as a publication). Those of us

in our sixties and above in this country today had our education in a system where we had to learn in our mother language up to a particular standard and only thereafter in English and another language - the three-language-formula as it were. This helped to build a strong foundation with good language skills that have stood us in good stead later in life. A good grounding in the Classics and traditional methods of learning Mathematics also helped to give a good grasp over the sciences, not just skin-deep smattering. After the attainment of Independence, a newborn aspirational India did avail of the benefits of English education while simultaneously carrying the values of the vernacular. If a study is made of the recruitment patterns to the UPSC, a predominance of the presence of government school pass-outs should be evident in the services. But values seem to have been disappearing already; at least its cracks began to show. If you would remember the character of Bhushan in the hit Indian soap Buniyaad of DDK, you would have got the point one is trying to make.

Why and how did government schools then slide into being laggards and no longer the frontrunners in a system they once dominated? Could the gradual erosion of moral standards in the public life of the country after independence be linked to the fallout of standards in the school system as well? An uncomfortable question to ask, but one that must be braved if we were to pull the system out of the mess. As the freedom struggle had gained pace from the early forties of the last century, men of merit from different walks of life in the country were drawn to it –brilliant lawyers, barristers, meritorious students, public leaders, enterprising businessmen, traders – the best of them turned their attention to the affairs of the country. Most of these were products of government schools, except maybe a few from the elite layer of society. It was again this very generation of people who lent their merit, vision and labour to the making of the newborn nation. One cementing factor that bound them all together was dedication, integrity and love of one's motherland. This was understandable. Passionate ideological values like nationalism, freedom from foreign rule, etc., are strong, formidable forces that bind and unite. But did these attitudes gradually decline after independence as freedom and democracy came to be taken for granted and ambitions for mere material gain and prosperity - irrespective of collective ethical commitment - deflected our attention in a way that silently nurtured neglect of vital institutions in its wake? The character and purpose that was seen in the political class before and for some years after independence started losing traction gradually. Hunger for power, pelf and clamour for the loaves and fishes of office spread in the body politic of the country. The desire to overthrow British rule was overwhelming during the Freedom Struggle and the first few decades of gaining independence. People of outstanding merit, capable of carving out lucrative careers in the available opportunities under foreign rule, willingly shunned temptations and joined as school teachers across the country. One comes across inspirational stories in every region of the country on how teachers had gone out of their ways to mould students. The story of a village school teacher in rural Bengal getting down from his bicycle in the market (while an epidemic was raging) just to teach the student an alternative way to describe the situation in an English sentence, was not just one, single stand-alone, exclusive anecdote; similar tales used to abound in all corners of India. The teachers in the schools then were driven by a fire - a fervour - to bring out the best possible qualities latent in their students - not simply academic merit but more inculcation of character-building – perhaps with a passion to mould strong future citizens of character and quality – a lot that would one day be capable of breaking the shackles of imperial, colonial dominance.

With such dedication and commitment at play, the question of corruption, and decadence in the school system simply could not arise. Physical infrastructure and facilities had been just the bare minimum, but the core value of the quality of teaching imparted was so full of missionary zeal and vision that quality over-rode all obstacles; the values inculcated helped to serve as investments that would appreciate in the future. No doubt, therefore, that the best of men and women in any walk of life in the country for years together were proud products of government schools; many from mofussil districts and towns that didn't have any so-called English-medium school then. The point being made is that such motivation must have, over some time, evaporated as short-sighted objectives and callous supervision and governance took over. Unpleasant and sad as it might sound, nevertheless, the erosion of values in our democratic institutions seems to have rubbed off considerably onto our school education scene as well.

The significance of healthy, wholesome schooling is a fundamental right of citizens. Mere elitist islands of standards will only stand out as aberrations, bringing into sharp focus the gravity of the situation. Things had come to such a pass that in Assam, during the late nineties till the early years of two-thousand, a stinking scam in teacher appointments took place in almost every district. Hundreds of undeserving individuals were appointed as teachers in LP and ME schools, setting aside all norms and scruples. Corrupt DEEOs, DIs and others in the system had laid out almost a teacher appointment bazaar where jobs of teachers were up for sale to the highest bidder. It's frightening to even imagine just those in the blessed system were not involved in it. The stink later rose so high that the High Court had had to intervene. There were several, repeated litigations; numerous government enquiries at different levels of the bureaucracy, but the long-term damage to the system could never be wiped out. Many involved in it lost their jobs, but several bigger fish escaped the net. It was indicative of the levels to which school education had sunk. Louts and small-time crooks were selected as teachers; someone at every level had a hand; outrageous practices earlier heard of happening in some other states but never in Assam, also took roots here and some of that rot survived to continue and spread.

It is a matter of unmitigated, unrelieved pity that as ancient a land like ours – a land enriched with the memory of Gurukuls and Guru-ashramas of the Ramayana and Mahabharata days - should find its school education system mired in decadence. An oft-quoted saying in teaching circles has been the one referring to a western concept: "The world wars were won not so much in the battlefields but the playgrounds of the public schools of England" often forgetting that India long preceded in such wisdom with our Valmikis and Dronacharryas much ahead of the birth of public schools there. In as vast, a growing democracy as ours, letting our schools wallow in neglect is a risk too dangerous to be taken. Perhaps such low points in systems have been seen in history elsewhere too, and are cyclic. Hopefully, there has to be a turn-around. Some quarters concerned often suggest that for a revival of interest in Government schools, sending their children to these schools should be made mandatory for all government servants. How practical such enforcements would be is difficult to assert, but the proposal has its merits and needs to be considered. Other professional quarters have also recommended several remedies like upgraded infrastructure, new time-relevant syllabus, recruitment of teachers of merit, etc. What`, however, nags our subconscious is whether mere structural changes and policy corrections on paper can succeed to cleanse the system without fundamental corrections in the ethical DNA of our society and a simultaneous, willing moral rearmament. For, it was basically moral and social values on whose strong shoulders our once-proud school system was built and made to prosper. Schools neglected tantamount to stunting the future of the nation.