Expert Educators Summer Reading Lists
With summer holidays approaching, a select mix of knowledgeable educationists, teacher trainers and principals recommend a miscellany of extra-curricular reading for teachers and educators – Summiya Yasmeen In under-appreciated perquisite of the teacher’s job is the long summer break which normatively extends to eight weeks in India. With school summer holidays beginning this month (April), this hiatus offers the country’s overworked 8 million school teachers a great opportunity for extra-curricular reading. It’s an open but seldom discussed truth, that most of our school teachers are notoriously ill-read. Ask any teacher you know what non-prescribed book she is reading currently. The most likely answer is a non-committal mumble. The great majority of them don’t read beyond prescribed textbooks they are hired to teach, and in some cases don’t even read them in entirety, focusing on selected chapters and photocopied notes passed on by their predecessors. But with the gradual shift from traditional rote learning to interactive pedagogies the world over, this teacher knowledge deficit is beginning to show up in classrooms across the country as children score poorly on 21st century skills of creativity, critical thinking, collaboration and problem-solving. “It’s sad but substantially true, that the overwhelming majority of school teachers in India don’t read anything beyond board-prescribed textbooks. There’s a conspicuous deficit of reading for pleasure in school staff rooms, as in most homes across the country. Even in the best private schools equipped with well-stocked libraries, teachers seldom read. This is unfortunate as reading equips teachers with competencies and confidence to go beyond set curriculums and stimulate the creative thinking and innovation capabilities of their students. And most important, a well-read teacher is an excellent role model for her students, encouraging them to develop the reading habit,” says Prof. Geeta Kingdon, chair of education economics and international development at the Institute of Education, University College, London and president of the City Montessori School, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh’s top-ranked co-ed day school in the EducationWorld India School Rankings 2018-19. More than a decade ago in 2007-08, Prof. Kingdon conducted a study titled SchoolTELLS Study — Understanding Teacher Capabilities in rural Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Other than important revelations about teachers’ subject matter knowledge and classroom management capabilities, the study found that less than 5 percent of teachers read non-prescribed books, and even these were religious texts such as the Bhagwad Gita and Ramayana. “Unfortunately, there is widespread apathy among teachers. World Bank surveys of teacher truancy and teachers’ time-on-task indicate high teacher absenteeism of almost 25 percent in government schools, and low time expended on teaching tasks. If public school teachers attend school, assign homework, assess pupils, monitor extra-curricular activities and ensure good learning outcomes, they will also develop the inclination to read to expand their knowledge and horizons and introduce teaching-learning innovations in their classrooms,” says Kingdon. A commonly advanced excuse for school teachers being ill read — especially in rural India — is the conspicuous lack of public and school libraries. According to Pratham’s Annual Status of Education Report…
India’s lamentable social progress
– Rahul Singh, former editor, Reader’s Digest and author of Family Planning Success Stories: Asia, Africa and Latin America In the final lap of General Election 2019 with electioneering at fever pitch, a major plank of the ruling BJP-led NDA coalition at the Centre is that during its tenure, India has become the fastest growing major economy of the world. That may be so, but the BJP and its predecessor Congress-led UPA government have failed miserably in the social sector. Nowhere else in the world, except perhaps sub-Sahara Africa, does one witness such glaring inequality, festering slums next to gleaming steel and glass skyscrapers and dirt-poor people jostling with multi-millionaires. It’s a disgraceful situation of which all Indians should be ashamed. Within the social sector, I shall highlight only three areas — primary education, primary health (including sanitation) and family planning. All are inter-connected. Without good quality healthcare and high literacy, a country can’t implement a successful family planning programme. The much proclaimed ‘demographic dividend’ of India — one-third the population is below 24 years of age — could easily transform into a demographic disaster if the great majority in a rapidly growing population is either illiterate or so poorly educated that they are unemployable. The demographic dividend has been realised in some countries including Thailand, South Korea and Taiwan, even Indonesia, because their governments built strong foundations, providing good primary education and healthcare. As a result, they have an educated workforce that can be gainfully employed in the manufacturing and service sectors, which are the engines of growth in a modern economy. Provision of quality healthcare results in the survival of children and longer life spans. When couples comprehend that the children they bear are very likely to survive childhood, they tend to have fewer children, perhaps two or three at most (fertility rate). But they need to be sufficiently educated to understand that, and ways and means to access a variety of contraceptives. India has failed under all these social parameters. Ever since Sanjay Gandhi’s disastrous mass sterilisation programme during his mother’s notorious Emergency rule, a programme that was partly responsible for the Congress Party’s electoral rout in 1977, family planning has become a dirty word. Both the Congress and BJP have steered clear of it and the popular contraception option is female sterilisation. Consequently, India’s population growth rate especially in states like UP and Bihar, remains much too high. An unsustainable 20 million people — an Australia — are added to the Indian population every year. These 20 million have to be fed, housed, educated and employed, and India has not been up to the task. Even largely Muslim Indonesia has made greater strides in family planning, together with better healthcare and higher literacy. When India and Indonesia became independent nations at approximately the same time, India’s social parameters in terms of literacy and health were much better than Indonesia’s. Today, it is the other way round. But perhaps our greatest failure has been in primary education.…