Universal Quality Basic Education There is no need to justify anymore the importance of universal quality education as it defines the quality of nation. Any attempt to impose the superstructure of quality education from top on weak foundation is not going to give the desired result. Even the skill development program will be greatly impacted for want of desired quality at the entrée level. The new market demands of skills are going to be of highly mobile and of shifting nature and require adaptability and ability to learn new skills continuously and that flexibility will be provided by the quality basic education. Therefore, I am enclosing the draft for first tentative goalpost for discussion of learned and interested public. I have given focus on values and government welfare schemes so that knowledge and transparency can act against corruption in securing claims and entitlements for poor and help in developing more affinity to the government and the nation. As an intelligent society, it is quite natural to have differing perspectives of the issues involved but, without any hesitation we all should join to demand and support the cause of Universal Quality Education without waiting for agreed definition of quality basic education as it may take a long time.To begin with, we may agree on competency to claim entitlements for government welfare schemes, making available full details for all primary and secondary schools on the web site, financial literacy, and promotion of a culture of hard work, commitment and social responsibility so as to develop as a responsible citizen. As a first step, I appeal to all concerned and enlightened citizens, corporates, and all organisation – government or non-government - to adopt and display the slogan “We Support Universal Quality Education” prominently in their letterhead or e-mails as header or footer and request others as well to do the same. This is a peaceful but effective way of expressing the silent and repressed demand in a visible manner. And in a democracy only visible demands matter. But this visibility is expression of the universal desire of the masses of India without any exclusion. Of course choice is yours and decision to support an inclusive India, a progressive India, and a peaceful and harmonised India is entirely yours and that too without any cost or additional effort. And if you want to contribute more, then organise debate on UQE, the RTE Act and its impact on the quality of education and suggest improvements and similar relevant issues concerning quality of education, create UQE club in your organisation and provide necessary help and environment to the club for its outreach activities in the neighbourhood and on the social media and any other positive activity to promote quality of education locally or on a wider platform. J.K. TEWARI
[email protected] Managing Trustee LOK JAGRITI TRUST Bhubaneswar (Orissa) INDIA
Draft for Universal Quality Basic Education The quality basic education will have following features as a first goalpost and will be regularly reviewed. The present goalpost may be modified appropriately and, if required, new goalposts may also be added to make it more relevant during review: 1.
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A student of class 8thmust know full details of all the government welfare schemes, both individual and community oriented, and should be able to demand, make claim and seek entitlements in deserving cases for self or help others in claiming it. He should be able to apply, fill up the relevant forms, collect the relevant certificates essential for making claims from the concerned authorities and submit to the designated authority. In case of any genuine complaint or grievance, he should be able to take the issues to the concerned higher authorities for grievance redressal. He should also know the background information under which these schemes were introduced and what type of developments or situation may lead to their termination. Education should be related to real life situations especially for poor. From 9th onwards the students should be taught goal setting for them depending on their strength and capability and given career guidance. For this purpose, the teachers should also be trained so as to help the students. A properly designed e-education program will also be useful for this purpose. Tribal schools and remote area schools may be provided with e-learning facility urgently and also a solar charger to serve as a backup. Curiosity and cultural values have to be inculcated in the minds of the students so as to create a trustworthy and dynamic society. The student should be made to absorb the value of dignity and self-esteem and its linkage to achieving financial freedom through rightful means. Further the students must be taught the value of cooperative effort for progress in life. Basic financial literacy must be taught from 8th standard onwards. Basic ingredients of selfemployment and entrepreneurship and its potential vis-à-vis government service should be taught from 10th standard onwards. Self-employment and entrepreneurship should be encouraged. National curriculum should be developed in consultation with all the existing Boards and uniformly applied throughout the country. States/Boards will be at liberty to add additional educational material but not remove any content from the national curriculum. We should adopt tri-language formula i.e. local/state, national (Hindi) and International language (English) for learning i.e. all the students must learn all the three languages. Full details of all primary and secondary schools must be displayed on the district web site and also on the web site of the education department. This should include name and address of the school, number of students class and section wise and total number, full details of each teacher like name, qualifications and photograph, facilities available in the school with photographs, entrée level and subsequent result of the students. Recycling of books should be encouraged and may be treated as a practical exercise for waste reduction. Any changes in the curriculum should be available on the NCERT site for downloading free of cost which may be provided to the students. We should encourage reading textbook and also ancillary studies on kindle to reduce the load of bag and save paper.
10. In each class students should be divided into several groups with diverse talents and group studies, projects, presentations and activities should be entrusted and encouraged and group assessment should be done to instil team spirit in them. 11. Every student will be given a topic every month to prepare and deliver a speech in front of the class to develop the skills of public speaking. Senior students will be equipped to take classes for junior level. 12. In good schools with broadband connectivity, every student will be given an email address which will be allowed even after he has left the college for remaining in touch with the faculty, friends and involving in activities of the school. They should be given project for working on Facebook for guided intellectual group activities, editing Wikipedia pages and participating group discussions. 13. Every school must introduce mentorship system. Every student will be provided with one student and one teacher mentor. They will try to analyse the qualities of students and take all possible measures to further strengthen the strength of their mentee. Reasonable performance in other fields should be acceptable. Society will be inclined to use the strength of individuals as their weaknesses will be strength of some other individuals which will be utilised by the society. That way society covers the weakness of the individuals. 14. The management should try to inculcate culture of thinking and innovation in the faculty. For this purpose every teacher should read at least one book outside his subject of teaching and equal reading pertaining to his subject and make a presentation before entire faculty.
