The Education ‘Fads’ in India

Education Fads

There are several unusual challenges we face today in Indian education, and I wish to refer here ¹ to three ‘fads’ in education that are based on widely held misperceptions, which pose challenges to educational policymakers and planners. ‘Fad’ is an intensely and widely shared view which is usually not based on any strong evidence or any rigorous research, but with which people become obsessive. An objective observer may find them ridiculous, irrational, unreasonable, or even devilish fashions in some cases. They are also regarded as ‘mean-reverting deviations from intrinsic value caused by social or psychological forces’ (Camerer, 1989). In simple terms, fad is a defective idea which is systematised and popularised (Soldan, 1901). Normally fads are often seen as sudden, quick-spreading, widely popular, and short-lived opinions and they fade into the background soon. But the education fads I refer here are not short-lived; they have been here for quite some time and appear to stay for some more time, unless some strong forces take charge to work tirelessly to explode them. I feel that the following contemporary education fads are too important to be ignored, as they seem to pose a severe threat to the very basic nature and functions of education.

FAD 1: Private schools are efficient, providing better, in fact very superior quality education; and ipso facto, public (including government-aided private) schools are inefficient: teachers do not teach, schools do not function, and children do not learn anything.

There is a widespread belief among the people of all strata—ranging from highly educated people and those placed high in the occupational, social and economic ladder to illiterate people including house-helps and labourers—that there is great value in private schools: teachers in private schools are sincere, work hard, teach well, and make children learn. Parents also get convinced with heavy doses of homework regularly given, notes/remarks made in school diaries, regular provision of progress reports including on aspects such as character, behaviour, and attitudes of their children, etc., whatever be their genuineness. They also value strict discipline, firm annual schedule, regular parent-teacher meetings, fines for late arrival/absence in schools, weekly unit tests, year-end examinations, grades the students are given and the detention system, as reflective of quality and discipline that such schools impart. Some are also attracted by the very mention, in the brochures of fee receipts, of computer classes, music/dance classes, gym, swimming pool, excursions, foreign languages, etc., at primary, if not pre-primary, level.

Parents consider it highly prestigious to send their children to private schools; the prestige would be higher if the children are sent to higher fee-charging private schools. It is below the dignity of many parents belonging to not only middle classes but also lower socioeconomic strata to send their children to public schools, and/or seen as sending their children to public schools. Exceptions are very few. Initially an urban phenomenon, this has spread like a viral in the rural, including remote rural areas and as a result, private schools have mushroomed everywhere.

Parents also seem to believe that fees and quality of instruction in schools are positively related. They overlook the quality, qualifications, training, and other capabilities of the teachers. Even the quality and design of uniform, tie, belts, shoes, notebooks, supplementary textbooks, etc., are taken as reflective of high quality of education provided in these schools. The parents do not mind even if their children feel stressed and spoil their health marginally or significantly, travelling to/from schools for an hour or two early in the morning and in the mid-day, every day.

Parents are convinced that only if their children go to private schools, they will be able to go in future to higher education—to elite higher education institutions, or go abroad for studies/employment, or become Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officers, or can occupy big positions. They would even feel that if they send their children to public schools, they ruin their future. Parents also feel almost the same with respect to coaching institutions. They feel that coaching institutions and tuition centres take their children far higher in the educational, occupational, economic, and social hierarchy. They simply ignore the evidence that hundreds of students who do not take formal coaching classes do perform well, and that there is no correlation between coaching and learning or performance in entrance/competitive examinations. The greedy private schools and coaching institutions take advantage of these weaknesses among the parents, expand their education systems and go on escalating their charges. They have become nowadays ‘pure maximising financial-returns units’ for the businessmen and as a result the business is expanding with more and more ‘startups’ coming up. They go to any extent to lure gullible parents and students. Low-fee private school—known under different nomenclature such as low-cost school, affordable school, or budget school is another fad created by the private players; there is not much difference between them and the other private schools. All are run by private entrepreneurs whose sole motive is maximisation of profits, by charging fees, and employing less or unqualified teachers who are paid ‘minimum wages’.

Coaching institutions in a few states such as Andhra Pradesh and Telangana began offering package programmes—coaching for regular school grades plus coaching for entrance examinations in the same campuses, which are also mostly compulsorily residential. Parents seem to be heavily attracted to such packages, to such an extent that their children are enrolled in these institutions, say for entrance examinations (for admission in Indian Institutes of Technology for bachelors’ degree in engineering studies after some 12 years) even when the children are in grade I at the age of six. For instance, a mother proudly announced, ‘I have enrolled my daughter in the IIT foundation section since Class I as they [coaching institutions having IIT foundation courses along with coaching/regular classes for formal schooling] have the best faculty and peer group’. ² The amount of pressures that the young kids feel has been resulting in severe health problems, in some cases, even pushing them to commit suicide. Neither parents nor coaching institutions are bothered about such issues. Encouraged by parents’ considerations, these institutions plan to expand their business activities to other states as well.

It is important to underline that the research evidence on the superiority of private schools over public schools in providing quality education is not unequivocally clear. There is conflicting evidence. The small relative advantage children in private schools may enjoy in their performance over the students in public schools, if any, is mainly attributable to the home environment, characterised by educated parents, and availability of educational material at home, and not necessarily because of the private schools or the English medium in the private schools. There are a good number of studies that conclude that public schools do perform better than private schools in several countries. That private schools promote inequalities and impart values of exclusiveness, if not hatred for others, and certainly do not promote common values is well acknowledged. There is also no systematic evidence showing the importance of coaching in students’ performance.

It is indeed a very tough task to un-educate parents on these aspects, bring them out of false social prestige syndrome and re-educate them on the virtues of public schools. But the need to educate parents is immense. The provision of 25 per cent reservation in private schools in the Right to Education Act makes this challenge more serious, as the provision acknowledges implicitly, in fact very clearly, that private schools do better than public schools.

FAD 2: English as medium of instruction at primary level is very important; it improves language proficiency and will help children to perform outstandingly in the highly globalised world.

Most private schools provide instruction in English. So, this is also related to the earlier fad. Many parents seem to strongly feel that education in English medium—at primary (even pre-primary) level—would make their children fluent in English language, excellent in communications, brilliant in studies, and extraordinary in overall performance in schools, labour market, and the society at large, as English, in their view, is the gateway to modern knowledge; and in contrast, education in local language as medium would damage the future of their children. They strongly feel that if the medium of instruction in schools is not English at pre-primary and primary levels, the children would never be able to learn English well. There is a huge craze among Indian parents for English medium at primary (and pre-primary) and higher levels. Indian parents feel proud when their young kids speak in English, sing English rhymes, write English alphabets and words, etc., even if grossly incorrectly, rather than in their mother tongue correctly. They enjoy the activity of showcasing the English-speaking skills of their children. This is quite unfortunate.

Going by popular demand, many state governments have introduced English medium primary education in government schools, some exclusively and some in addition to local language (e.g., Bihar, West Bengal, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Punjab, Jammu & Kashmir, Nagaland and so on), even when teachers in primary schools are not trained to speak and teach simple and correct English, and even when many argue against English medium, as causing hindrance to the growth of mental abilities of the young kids. Teaching English is an abysmal state allover India. We severely lack trained teachers to teach in primary and even upper primary schools. Yet ‘people’s choice’/‘preference’/‘demand’ sometimes collected by governments through WhatsApp and SMS messages, is cited often by the governments to decide in favour of English as the medium of instruction in schools. The ruling political parties also see it as a vote-catching mechanism, to their advantage.

Organisations like UNESCO and most educationists, linguists, behavioural and child psychologists and paediatricians argue with evidence that children learn better and probably faster also if they are taught in mother tongue or at least in home/local language. Mother tongue plays a vital role in framing the thinking and emotions of people. But for the ex-colonies, in most non-English speaking countries the local language is the medium of instruction not only in primary schools but also even in higher education. The virtues of learning in mother tongue particularly at early stages are too valuable to forego. It helps children not only to learn the subject well, but also to imagine, think, and express their views much better. Some also argue that education in mother tongue is a form of justice and a measure of empowerment of the students. There is a consensus among many experts that mother tongue or the local language is the most appropriate language for use as medium of instruction in schools.

English medium may actually disempower the children as they lose the joy of free expression, a multitude of cognitive benefits and other advantages associated with teaching and learning in mother tongue. English medium in schools, local language in out-of-school, and mother tongue at home, if different from local language, may indeed create barriers to learning any language properly. The National Education Policy 2020 (GoI, 2020) suggested use of local language or mother tongue in primary education, preferably until grade VIII, ‘wherever possible’ giving a choice to states and schools. But still many governments seem to opt for English medium. The Policy also suggests introducing multiple languages to very young children. How far that is good for children’s development is one aspect; more over given the quality of teachers, there is a danger that children may turn out to be not learning any language well—English, or mother tongue, or local language. One must respect every language, and every language should be taught and learnt correctly. It is not proper to be content with ‘tolerable’ English/other languages, or simple ability to communicate in a language like English. Unfortunately, no language is being properly taught in our schools, and as a result, children even from higher secondary schools and colleges turn out to be good at no single language!

Paradoxically, while many states tend to provide English medium at elementary (and secondary) level, some have been arguing, and have even introduced mother tongue or regional languages—Hindi, Bengali, Telugu, Tamil, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, and Marathi—as medium of instruction in higher education, including in case of engineering education, as suggested by the All India Council for Technical Education, hoping that students ‘can grasp the fundamentals in a much better way’ and that it would help aspirants, particularly from rural and tribal areas, realise their dreams. Further, the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE), or the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) and other national level prominent competitive examinations are now held in several regional languages across different states. What a paradoxical perspective! How reasonable it is to imagine that students in pre-/primary education do not have to be taught in local language as they can be assumed to be able to understand the subject well and grasp the fundamentals in an effective way if they are taught in English language and students in higher education will perform well in their courses and competitive examinations, if taught (and/or given a chance to appear for examinations) in the local language or mother tongue!

We need to make a distinction between teaching English as a language and using it as a medium of instruction. Parents do not seem to be making any distinction, nor do the governments. Basic knowledge of English is critical nowadays for all students, and hence it needs to be taught, as a subject, and not necessarily used as a medium of instruction. Pedagogical reforms may have to focus on improving teaching of English and other languages (and also other subjects) in schools.

In fact, a language may be taught as a subject, but the medium of instruction should, better be the mother tongue or local language. Multi-lingual space may be provided in the school system so that children get an option to choose any other language as a subject to be taught, while mother tongue remains the medium of instruction, and also as a subject. Unfortunately, at the political level, English medium took different forms, adding unnecessary political colours, creating love and hatred for specific languages among the people. The strands of politics on language are indeed disturbing. The National Education Policy could have been clearer and more assertive on this aspect.

FAD 3: Pre-primary education is essential, as it not only makes children school-ready, but also it lays strong foundations for building learning abilities among the children. It is good that young children are taught alphabets, numbers, words, sentences, etc., along with speaking and writing skills even at an early age.

Indian parents seem to be very eager to send their children to school, with a view that it is better to start education at an early age (and in the process begin transferring responsibilities of children’s growth and education to schools and teachers at an early age.) If allowed, Indian parents seem to be eager to send even 1-year-old children to schools. Alas, rules do not permit! In the process the basic fundamental right of young children to live with their parents and families and enjoy their early childhood at home, is getting disrupted, if not violated altogether.

In many educationally advanced countries, like Finland which is widely recognised for having the best education system, schooling starts at the age of 6 or 7. This allows children to enjoy their childhood with their parents and at home, which in turn allows natural growth of children’s mind and body. Research shows that young children benefit considerably from extended exposure to play in home environment rather than an instruction-based formal environment of a school. According to scientists, 80 per cent of the brain develops by the time a child reaches the age of 4–5; that is, a child grasps on his own all that is worth learning for life, by the time the child is 4–5 years old. According to a pioneer in spiritual psychodynamics and a renowned author, Deep Trivedi (2016), it is best to “not interfere or experiment much with children” during this phase; rather leave children untouched with any such intervention by the parents or teachers. Formal teaching and imparting of information at that stage by formal teachers in structured formats may actually turn out to be harmful for the healthy growth of the child. Play and recreation are very important for young children’s health, development, and well-being. As schooling is quite formal, it obstructs the natural growth of learning. As some argue, the formal schooling system blunts the natural growth of children’s brains. Hence it may be good to defer it at least until the age of 6. It has also been found that delayed start of schooling had a dramatic effect in improving the capacity for attentiveness, as well as lowering the levels of hyperactivity among children. In addition, as educationist Krishna Kumar argues, writing, perhaps even painting, at an early age may hamper the growth of finger bones, joints, muscles, and ligaments and may cause even disabilities, in addition to other learning deficiencies. Children should be motorically efficient before they begin writing or pronouncing alphabets, numbers, and words. Between 3 and 5 years, children’s physical growth and motor development is normally slow and the schooling activities make this slower.

The advantage of early childhood education on cognitive development of children, in getting better scores in examinations later, wanes, after grade VII or VIII, as some research has shown. While there might be some quick advantage, there is no evidence of long-lasting effect of the gains, if any, of early schooling.

Children do not have to be made school-ready. When they enter school for the first time for grade I, they will quickly get adjusted, as experiences in many societies make clear.

Many well-intended social activists have advocated strongly to take pre-school education into the purview of the Right to Education Act. It is widely known that pre-school (early) childcare, nursery schools, kindergartens, or whatever be the nomenclature—all focus, in practice, predominantly on subjecting the children to writing, reading, learning, painting, and other similar activities. The National Education Policy (2020) suggested introduction of foundational level of schooling that includes the presently practised 2 years of pre-schooling and 3 years of primary education, and transfer of all pre-school activities to the jurisdiction of the education ministry– schools and to teachers. Since teachers are good in teaching, they prefer teaching to taking care of other child development activities such as nutrition and health of the children, which is as of now the responsibility of anganwadis ³ (and the department/ministry of child development). Many states like Uttar Pradesh have already converted (or decided to convert) all anganwadis into formal pre-primary schools; and to train anganwadi workers to become formal preschool teachers. How far the proposed change is efficient and good for child development needs to be thoroughly examined.

In all these above-mentioned aspects, there is a need first to explode the myths surrounding them, educate the Indian parents with proper knowledge, so that they make wise choices and proper demands on the public system. After all, the role of parents, teachers and schools, and their coordination are very critical in building a healthy educational environment.

Unfortunately, some advocates of equity and progressiveness (public intellectuals and some scholars specialised in Dalit studies, for example) also favour (a) English medium, (b) pre-primary schooling, and (c) access to private schools, as measures of mitigating the historical disadvantages suffered by weaker sections and bringing them on par to the others, without looking at the likely further accentuation of these divisions and disadvantages by these measures.

False Perceptions

Now I refer to three similar ‘fads’ that are shared widely or at least by many governments, that may explain the lack of interest and firm commitment of the government—central/states—to education.

Education Is Not Important for Development

Governments seem to consider that it is not education but investment in physical capital that matters most for rapid economic growth and development. Long ago, Schultz (1960) observed that physical capital was overvalued, and human capital undervalued. This presumption seems to continue. Governments tend to accord high priority to mining and manufacturing, construction, industry, international trade, banking, etc., and ignore or accord very low priority to education.

Abundant research and contemporary as well as historical experiences show clearly that there is a strong positive relationship between education and development. Education is critical for economic growth, and technological progress, besides social, political, and cultural advancement. It needs higher priority than what is being given, in policy making, planning, and budgeting. After all, education is concerned with everyone in the country—whether one is going to school or not. It is also concerned with the future of the nation. Since education is a very long-term activity, it also has long-term effects—it can help in creating profound future for the country, or if mistakes are made, it can cause irreparable damage to the society in all its facets. It must be realised that adequate public funding of education is essential to ensure the future of a nation.

Private Education Is As Good As, If Not Better, Than Public Education for National Development

Not only the people, but many governments tend to think that there are no problems with private education and that it contributes to development. They also hold that it does not matter—public or private, as long as people get educated. The instrument or the process is not cared for. They also tend to think that there are no ill effects of the commercially oriented private education business activities. They seem to equate education to any other business, and argue that if private sector participation is allowed in other business activities, there is nothing wrong in allowing the same in education activities and even in promoting education enterprises on the same principles of commerce and trade. Since profit is the norm in normal business, it is argued that this also needs to be allowed in education business. For a long time, it was felt that it was ok if private education which was also peripheral in size, would supplement public education. Nowadays it is being argued that it is perfectly fine, even if the private sector grows to a size larger than public education and even if it eventually replaces the latter.

But it is too costly to ignore the fact that education is different from other goods and services; it cannot be equated to normal business activities. It is a valuable and a unique public good, a merit good, a ‘social’ investment, a noble activity, and a long-term investment in human beings, producing a huge set of externalities. It is closely related to a society’s culture, and to every aspect of human welfare and the society. It is difficult to think of a comparable good or service that has so many unique characteristic features.

It is important to realise that it is public education that lays strong foundations for national development and a vibrant democracy, and that private education—particularly commercially oriented profit-seeking private education—does not help in proper education development or serve national development well. In fact, it may produce several negative effects—creating market-oriented values as against citizenship and human values, and overlooking of the public good nature of education, which would be very costly to a healthy society and its progress. Eventually the governments will have to make heavy investments to correct the anomalies created by the greedy private players in education, and bring back the nation on to the path of progress towards a humane society.

It is also important to recognise the need to introduce serious curbs on the growth of private education. After all, it is the emergence of private education that created problems for public education system and a multitude of distortions in the society. It is too naive to think that public education system can compete with the ‘powerful’ private players in the present environment. After all, markets in education are highly imperfect everywhere.

However, it is important to note that with deplorable conditions relating to teachers and physical infrastructure, many government schools in rural areas are ‘in danger of being displaced by cheap and dingy tuition centres (and cheap private schools)—an unhealthy environment for children’ (Jan Jagaran Shaki Sansthan, 2023). ⁴ Hence, inter alia, there is an urgent need to rejuvenate the public school system on an extensive scale and to ensure provision of (a) good quality, qualified teachers in sufficient numbers in all public schools, and (b) attractive school environment with libraries, playground, laboratories, etc. (GoI, 2016; Tilak, 2017). It has to be felt by the wider community that public schools function well, rather better than private schools, impart good quality education, and thereby their children would be better off in public schools, where their future would be secure.

‘Common School System’ May Not Promote Competition, Efficiency, and Development

It is generally felt that a common school system is not necessary, in fact not desirable, for the development of a competitive strong education system; it goes against efficiency and individual progress. Individual choice should be respected, and the students should not be required to go to the school in a given habitation area or the ‘neighbourhood’. The principles of ‘individual choice’ and ‘ability to pay’, which should not have any place in education, have become dominant themes in public policy in education.

It has to be realised that common school system is one which ensures free education of an equitable quality to all children in a country irrespective of their socioeconomic background, without any discrimination by gender, caste, creed, religion, community, language, economic condition, or social status. It is also a system, in which all the children in an area attend the public school in the neighbourhood, where rich and poor children read, write, and play together under one roof. The system provides equitable education to all, and not necessarily uniform—in quality and content, education. Almost all developed countries having a common school system oblige all the parents to send their children to the school in the neighbourhood only, which is also public.

The potential benefit of the common school system is not well recognised in India and perhaps in many other societies. Built on the principles of equity and social justice, the common school system can be an effective solution to many of the ills that many societies nowadays suffer from, most importantly the inequalities, discrimination, and the resultant class conflicts. Government has to be convincingly shown that there is no better alternative than common school system, with an inbuilt neighbourhood school structure, to promote shared values among all, and that this helps in strong nation building—an equitable society, economically egalitarian, socially harmonious, politically sustainable, culturally rich, and overall a highly progressive humane society. Its contribution to the advancement of the society would be of immense magnitude. However, as the Kothari Commission ⁵ has stated, there should be a good public school in every neighbourhood and the government should maintain the schools under this system with ‘adequate level of quality and efficiency so that no parent would ordinarily feel any need to send his child to the institutions outside the system’.

If these and similar fads prevalent among the people and the governments are exploded, it is certain that the promised amrit kaal will usher in soon in education in India.