KG-to-PG free education: Daunting task ahead

The Telangana State government seems to have decided to go ahead with the KG-to-PG free education. For this, they would do well in the first instance to undertake a comprehensive survey of public and private schools in terms of their quantity, quality, stage of education and medium of instruction.

The most crucial decision to be taken relates to the stage of education at which English medium teaching has to be introduced. It may probably be appropriate to teach only language and basic maths till the students complete Class VI and introduce English medium to teach other subjects from Class VII as the cognition levels of students would be higher by then to grasp the lessons in the English medium. Even the cultural and linguistic differences between different languages, would be very much clear to students by then.

The state government is thinking rightly to introduce some geographical, historical and cultural topics related to Telangana in the curricula as, after all, the people in the State need to be aware of them as well as the ‘identity war’ waged for more than 60 years for separate state of Telangana.

But one fails to understand how this can be done through the CBSE syllabus which deals with all the aspects of the nation rather than a particular region like Telangana.

Highlighting some aspects of the Telangana region can only be done through the State syllabus. The State syllabus is formulated keeping in view the local public service commission exams and exams held by some others for the purposes of jobs for which geographical, historical, cultural and economic awareness of the region becomes a must.

It is for these reasons that we have been having a “state syllabus” separately. Adopting CBSE syllabus outrightly would create many problems. If the syllabus and the examination system etc of the CBSE are followed we have to follow everything else of it. We will have to follow the rules and regulations of recruitment and also offer the scales of pay offered by CBSE (which are central scales and are therefore higher). Can we do all this? Do we not then lose the freedom in the field of education altogether, if we adopt the CBSE scheme outrightly for the sake of English medium?

Therefore, the first immediate thing to do is to make a survey of the present infrastructural facilities of government schools and colleges. The second thing to do is to take steps to consolidate the existing institutions rather than expand, convert or amalgamate them. Expansion will create an acute staff problem more than any other. That will further damage the reputation of the government sector. A master plan for the consolidation and future expansion of educational institutions has to be got prepared first and for that a high-level Commission, like the Kothari Commission, of really committed and experienced educationists has to be constituted to do the work on a war footing to make appropriate recommendations.

While private institutions are charging very heavily and providing by and large what may be called glamorous education full of attractions, producing good results but by only grilling and drilling only, government institutions are not able to compete with them as they are starved of funds and facilities.

Slowly and steadily in the name of national and international standard of education, our school education is drifting into the hands of the CBSE which amounts to losing autonomy in many ways. Many schools get their recognition from CBSE without recourse to the state government as many professional colleges do from AICTE and UGC without recourse to the state government.

Though education is in the Concurrent list of the Constitution, it now appears to be drifting into the State list at least in our State.

In order to make the KG to PG English medium education a success, it is advisable to set up at least two days in a week to clear the doubts of students in Telugu language and also publish the course books in Telugu to enable them to understand the knowledge part of the course subjects well through them. It may also be advisable to allow the students to write their exams in Telugu also, as is done by UPSC to write the civil service exams. Telugu as a second language must be strengthened and continued up to the PG level by prescribing topics from social sciences, humanities and arts from Class VII onwards after teaching Telugu only as a language up to sixth class.
Prof Kancha Ilaiah feels that the English is the language of the upper castes as Sanskrit once was. Hence, those who don’t belong to the upper castes should be protected and provided certain concessions as proposed here, like ‘reservations’ for studying through the English medium to compete with the upper caste students and the urban students.

Hence, remedial instruction classes for two days in a week are suggested to be held in Telugu for a fairly long time to come. Even so, supply of books in Telugu as before has to be continued for additional reading and supplementing. As the BCs, the SCs, the STs, minorities and the rural students studying in interior areas suffer from a severe handicap when they have to compete with the students of urban areas. Mixed teaching in English and Telugu may also be adopted for some time to enable them to be on par with the urban and the upper caste students.

By: Dr Velchala Kondal Rao