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मंदार शिंदे
Mandar Shinde

Wednesday, June 10, 2020

Is Formal Education Relevant Anymore?

शिकून करायचंय काय?


   घरचे सगळे लग्नकार्यासाठी बाहेरगावी निघाले की लहान मुलांपुढं धर्मसंकट उभं रहायचं. शाळा बुडेल म्हणून येणार नाही असं म्हणायची सोय नव्हती. शिकून लय मोठा कलेक्टर/बॅलिस्टर होनारेस काय? असा प्रश्न तयार असायचा. खूप जास्त (अर्थात खूप वर्षं) शिकत गेलं की, बॅरिस्टर किंवा कलेक्टर होता येतं एवढंच त्यावेळी कळायचं.

   इंजिनियरिंगला प्रवेश मिळाला की घराण्याचा उद्धार (चांगल्या अर्थानं) झाल्यागत ट्रीटमेंट मिळायची. गणित चांगलं पाहिजे इंजिनियरिंगसाठी, अशी धमकी शाळेपासूनच दिली जायची. गणित विषय कच्चा ठेवला तर इंजिनियरिंगपासून वाचता येईल, अशा भ्रमात असलेल्यांवर कुणीतरी नवीनच बॉम्ब टाकून जायचं… पोराचं ड्रॉईंग चांगलं आहे, इंजिनियरिंगला घाला, असा सल्ला देणारे भेटायचे. दोन डोंगरांच्या मधोमध उगवणारा हसरा सूर्य, त्याच्या गळ्यातून पाझरणारी नदी, त्या नदीच्या काठावर नारळाचं झाड आणि झाडाखाली कौलारु घर, ह्या असल्या ‘ड्रॉईंग’चा इंजिनियरिंगशी संबंध लावणारे उपदेशक भेटले की धन्य धन्य वाटायचं.

   पुन्या-मुंबैला चार-पाच वर्षं नोकरीत घालवली की गावाकडं आल्यावर ठरलेले प्रश्न आदळायचे. कौन बनेगा करोडपती जणू… पहिला सवाल, पगार किती वाढला? दुसरा सवाल, पर्मनंट झाला का? आणि तिसरा सवाल, मॅनेंजर कधी होनार?

   बॅरिस्टर, कलेक्टर, इंजिनियर, आणि मॅनेजर… करियर मोजायची मापं होती मागच्या पिढीपर्यंत तरी. किलोग्रॅम, मिलीग्रॅम, सेंटीग्रॅम ह्यासारखी. आधी बीएस्सी बीकॉम करुन डीबीयम करायचे किंवा नुसत्या अनुभवाच्या आधारावर मॅनेंजर व्हायचे. मग डायरेक्ट मॅनेंजरच बनवनारी यम्बीए डिग्री आली. उगंच हिकडं-तिकडं वेळ घालवायला नको. डिग्री घेतली की थेट मॅनेंजरची खुर्ची, केबिन, गाडी, वगैरे वगैरे.

   प्रत्यक्ष फील्डवर काम करनारे ऑप्रेटर क्याटेगरीत मोडतात (खरोखर मोडतात). धंद्यात पैसा गुंतवनारे मालक किंवा डायरेक्टर म्हनून वळखले जातात. मालकाच्या मर्जीनुसार ऑप्रेटरकडून काम करुन घेनाऱ्यांची मॅनेंजर नावाची जात निर्मान झाली. प्लॅनिंग करायचं, त्यानुसार काम होतंय का बघायचं, झालं तर बक्षिस मिळवायचं, नाही झालं तर रिपोर्टमधे कारण लिहून कळवायचं. मालकाएवढी रिस्क नाही आणि ऑप्रेटरएवढे कष्ट नाहीत. मला सांगा, सुख म्हणजे आणखी काय असतं?

   पण कहानीमधे नवा ट्विस्ट आला. सॉरी, कॉम्प्युटर आला. मागोमाग ढीगभर सॉफ्टवेअर आणि इंटरनेट आले. एक माणूस सात दिवसांत एक भिंत बांधतो, तर एका दिवसात भिंत बांधायला किती माणसं लागतील? असा प्रश्न कॉम्प्युटरला विचारा. तुम्हाला फक्त माणसांचा आकडा मिळेल काय? नाही! मागच्या पाचशे वर्षांत जगभरात बांधलेल्या भिंतींची उंची, खपलेल्या विटा आणि सिमेंट, रुपये पैसे डॉलर युरोमध्ये एकूण खर्च, सरासरी वेळ आणि भिंतींचं आयुष्य, ज्ञानेश्वरांनी चालवलेल्या भिंतीपासून चीननं बांधलेल्या आणि जर्मनीनं पाडलेल्या भिंतींपर्यंत सगळा इतिहास, भूगोल, गणित, सामान्य विज्ञान, असामान्य अर्थशास्त्र आणि अतिसामान्य नागरिकशास्त्र आपल्यासमोर सादर करणारा अल्लाउद्दीनच्या दिव्यातला राक्षस जन्माला आला आणि त्यानं मॅनेंजर जातीचं आयुष्य कुरतडायला सुरुवात केली.

   भविष्यात करायच्या कामाचं नियोजन, त्यासाठी लागणाऱ्या खर्चाचा अंदाज, चालू कामावर देखरेख, झालेल्या कामाचं रिपोर्टींग, ह्या सगळ्या गोष्टी कॉम्प्युटरच करायला लागलाय. इमारतीपासून गाडीपर्यंत सगळ्यांचं डिझाईन फट्‌ म्हणता समोर हजर! रोगाची लक्षणं टाईप केली की औषधांची यादी तयार. गुन्हा सांगितला की पीनल कोडमधली कलमं सांगणार आणि त्यातून पळून जायच्या वाटासुद्धा तोच सांगणार. जन्मतारीख आणि वेळ सांगितली की कुंडलीसुद्धा काढून देणार. इंजिनियरपासून भटजीपर्यंत सगळ्यांच्या पोटावर पाय देणारा वामनाचा अवतारच जणू…

   अक्षर चांगलं येण्यासाठी दुरेघी, चौरेघी वह्यांमध्ये बालपण पिळून वाळत घातलं जायचं. आता चेकवरसुद्धा सही करायची गरज नाही, कार्ड स्वाईप करायचं नाहीतर ऑनलाईन ओटीपी टाकायचा. आयुष्यातली कोवळी वर्षं झिजवून घडवलेलं मोत्यासारखं अक्षर आता दाखवायचं कुणाला आणि कुठं? इंग्रजीतला धडा मराठीत आणि मराठीतला इंग्रजीत करायला शिकलेल्यांनी गुगल ट्रान्सलेटला कुठं गाठून प्रश्न करावा, “तुम मुझे पहले क्यूँ नहीं मिले?”

   वयाच्या विसाव्या वर्षापर्यंत ज्यांच्या गल्लीत वीस घरांमधे मिळून एक लॅन्डलाईन होता, त्यांनी चाळीशी गाठेपर्यंत माणशी किमान एक स्मार्टफोन हातात आलेला बघितला. तंत्रज्ञानाचा वेग म्हणतात त्यो ह्यालाच काय? मग ह्या रोज बदलणाऱ्या तंत्रज्ञानाला आवरु शकेल, सावरु शकेल, असे बदल आपल्या शिक्षण पद्धतीमध्ये होताना दिसतायत का?

   वर सांगितलेली सगळी उदाहरणं पहिली ते दहावीपर्यंत शिकत असलेल्या पोरा-पोरींना दाखवू नका. इंजिनियर आणि मॅनेंजर व्हायला निघालेल्या तरुण पोरांपासूनसुद्धा लपवून ठेवा. कारण ही पिढी गपगुमान ऐकून घेणारी नाही, प्रश्न विचारणारी आहे. आणि त्यांच्या प्रश्नांना उत्तरं द्यायची तुमची-आमची कपॅसिटीच नाही. इथं आपलं आपल्याला कळंना झालंय, टेक्नॉलॉजी म्हंत्यात ती नेमकी कुठनं घुसली आणि कुठनं बाहेर आलीया.

   तंत्रज्ञानाच्या वेगामुळं झीट येऊन पडले नाहीत असे काही विचारवंत अजून आपल्या आजूबाजूला शिल्लक आहेत. त्यांनी मागचा-पुढचा नीट अभ्यास करुन मत मांडलेलं आहे की, इथून पुढं एक तर लई वरचे जॉब शिल्लक राहतील नाहीतर एकदम खालचे. मधल्या लोकांचं काम संपलं. म्हणजे मालक आणि ऑप्रेटरची गरज इथून पुढं राहिली तरी मॅनेंजर नावाच्या मध्यस्थाचा टाईम औट झालेला आहे. मशीन तयार करणारा आणि मशीन चालवणारा, अशा दोनच प्रकारच्या लोकांची गरज इथून पुढं राहील. त्यामुळं नुसत्या इंजिनियरला काम मिळणं अवघड आहे. त्यानं एकतर इंजिनियर-कम-सायंटीस्ट व्हायचं, नाहीतर इंजिनियर-कमी-ऑप्रेटर-जास्त व्हायचं.

   आज शाळेत आणि कॉलेजात शिकणाऱ्या देवाघरच्या फुलांना आपण हे निर्माल्याचं सत्य कधी दाखवणार आहोत? आपलं कोंबडं आरवलं नाही तरी त्यांचा सूर्य उगवणारच आहे. किमान आपण त्यांना वेळेवर सावध केल्याचं समाधान तरी पदरी पाडून घ्यायचं का नाहीच? गणित, पाढे, प्रमेय, सिद्धांत, हस्ताक्षर, भाषांतर, परीक्षा, मार्क, स्पर्धा, ऐडमिशन, ह्या चक्रव्यूहात अडकलेल्या अभिमन्यूला आपण बाहेर काढायचा प्रयत्न करणार, की महाभारताची पुनरावृत्ती करत अजूनच त्याला घेरून टाकणार?

   शिक्षणासाठी आजच्या आणि कालच्या पिढीनं अमाप कष्ट उपसले ही वस्तुस्थिती आहे. परवाची पिढी विचारायची, शिकून लय मोठा कलेक्टर होनारेस काय? आता उद्याची पिढी विचारेल, आम्ही शिकून नक्की करायचंय काय? वर्तुळ पूर्ण व्हायला लागलंय बहुतेक. अडचण एवढीच आहे की, आपण त्या वर्तुळाच्या आतमध्ये अडकलोय. टोकं जुळायच्या आधी आपल्याला उत्तर शोधलंच पाहिजे - शिकून नक्की करायचंय काय?


- मंदार शिंदे
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Wednesday, June 3, 2020

Changing Landscape of Education in Italy and in India

Changing Landscape of Education, in Italy and in India

Tobias Jones is a journalist living in Italy with his Italian wife and three children aged 15, 13, and 9. He wrote an article for The Guardian on April 24, 2020 about the situation after school closure in Italy due to COVID-19 outbreak. The article helps us understand how the education system in Italy works. At the same time, some important points in the article made me think about and compare with the state of education in India. Please read and let me know your views.

Mandar Shinde | June 02, 2020 | shindemandar@yahoo.com


Jones mentions that Italy spends a lot less on education than almost every other western country. Spending per student (from primary school to university) equates to 8,966 US Dollars per annum, compared to 11,028 US Dollars in the UK and 11,502 US Dollars in Sweden. Education activists in India have been demanding that 6% of the country's GDP should be spent on education, while the latest reports indicate up to 3% of GDP being spent in reality.

Interestingly, Jones mentions that the Education Minister, Lorenzo Fioramonti resigned in December 2019, in protest of the under-investment on education in Italy. Can you imagine any Indian minister doing that? Just kidding!

Jones informs that there's minimal teacher-training in Italy. Well, it sounds very similar to the Indian approach towards capacity building of teachers. According to Jones, university graduates are often thrown into a classroom without any knowledge of pedagogic theories or practical experience. Inspections are almost unheard of. The result is that Italian education is, at its worst, particularly conservative and condescending: the student is seen as an empty vessel to be filled with knowledge that is poured back in exams. Sounds familiar to the Indian ears, doesn't it?

Jones writes that Italy has the oldest teachers in the world - 59% are over 50 – which has left Italian schools heavily analogue. Kids carry a dozen books to and from school every day in massive backpacks. Jones compares the Italian children with Obelix, a cartoon character in the French comic book series Asterix, who is noted for the menhirs (huge standing stones) he carries around on his back for sculpting. This does not seem like a promising basis for remote learning, he mentions.

Several museums, theatres, aquariums and zoos opened their virtual doors during the lockdown period. Parents started posting pictures of their well-behaved children clicking their way through the museums in different parts of the world. Jones admits that his children spent time watching TV series on Netflix, which made him and his wife feel guilty that they weren’t sharing these cultural delights with their children. It seems that the pandemic somehow took the people out of the rat race, but it could not take the race out of the people. This applies to the Indian parents as well.

After two weeks into lockdown, the teachers in Italy started dumping a load of homework on their students. Jones mentions that many teachers decided it was the best way to send out entire chapters of books for children to learn, and hundreds of pages of exercises to complete. So much for the use of technology and moving towards online education! Even in India, many of the teachers and authorities consider conversion of books from printed to pdf formats equivalent to digitalisation of education. Most of the lockdown period in India was supposed to coincide with summer vacations, but some over-enthusiastic teachers continued to teach children through various online platforms even in the months of April and May.

Jones mentions that the closing of all Italy’s schools forced teachers to invent a new kind of classroom from scratch. There were no ministerial guidelines or approved websites. Jones quotes Daniele Martino, a middle-school teacher in Turin saying: “The entirety of this new form of online teaching was created by us teachers at the last minute." It appears that Governments, in general, never prioritize education, especially in crisis situations.

According to Jones, the situation was chaotic at the beginning. There was little coordination between different teachers within the same schools, let alone across different schools. The parents were overwhelmed by a vast array of IT platforms: Meet, Classroom, Zoom, Jitsi, Edmodo. Even in India, many urban parents kept hopping through platforms like Meet and Zoom, while another section of rural and poor population is still clueless about the role of emerging technology in the education of their children. Similarly, Jones mentions that sites and servers crashed as the almost 80 Lakh Italian students all logged on, while many kids couldn’t connect at all.

Jones mentions the Digital Economy and Society Index that rates Italy 24 out of 28 European countries in its “digitalisation index”. Italy’s national statistics agency, Istat, reported in 2019 that 23.9% of Italian families have no access to the internet. In India, the penetration of internet technology seems to be big in numbers but questionable in terms of quality usage. The spread of technology here is unorganized and industry-driven, instead of being need based and service-driven. Therefore, use of technology for education - in an alternative or supplementary manner - seems quite challenging in India.

Universalisation of education has been on the national agenda for several decades in India. Availability of resources plays an important role in providing equal learning opportunities to all children, irrespective of their social and economic backgrounds. When we talk about online education, we must think about the availability of technology and infrastructure across all sections of society. Do all children in the country have access to the internet and devices necessary for online education? The answer is No. The situation doesn't seem to be very different in Italy, as Jones quotes a teacher saying: “We’ve discovered how democratic pencil-and-paper is.”

Jones reports that the Italian Ministry of Education claimed to have distributed 46,152 tablets throughout the country by the third week of March. Since then, an emergency budget has created a fund of 7 Crore Euros for providing computers to those without. Jones was told by a teacher that even if the necessary hardware is distributed, online classes just don’t work for children who need bespoke (one-to-one) lessons: “Those who are already doing well at school are now doing even better, but those who were struggling are just falling further behind.”

Jones also notes his observations regarding the online classrooms. He mentions that students can hide far more easily online as compared to the physical classrooms, if they're not interested or not motivated. They can give a false excuse of technological issues, freeze the camera, or mute the microphone whenever they want to avoid the session. Teachers need to be proactive and creative in making the online sessions more interesting and attractive.

In Italy, students are given many tests each month and if, at the end of the year, their average score is insufficient, they are failed and have to repeat the year. According to Jones, the new Education Minister, Lucia Azzolina, suggested that in the current situation, no students would be sent back to repeat the year again. On the contrary, the Indian Parliament amended the Right To Education Act, 2009 last year, cancelling the No Detention Policy implemented since 2010. The amendment allows schools to hold back students for a repeat year, if they are unable to achieve the desired learning levels. However, with the medium of education shifting rapidly from offline to online, it is going to be difficult for the teachers to conduct exams under strict supervision, whether in Italy or India. Innovative methods of assessment will have to be derived, considering changes in the overall mechanism of delivering and receiving knowledge.

Jones notes that some students find it embarrassing to share their personal spaces – their bedrooms and, in the background, even their embarrassing parents, during online sessions conducted by their teachers. In The New York Times article dated April 04, 2020, Nicholas Casey wrote that the corona virus has exposed how unequal the lives of students studying together are. When the university students were all in the same dorms and eating the same dining hall food, the disparities in their backgrounds were not as clear as they are over video chat. In India, the differences would be highlighted even further, not just between urban and rural set-ups, but also between urban poor and urban rich. Psychological impact of this exposure needs to be discussed and mitigated proactively.

Another observation noted by Jones is the change in teachers' behaviour from being in an offline classroom to an online one. Jones mentions that one of his children has a class that is usually very noisy: the kids misbehave and the teacher yells, and soon everyone is shouting over each other. Now, the children are controlled by their parents’ presence during online sessions. At the same time, the teacher is also aware that parents could be listening, so the yelling is avoided, resulting in more peaceful sessions. Jones hopes that this could also lead towards an improved and warmer relationship between the students and their teachers.

Jones makes an important comment on the changing landscape of education in Italy. He mentions that students have always felt worried and stressful because of their weekly tests and the stigma of being held back a year. But now many teachers feel insecure, too. It is because of the overall ignorance of the Government towards education, and also because the teachers are scared of digitalised learning and they fear being replaced by screens. In India, the entire education system may not be digitalised so fast, but similar insecurity can be sensed among teachers from urban schools, where students already have access to internet and digital learning resources.

Jones mentions that teachers are trying to cope with the changes and challenges in education, while children are also adapting themselves to the online environment. However, he also quotes a middle-school teacher, Chiara Esposito saying “parents are the most conservative element in the school ecosystem. They become paranoid if their child isn’t ‘an eight’ or hasn’t completed the set book. They’re the ones we really need to educate.” The transformation in the current education system will be incomplete without acceptance and active participation from the parents. In India, teachers experience two extreme conditions - excessive involvement of urban educated parents and absolute disinvolvement of less educated rural parents. A fine balance needs to be achieved in the best interest of the children and their education. The change of medium from offline to online and the growing emphasis on self-learning are going to demand even higher levels of parent participation in children's education. How are we going to prepare parents from various backgrounds to bear this responsibility? Who is going to take care of their capacity building - the schools or the Government? How will the teachers strike a balance between over-involvement and disinvolvement of the parents? We may not have ready answers to all these questions, but it's high time we start thinking and experimenting in the forward direction.

Jones quotes Edoardo Montenegro from Betwyll, which is launching a new social reading app for Italian schools, saying: “A WhatsApp video call or a Zoom meeting isn’t digital learning. Those encounters can be just as frontal and rhetorical as an old-style professorial lesson.”

I believe these are very important comments on the haphazard efforts to digitalise the education system overnight. Most of the teachers are trying to use the online platforms for conducting classroom sessions in the same old traditional manner. The organic need of digitalisation is missing and we are just reacting to a pandemic situation, trying to compensate for loss of teaching hours by exploiting all available online platforms. We need to look at online education beyond the knee jerk reaction during lockdown and should explore the opportunities it might bring to our children in the years to come.


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Tuesday, June 2, 2020

Generation Gap

Marathi Writer Mangala Godbole writes in her book 'Zuluk' (meaning Breeze) that the generation gap phenomenon is rooted in the use of words - 'in our times'. People from every generation feel that the next generation is luckier and happier. In fact, the living standards keep rising with time; lifestyle keeps becoming better over years. Technological tools and facilities become available and easily accessible. People from previous generations claim that they could have done better if these tools and facilities were available to them 'in their times'. But indulging in reminiscence is in a way declaring that they've given up on themselves in current times, isn't it?

(Click on image to read)



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