First Draft, not for circulation Admission to a class appropriate to childs age: Are we building a tower of Babel?

Rohit Dhankar

But God confounded their tongue, so that they did not understand one another's speech, and thus scattered them from that place into all lands, and they ceased to build the city. Maas, A. (1912). Tower of Babel. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. Retrieved June 27, 2012 from New Advent: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15005b.htm

Preliminaries
The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 (RtE for short in this article) is certainly a landmark development in Indian attempts to universalise elementary education. Its intentions and many of the provisions are beyond doubt capable of moving the nation towards its stated goals, i.e. universalisation of elementary education. I need to state that up front because the Act has serious confusion in its pedagogical and curricular vision and that confusion, if not cleared in time, is almost certain to mar its potential for achieving the stated aims. The assumption (common place and generally known, still needs to be stated in this context) in writing this article is that to achieve something as stupendous as universalisation of elementary education in India the system as such has to fulfil at the least three conditions: 1. A clear understanding of the vision of what is to be achieved and of procedures and methods to achieve that, 2. An ability for appropriate action, collectively, as a system, and, 3. A commitment to act in the appropriate manner in the face of difficulties. Conditions numbered 2 and 3 above are impossible to meet without meeting the condition number 1. Curriculum, pedagogy, assessment, achievement of desired learning levels and school organisation are central to elementary education processes; all else if only to facilitate these. A serious confusion in this core of educational vision is bound to affect all efforts adversely. And the Act is seriously confused and confusing in this area. In this article that is what I will try to show and may be arrive at a hint to overcome this problem.

Introduction
To understand the point I am trying to make lets begin with what RtE says on some crucial issues regarding organisation of learning, pedagogy, assessment and completion of elementary education. Since the focus of this seminar is age and grade appropriate training necessitated by

First Draft, not for circulation

RtE provision of age and grade appropriate admission 1, it is appropriate to begin with this provision in the RtE.

Admission to Age Appropriate Class as per RtE

First lets note that RtE does not mention grade, the term it uses is class. And this is an important concept in RtE, we may not be able to interpret it in any which way; as RtE defines elementary education 2, completion of elementary education, school norms, et al in terms of class. Therefore, class is central concept in RtE pedagogy and curriculum. The RtE in Section 4 stipulates that if a child above the age of 6 years is ether not admitted to school or left school without completing elementary education he or she will be admitted to a class appropriate to his or her age. Suppose a child of 10 years of age has never admitted to school, under RtE when she goes to school now she shall be admitted to class 5. Since she has never been to school before it would be impossible for her to cope with the learning expectations as per the curriculum; one can hardly imagine a child starting mathematics straight at the level of multiplication of fractional numbers or language straight at reading short stories without ever acquiring proficiency in reading and writing. The Act, of course, is aware of this and therefore makes a provision that he or she shall, in order to be at par with others have a right to receive special training in such manner, and within such time-limits, as may be prescribed. (Emphasis added) Such special training can be extended to a maximum up to 2 years (reference?); and the children admitted to age appropriate class in this manner are entitled to receive regular support even after the special training till they are fully integrated into the class (reference?). Admission to age appropriate class could be sought at any age between 6 and 14, and at anytime during the academic year (Section 15). The teachers are required to complete entire curriculum within specified time and assess the learning ability of each child and accordingly, supplement additional instructions, if any, as required (Section 15 (1) (c) and (d)). A teacher defaulting on this is liable to disciplinary action (Section 16). This provision of admission to age appropriate class is for children who remained out of school and is obviously to facilitate completion of elementary education of good quality. The elementary education, as per RtE means the education from first class to eighth class (Section 2(f), emphasis added), and the quality is to be ensured through achieving the learning levels prescribed in national curriculum. Sections 29 and 30 stipulate requirements for national curriculum 3 and as per these sections there shall be continuous and comprehensive evaluation and a certificate will be awarded to the children on completion of elementary education. Though the childs learning ability (Section 24 (1) (d)) as well as understanding of knowledge 4 (Section 29 (2) (h)) will be evaluated [N]o child admitted in a school shall be held back in any class (Section 16). Now the question arises how does one meet all these requirements? What kind of school organisation and class-room teaching can hold them together? Are these requirements consistent
This session is named Why age and grade appropriate education? which actually makes no sense, as education necessarily spans all ages and all grades; and its focus has to be learning which builds in a cumulative manner. Thus I am interpreting this session as Why age and grade appropriate admission? which is what the RtE stipulates. 2 Elementary education, as per RtE means the education from first class to eighth class. Section 2(f) 3 Section 29 is one of the most confused sections of the Act; it is repetitive, attempts to legislate pedagogy, use of concepts like understanding and knowledge is ill-informed. But that is an issue for another article. 4 Whatever understanding of knowledge might mean!
1

First Draft, not for circulation

with each other? Or are they a bundle of contradictions arising out of confounded language leading to the Tower of Babel situation? Examining these questions is the main purpose of this article. But before we do that a brief mention of why age and class appropriate admission is needed is in place here; as the attempt certainly expresses good intention and sensitivity to the child; even if the stipulations be in deep contradiction with each other.

Why children should be admitted in an age appropriate learning group?

I have substituted age appropriate learning group for age appropriate class in the sub-title above, reasons for this substitution will be clear as we go along. A pedagogy sensitive to the childon practical, moral and learning related grounds and not on sentimental onesdoes demand that the children in school should be put in groups with other children of similar age. I would mention some of the grounds only in very briefly here, as this is not the main theme of this article. Some such grounds could be listed as below: 1. If we accept Vygotskian view of importance of social interaction in learning then a child of 10 years placed in a group of 6 year olds will lose a lot of opportunities of learning as the language, interests, activities, behaviour etc. of 6 year olds will be much below his/her own developmental level. And development being related to learning opportunities this situation may retard the 10 year olds development. 2. Most 10 year old children are likely to feel embarrassed when constantly seen in learning levels appropriate to 6 year olds; and thus will be de-motivated to come to school. 3. The activities and content of learning for 6 year olds will be retarding the speed of learning of a 10 year old as she is capable of moving ahead at a much faster rate, thus making her lose precious time as she is already much behind her age in education. 4. Placed with 6 year olds a child of 10 is likely to be socialised in to low confidence levels which will impact her further growth and she may lack requisite levels of self-assertion in social situations in her later life. 5. For a 10 year old there is a possibility, as already mentioned above, of completing the curricular requirements of classes 1 to 4 in a much shorter time and that should be utilised to the fullest extent possible in childs own interest as well as in the national interest. Most of the grounds I have listed above require empirical research to examine if they hold any water and I have sited no such research. But they do make prima-facie sense to any teacher and so we will accept these grounds in this article at the least for the arguments sake. Accepting these grounds may seem to make the pedagogical scheme summarised above (as per RtE) very plausible; and yet it is not.

Contradictions is the RtE pedagogical scheme

The real problem lies in the concepts of class and special training. The curriculum, school norms, elementary education and completion are all defined in terms of class in the RtE. The term class itself is not defined in the Act, therefore, it is reasonable to interpret class in the usual sense it is understood in elementary education. Usually speaking, class is a group of children learning at a particular rung in curriculum organised as a learning ladder. A more formal term for a particular rung in the curricular ladder is a grade. If we accept that then class becomes a group of children learning in the same grade. The concept of grade necessarily has the following features, if it is to make any sense at all:

First Draft, not for circulation

1. There is a predefined curriculum (chunk of learning) to be completed in a predefined time period, almost always one academic year. 2. All children in a particular class (learning at the same grade) are expected to complete the curriculum in that defined time. 3. There might be continuous or periodic evaluation, but at the end of the academic year all assessment results are collated and a decision is made on whether the student has satisfactorily completed the curriculum defined for the grade in question. 4. In case the childs learning is found to be unsatisfactory for completion she is asked to repeat the grade; for repetition the curriculum remains the same and the child is given another academic year to complete the prescribed learning, the opportunity to move to the next grade can be availed only at the end of the academic year. If one removes any one of these features the concepts of grade and class are rendered meaningless. Suppose one says that there is no fixed curriculum to be completed in one year, then it becomes just a group of children learning in the same room and can in no way be called belonging to the same class or grade. Similarly if one allows all children to go to the next grade in the curricular ladder whether they have satisfactorily completed the expected learning or not there can be no sensible meaning one can attach to the terms grade and class. It hardly makes any sense to say that the two children one who can do addition of algebraic expressions and other just beginning to learn numbers are in the same grade. The problem is not that doing away with provision to repeat (pass/fail) changes the concepts of grade and class; it simply renders them meaningless, unusable for any sensible communication and description of elementary education. Presently we will discuss a little more on why these concepts of grade and class are incompatible with RtE stipulation of admission in age appropriate class. But before that lets pay some attention to the idea of special training in order to be at par with others. If one does have the above articulated concepts of grade and class one need not bother about special training at all. First lets recognise that words matter, calling a spade a spade is not the same thing as calling a spade a plough. We usually say elementary education and not elementary training. We can not go into great details of this there but still lets note that training usually implies instilling habits, moulding behaviours, imparting specific skills (intellectual and manual), and communicating information; all this through direct teaching of the desired bit of learning, in stand alone-ish manner, through repeated practice and with little reflection, if any. Training is actually a fit description for most (not all) bridge courses and special learning camps. But can it substitute the missed opportunity of education and bring the children at par with those who have had an opportunity of good education over the years? There is hardly any evidence of that available. And conceptually it makes little sense.

Nailing the contradictions

Now lets imagine a group of 10 children entering a school under RtE driven efforts. In no locality such a group is likely to be all of 10 years (or any X years), they are likely to be in a range of, say, 8 to 11 years of age. There are no reliable data available on how long an effective socalled special training should be for different ages and how certain we can be of childrens learning through such training. The table below is prepared on the basis of some spacious assumptions regarding the required length of special training. To my mind all durations are conservative estimates, but one requires empirical studies to prove that. A cursory look at the shaded portion of the table gives an idea of the emerging scenario; we shall consider the example of the children who are 10 years of age.
Age-Class table

First Draft, not for circulation

Session 2012-13 2012-13 2012-13 2012-13 2012-13 2012-13 2012-13 2012-13 2012-13 Age 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Class 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Training duration 0 6 months 6 months? 8 months 1 year 1 year? 2 years 2 years 3 years Training ends in session 2012-13 mid 2012mid 2012later 20122013-14 2013-14 2014-15 2014-15 2016-17 child's new class by the end of training 1 2 3 4 6 7 9 10 12 Possible? Yes May be doubtful very doubtful No No No No No

13 13 13

We can go into some details of age-class movement of the 10 year child. When she comes to school (assuming she comes in the beginning of the session) she should be admitted to class 5. But she can not read, write and has no formal arithmetic, which are tools for further learning in formal education. She obviously is far behind in knowledge, understanding and skills in other curricular areas as well. It is unlikely to take less then one year for her to reach the level where she can come up to the level comfortable to be at par with curricular expectations of class 5; that is somewhat abridged capabilities equivalent to class 4 may perhaps be acquired in one year. During this year she is supposed to be under special training where her curriculum is different, her age group is not the same as class 5 children, she does not sit in the same class as class five children, and uses different learning material. In what sense is this child admitted in class five? Her admission in class 5 is purely notional at best and pretension for token adherence to legalities at worst. She derives none of the benefits of learning in the same age group as listed above. This is nothing more than formal and legal acceptance of pretention in the education system. By the time she is capable of learning at the level of class 5, she is of 11 years of age and should be learning at class 6! So either she goes to class 6 and learns curriculum of class 5 or she remains longer in the special training. Second case we have already considered and found her admission to age appropriate class nothing more than legal pretention. In the first case what happens of completing the curriculum in the specified period? She is in no position to really complete the curriculum in a manner that can be described as good quality education. If she does not and is not held back (holding back is illegal) she goes to class 7 and may be working on the curriculum of class 6 there. If there be a few children like her in these classes, say even 15%, what happens to the notion of class? If one says, that a class need not have all children learning the same curricular content, then why specify curriculum in a graded ladder fashion? Why organise the school in a class-structure? If one does not do that (specify curriculum in graded ladder structure and organise school in class-structure fashion) how does one adhere to norms regarding number of teachers and rooms in the schools? How does one gets recognition form the appropriate government authority, if one is unlucky enough to be running a non-government school? How does one decide on the completion of the elementary education? If no child is held back, every child is admitted at the class appropriate to her age, and completion of elementary education is completion of class 8; then every child who is admitted in the school completes elementary education automatically whether she learns anything or not; including the child who was

First Draft, not for circulation

admitted to class 8 at the age of 13 in the mid session! It seems clear enough that compliance with RtE stipulations (is we stick with the class wise organisation of curriculum and school) is possible only on the basis of very spacious and untenable interpretations, with extremely poor quality of education, and is totally pretentious; as it will be compliance to the letter of the act devoid of any spirit. Therefore, pedagogical stipulations of RtE will force the teachers to be pretentious and resort to fabricated data; they lack neither of these qualities as it is. Lets recognise that the special training route to universalisation of elementary education is nothing but resurfacing the ghost of Non-Formal Education (NFE), this time around as legally sanctioned and binding. The NFE, in spite of stalwarts of education having promoted it, was a way of pretending to provide education to the poor without actually doing so. The idea was so attractive to the powers that be that it refuses to die down; keeps on coming back in the form of Alternative Schooling, education guarantees, para-teachers, or vidyarthy-mitras and so on. The latest avataar is special training, this brings it right inside the school and helps in further diluting the quality of already almost defunct education system. The poor continue to pay the price of enthusiastic government schemes and bright innovations of NGOs. Having said all this, this article still does not argue against children learning in age appropriate groups and special arrangements for late entrants in the system. Its purpose is only to highlight glaring contradictions and explore possible ways out.

A possible way-out of debilitating contradictions

The problem basically arises because our education system, thanks to planners and their advisors, is simultaneously sailing in two boats moving in opposite directions. One, the authoritarian school introduced in this country by the British and other the more progressive tradition of elementary education. Our school structure, syllabi formulation and pedagogy come from the authoritarian tradition; and our rhetoric and RtE stipulations come from the progressive tradition. However, the later are not fully understood and thought through; therefore, do not have enough force to really challenge the authoritarian elements of elementary education. Time has come to make a well thought through hard choice. We should either drop all progressive pretentions and accept the implications of authoritarian tradition or accept a more liberal view of education (worked out of some elements of progressive education but going beyond) and dismantle the authoritarian structure. If we do not gather courage enough to make that choice we will be parading at the same place without covering an inch of ground in the desired direction. There are perhaps hundreds of schools in India who are actually functioning, some for about 40 years or more, in manner that fulfils all the meaningful pedagogical stipulations of RtE without getting into confusion and contradictions. All they have done is defined their syllabi and curricula as a learning continuum without bunching learning year-wise and have organised their schools in learning groups where children from mixed age group can work together with their own pace and avoiding all ill effects of putting older children in the class of much younger ones. The definition of completion is not tied to class but learning standards. In this seminar both CARE and MHRD are involved. I would suggest they divert their attentions, enthusiasm and resources in converting some government schools into ungraded ones and see if all the meaningful pedagogical stipulations of RtE could be complied with, in letter and spirit, and with much improved quality. Or at the least conduct a large scale

First Draft, not for circulation

intervention research where special training and re-organised school both are tried and results are compared. That might show a way out of the dumps we are in. ****** 29th July 2012 Rohit Dhankar, rohit.dhankar@apu.edu.in Digantar, Jaipur and Azim Premji University, Bangalore