Education is a feeder to dream and ambition. Ambition allows to aspire to something which yesterday was not known, and tomorrow might just be possible with perseverance, persistence, patience and perspiration. The freedom to aspire being the freedom to formulate meaningful goals and pursue them, is an integral part of individuals' capability set. Today’s India grants children the constitutional provision to free and compulsory education and NEP 2020 has a mandate to ensure very best opportunities to lifelong learning to the children.
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The desirable change that we want to see in school can be supported, initiated and strengthened. The big question, however, is how to initiate and accomplish this change when there is attainment gap, reported in NAS and other reports. It is high time to debate and brain storm on ensuring quality education that goes beyond learning outcomes, student scores in literacy and numeracy, skill acquisition or competency development and percentage of marks scored. The ongoing NEP and FLN activities are great effort of the government and it needs to be taken to grassroot level. The kind of change we want to see in schools’ demands commitment and strengthened relationship with community and teachers who prepare children for the 21st century skills.
Teacher’s role is crucial in the system and translating policy into reality on the ground. They are axis of education programmes and their development is not merely an event or a transformational tool. It is pivotal that the need of school, teacher and student’s education and post training feedback of teachers are taken into account while addressing this question. Feedbacks being an important tool for continuous improvement, an analysis of previous years training feedbacks obtained especially in black and white may be of help to understand teachers’ needs, grey areas in imparting training and quality enhancement. There may be participant’s reservations and limitations in providing a candid feedback online.
Need based teacher training followed by on- and off-site regular academic support will not only engage teachers in teaching learning process but also enhance bridging attainment gap, which may seem to be a challenging task in the beginning. There is an old saying – well begun half done. The structures like BRC, CRC and SMC offer wide scope of discussion, dialogue and brainstorming. These institutions must be kept ignited. It will help children’s quality education, learning and improving to the desired achievement level.
The government’s noble intention to develop partnership for improving education status, drives NGOs to work with the government. Identify NGOs that can put head and heart together with pragmatic, replicable and scalable strategies and who have educationists, academicians, trainers and experts with long term commitment on their resource pool and grassroot connection. Sustained expertise and efforts are needed to make a difference by functioning for foundational, preparatory, middle and secondary stages and its furtherance. A balance of different skill sets and human resource is often necessary for overall success in school transformation.
Secondly, "social impact" has become a popular term used in the development sector. It is a valuable concept for guiding development work, it's important to use it thoughtfully and avoid treating it as a mere catchword. The real challenge lies in creating meaningful, sustainable positive change in communities and society at large. Overuse of the term might lose meaning due to broad application. Hence social impact should be visible in letter and spirit as true social impact goes beyond mere metrics or buzzwords. It calls for a deep-seated commitment to positive change that permeates all aspects of organization’s work – past and present.
As envisaged in NEP 2020, the ability to explore, innovate, and share diverse culture, traditions, traditional knowledge without limitation is something that can only fully appreciate because of its prevalence in the society. Our country is a tapestry woven with threads of countless stories, cultures, and dreams. It is a land where diversity is celebrated, and unity is its strength. Today, as it stands at the cusp of a new era, let the nation move forward in the direction of inclusive progress and boundless opportunities to make every child being soar at the same degree. It is always a delight to be with the young learners and know the world through their lenses.
(The author is the former Chief Consultant at the Ministry of Human Resource Development (now the Ministry of Education), Government of India. All views and opinions expressed are the author's own.)
