Why don't ALL schools do what the BEST schools do? Especially the public schools. Clearly there are some schools in the country that are doing well, and are sought after by parents. Why don't we figure out what these institutions do, and get more schools to do the same things?
The usual explanations are (a) it costs a lot of money to do what the best schools do, so that can't be done everywhere. (b) the best schools have parents who are themselves well educated, many others don't. (c) the best schools have great teachers, and they're in short supply.
Bunkum. What's in the way is something else. When it comes to education, we're in wilful blindness. The biggest reason we don't measure outcomes in our education system is that we can be 100% sure that if we did, we would find that we are an unmitigated disaster on all counts.
To avoid facing this, we have built ourselves a complacent system, which runs on a 'check-box' model - buildings, toilets, uniforms, desks, chalk, board, benches, teachers and salaries, a play materials, etc. If these are present, it is assumed that education is also present.
This is a mass delusion. Only 5-10% of the investment that we are making as a country - and I would estimate this at about 10 lakh crores a year - is productive. The rest is an NREGS for the middle and lower middle classes, keeping a lot of people occupied without achievement.
A very large part of the development deficit in the country can be attributed to one fact. We refuse to educate everyone. It is the worst indictment that anyone can make in a society - that it cheats its children. It is a moral failure, and a catastrophic, self-inflicted injury.
Teachers' Day is rightly celebrated to recognise those who teach, and I've written my share of these thankful notes. But it is also a moment to ask another question about teaching - WHY DON'T WE TEACH EVERY CHILD? How can we possibly relegate this question?
@threadreaderapp unroll.
