Education is not just for economic benefits —  it is required for young women. Educated women are better equipped to make decisions regarding marriage, bearing children, child health and education. An extra year of women education helps reduce fertility and maternal mortality by two per 1000 birth. Our TCG readers may recall Dr Seshu Kumari’s (Director SCERT) comment in the Primary E d u c a t i o n article about educating the girl child to r e d u c e p o p u l a t i o n .

Taking a step further, it would be ideal to apply the same at the Secondary level too, because, this way we are educating the progeny bearers to use their discretion. Today experts have well-defined objectives in education. Primarily it would help them earn their daily bread and apart from that it should help fighting the global menaces like population. Up to some extent we have dealt with unemployment. But economic well-being is not the be all and end all of life. Bringing in the right awareness can happen through education.
 

Since the industrial revolution, the world’s population has grown by a factor of seven and each person’s impact on the environment is now, on average, seven times greater than it was two centuries ago. This means that the impact of the human population on the planet has grown by a factor of 50. Curbing p o p u l a t i o n growth is the fastest way to reduce it.

Giving children, especially girls, 10 to 12 years of q u a l i t y education could well reduce fertility rates sufficiently to make a population scenario of 7.8 billion people by 2050 more likely than the 12 billion projected from current rate of growth. Women with secondary education have, on average, 1.5 fewer children than those with only primary schooling. A one-child difference per woman represents three billion more or fewer people on the planet by the middle of the century. A second reason for its importance is that secondary education is essential for creating the pool of people with the cognitive skills to become the teachers, nurses and health workers on which society depends. Third, parents realize that primary schooling is only a foundation and that the real benefits to their children accrue from continuing their education at secondary level and beyond. There could even be a ‘knock-back’ effect if secondary education does not become available. Without the possibility of progression to that level, parents might be less keen to send their children to primary school, putting at risk the gains already made.

Secondary Education is a crucial stage in the educational hierarchy as it prepares the students for higher education and also for the world of work. With the liberalization and globalization of the Indian economy, the rapid changes witnessed in scientific and technological world and the general need to improve the quality of life and to reduce poverty, it is essential that school leavers acquire a higher level of knowledge and skills than what they are provided in the eight years of elementary education, particularly when the average earning of a secondary school certificate holder is significantly higher than that of a person who has studied only up to class VIII. It is also necessary that besides general education up to secondary level, opportunities for improvement of vocational knowledge and skill should be provided at the higher secondary level to enable some students to be employable.

Universalizing access to secondary education Following the Constitutional mandate to universalize elementary education, and success of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, it has become absolutely essential to push this vision forward to move towards universalisation of secondary education, which has already been achieved in a large number of developed countries and several developing countries. It is well recognized that eight years of education are insufficient to equip a child for the world of work as also to be a competent adult and citizen.

The Mid-Term Appraisal of the 10th Five Year Plan (June 2005) of the Planning Commission has suggested a new mission for secondary education on the lines of SSA (Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan). The report of the Committee of the Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE) on ‘Universalisation of Secondary Education’ (June 2005), which is the highest deliberative and advisory forum on Education in the country with Union Minister of Human Resource Development as Chairman and Education Ministers of all States and eminent educationists as its Members, had suggested urgent taking up of a programme on this behalf with certain norms. The CABE Committee on “Girls’ Education & Common School System” in its report of June 2005 had also, inter alia, recommended (i) making good quality education available to all students in all schools at affordable fees, (ii) investment in public schools system with standards, norms of Kendriya Vidyalayas.

While education is a concurrent subject, and secondary education primarily remains the responsibility of the State Governments, the Ministry of HRD has set its vision on making secondary education of good quality available, accessible & affordable to all young persons in the age group 15-16 years.  New initiatives launched in 2008-09 2008-09 has been a momentous year for secondary education and several major initiatives, including a new centrally sponsored scheme to universalize access to and improve quality of education at secondary stage, have been launched during the year. The impact of these schemes will begin to be felt during the current year.

The key issues relating to secondary education highlighted in the Tenth Plan are: greater focus on improving access; reducing disparities by emphasizing the Common School System; renewal of curricula with emphasis on vocationalisation and employment-oriented courses; expansion and diversification of the Open Learning System; reorganization of teacher training and greater use of ICT. The Tenth Plan objectives for secondary education are in consonance with the broad parameters and strategy of the National Policy on Education (NPE) of 1986 and the Programme of Action of 1992. These include: · Extending access in un-served areas and educationally backward areas with concentration of SC/ST population. with emphasis on  vocationalisation.
· Vocational education is to become a distinct stream, intended to prepare students for identified occupations spanning several areas of activity, at the +2 stage. The social, gender based and regional disparities need to be addressed. Educationally backward districts should receive greater support for school infrastructure. Besides providing new schools, need-based up-gradation of upper primary schools will have to be given greater priority. The quality of education needs to be improved with investments in teacher education, training laboratories, libraries and encouraging parents to invest in their children’s education. The State Boards of Secondary Education needs to be strengthened.

The approved outlay for secondary education (including vocational education) in the Central Sector in the Tenth Plan is Rs.4, 325.00 crore. The actual expenditure in 2003-04 was Rs.639.08 crore, which increased to Rs.653.60 crore in 2004-05. The approved outlay for 2005-06 & 2006-07 are Rs. 875.00 crore & Rs. 1067.00 crore respectively.

Importance of secondary education — Secondary education plays a fundamental but complex role in preparing young people for the labour market, especially for people who leave secondary education for a job. According to Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, managing director, World Bank, the complexity in such cases is that an increasing number of young people in secondary education means i n c r e a s i n g l y diverse talent, diverse job interest and j o b opportunities. But an a d d i t i o n a l complexity is the shifting needs of e m p l o y e r s , which are c h a n g i n g rapidly. Young people need to have the tools and knowledge to adapt to that change. Iweala is of the opinion that governments are increasingly paying attention to secondary education for three main reasons: First, the expansion of secondary education is (data shows that 79% of children in south Asia have completed secondary education), putting increasing pressure on the secondary school system by their sheer number. Second, the link between secondary education and economic growth evidence suggests that having a critical mass of people with secondary education is key to shifting the basis of economic growth from a labour-intensive to a more knowledge-centric activity. “The third reason,” Iweala said, “is beyond economic benefits— it is required for young women.” Educated women are better equipped to make d e c i s i o n s r e g a r d i n g m a r r i a g e , b e a r i n g children, child health and education. An extra year of w o m e n education helps reduce fertility and maternal mortality by two per 1000 births. “International experience teaches us that primarily, quality matters. It is no good if children attend school but do not learn anything. It is also very difficult to teach young people once they have left school with inadequate skills,” Iweala pointed out. In most developing countries, the proportion of adults who get some kind of training is below 10%, and in many countries, lesser. It is a vicious circle. Without basic skills there is no training, and without training many will remain without basic skills. Better infrastructure and an increase in the number of teachers alone will not make a difference in students’ learning outcome. It is the behaviour of teachers in the classrooms and  not merely the qualification or training of teachers that is central. When teachers see that their efforts are rewarded, they put in more, which has a dramatic effect on what children learn. This was established in the primary schools of Andhra Pradesh. The learning from this should be discussed and implemented in secondary schools too. Iweala also stressed that secondary education should be able to provide the basis for higher education and for the eventual job search for the youth graduating from them.

Mr. Vadrevu Chinaveerabhadrudu, Director, AP Tribal Welfare Department and Education Consultant says Andhra Pradesh has multiple models of secondary education. It has corporate education (techno/concept schools) and under Government, again residential pattern, schools run by School education Municipal Administration SW, TW and by Local bodies.

Standards vary from management to management, urban to rural and residential to day schools and government to corporate. But there are certain general parameters such as syllabus content/load, quality of teacher training, pay scales of teachers, access to secondary education, school infrastructure, teacher-pupil ratio etc., and these parameters say that the status of secondary education in AP is fairly good. But, there has also been a downward trend in general performance due to a) Over emphasis on SSC exams, b) Mass copying at SSC exams, c) Neglecting lower classes i.e. VIII and XI and low levels of academic performance at Class V thereby affecting performance of high schools etc.,

Asked if he thinks curriculum is learner friendly, He disagreed with that. But there has been awareness to this issue and a number of initiatives have been taken up by Government as well as private schools to make curriculum learner friendly. But the efforts are not as successful as in the case of primary education because the syllabus load is heavy and huge number of teacher vacancies makes any initiative absolutely difficult for replication. The teachers and students are hard pressed for time.

Are there any advantages of local education:
Local education has two dimensions: One is undergoing schooling in one’s own location as part of the local community (learning), another is studying the land you live upon (this was mentioned by Mrs. Tulsi in the Primary Education overview last month) in today’s world, any body can study any subject sitting in any part of the world. So (b) is not an issue. But one should undergo his schooling as part of his community as peer group learning goes a long way in shaping one’s personality, ideology and ethical milieu.

Finally when we come to address the most important issue—do creative arts have any place in our education, he feels that Secondary schools in the State are in an extremely deplorable condition as far as co-curricular and extra-curricular aspects are concerned. There is no distinction among government and private schools in this respect. Even though the National Curriculum Frame Work suggests that at UP level, the school time should be distributed @ 70:30 among scholastic and nonscholastic subjects, and @75:25 at secondary level, virtually, no such thing takes place. The school time-table usually carries certain time slots for Creative activities, SUPW, Physical Education, Health Education and Value Education, the classes either go as leisure hours or extra classes taken by Math/Science teachers. In corporate schools even the timetable does not provide for such hours. The posts of drawing, music and manual training instructors remain vacant and unfilled. This is the darkest area of secondary education in the State. There seems to be a tussle between creative and repetitive, apparently the latter wins, hence we find even the State syllabus books dry, monotonous and unaesthetic.

Coming to the current curricula, earlier it was CBSE, ICSE AND SSC (STATE), students (like us) had an option only between the three and they always took the safest route of rote learning, i.e. SSC. Not very application based this curriculum was (to some extent is even now) information-dumping, and has no means for the child/student to explore and experiment. Students are not required to think much as readymade answers are given away even before the lessons are discussed. Very few teachers out of their passion for teaching try to do some variations with the lessons and often these are the ones who earn the wrath of the management and are loved by the students. Apart from ICSE and CBSE there is IB which is the new kid on the block when it comes to the Indian Sub-continent. International Baccalaureate (IB) as the name suggests is more internationally accepted and follows a different teaching methodology altogether.

There are three programmes:
I. PYP: The Primary Years Programme (Kindergarten to Class 5).
II. MYP: The Middle Years Programme (Class 6 to Class 10).
III. DP: The Diploma Programme (Class 11 to Class 12).

IB syllabus is accepted world-wide which gives a definite edge to the students who aspire to go abroad for higher studies.  There are very few IB World Schools in India, clearly exhibiting its elitist status. Comparative Case Study: Armed with all the basic information about all the three well-known boards, it’s time for an exhaustive comparison on what’s good and what’s not-so-good about each of these education boards. This will help the parents in making a better decision for their little bundle of joy.

1. CBSE primarily focuses on a pre-defined curriculum where there is little room for kids to experiment. Some of the critics even say that it is heavily examination-based and promotes rote learning. ICSE, on the other hand offers a wide syllabus which is application-based and requires the students to think beyond the prescribed syllabi to excel. IB follows an altogether different approach where there are no prescribed textbooks and kids are free to explore the myriad world of books. The focus of the IB pedagogy is on ‘how to learn’ rather than ‘what to learn’.

2. CBSE students have a better footing in the Indian sub-continent as the syllabus is well aligned with most of the professional entrance examinations. As per statistics, CBSE students fare better in such exams while ICSE students have to often struggle and go an extra mile to prepare for the exams. IB students, however compete well in exams where there is little amount of rote learning and requires higher degree to analytical skills like CAT, SAT, GRE etc.

3. The subject of Environmental Education is compulsory in ICSE while it is optional in both CBSE and IB.
4. CBSE allows both regular and private students to appear in the exams while the same is not the case with IB and ICSE.
5. There are plethora of CBSE schools, both elite like DPS, Sri Ram, Modern School and affordable schools like Kendriya Vidyalaya for an average middle class Indian. ICSE schools are little less in number, again with a wide choice to choose from. However, IB schools are very few in number considering the high tuition fees and its late entry in Indian Education.
6. Internal assessments have been a prime component in ICSE and IB syllabus, while CBSE is slowly drifting towards this.
7. CBSE approves of both English and Hindi as mediums of instruction. On the contrary, Hindi is treated as a second optional language in IB and ICSE. IB is generally regarded as the school for the kids of the elite. Moreover as IB students move from primary to secondary school –into IBDP (IB Diploma)—the fees get astronomical. Also will the students go through all this to pursue graduation in India? Is it mandatory to study abroad?
Whatever the curriculum might be, finally it’s the teachers who help the students to explore the subject and take them to depths of interesting facts. Are these ambassadors of knowledge empowered enough to make the difference? Ultimately all our doctors, engineers etc. have to go abroad and strive for a foreign degree though they have earned many degrees here. Does this mean our education is not of the International standard? Is this why IB and IGCSE are gaining popularity?

TCG had an interaction with Professor and Department Head of Curriculum SCERT Mr. Upendar. Invariably the first question was about the state of secondary education in our state. He says present day definition of education is focused information dissemination. As we all know there are languages and core subjects. These two are always viewed as arch rivals, with a common notion that all core subjects are always important than languages, which means
languages are usually looked down upon as a property of not the very intellectual. While the fact is, it is on the canvas of the language that any core subject is painted/ projected. But why is the scenario continuing for eons like this? It’s basically because of the huge number of recruitments. Almost 40,000 to 50,000 recruitments are happening every year and it is difficult to inject high quality on a mass level like this.
Does this mean we have to compromise on standards and settle down with mediocre education? Of late there is a huge overhauling  that’s happening, which includes plans to reform the examination and evaluation systems. But whatever it might be, in our country a serious political will to change the system is yet to happen. Moreover many people
choose teaching not for the love of it but for livelihood. Still in SCERT we are taking efforts to bring out changes in the assessments, curriculum redesigning, teaching methodologies.

What needs to be done to improve the teacher/ trainer quality? As I said today teachers are givers and students are takers, and worse still, the focus is on dumping the students with information rather than unveiling the curiosity in the students. True nature of subject skills is missing. Math isn’t taught like Math i.e. to explore the logic and reasoning, Science doesn’t encourage observation and questions, so the true spirit of the subject is missing. We have to motivate the teachers, which is very challenging. We are positive it will happen. Do you see IB as a threat to Indian Education system? Not at all, because IB students are pursuing that course to study abroad and today’s students are well informed on things like these. Indian education has its own takers. Be it IB or SSC or CBSE or ICSE education is all about how much space you provide students to think and assimilate. I have never let my schooling interfere with my education…..Mark Twain