A four-month study conducted by IT major Wipro Ltd and Educational Initiatives, Ahmedabad covering Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Bangalore and Chennai concludes that students of India’s top private schools are accustomed to rote learning, and that their academic performance is below international averages. Summiya Yasmeen reports
India’s most popular metropolitan private schools — for admission into which there are annual stampedes — aren’t all that great. This is the startling conclusion of Quality Education Study 2011 (QES) conducted by Bangalore-based IT major Wipro Ltd (annual revenue: Rs.35,000 crore), which has a decade-old social initiative in school education (Wipro Applying Thought in Schools), and Ahmedabad-based Educational Initia-tives Pvt. Ltd (EI, estb.2001), a pioneer education research and assessment company.
The outcome of a four-month-long study conducted by 110 EI field researchers who assessed 23,000 students, 790 teachers and 54 principals of 89 English-medium private primary-secondaries (including 66 CBSE and CISCE-affiliated schools) in Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Bangalore and Chennai, QES concludes that students of a repre-sentative sample of India’s top private schools are accustomed to rote learning, and that their academic performance is below international averages.
Although the authors of the study maintain they are forbidden by a confidentiality contract from disclosing the identities of the schools included in the study, they concede that several metropolitan day schools which topped the EducationWorld India’s Most Respected Schools Survey 2011 under the parameter of ‘academic reputation’ were included. Therefore by implication all non-metro and schools affiliated with international examination boards featuring in the Top 10 league table were excluded. In short, QES’ indictment is restricted to mid-priced (annual tuition fees upto Rs.1 lakh), popular English-medium including ‘convent’ and missionary schools.
According to the authors of QES, which assessed learning outcomes of classes IV, VI and VIII students in English, maths, science and social studies in the 89 popular schools — chosen on the basis of a public opinion poll conducted by EI in the five metros — class IV students scored lower than the international average in response to questions drawn from international assessment studies such as Trends in International Maths and Science Study (TIMSS) and Progress in Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS). Though class VIII students performed on a par with the international average, this was mainly due to their higher scores in procedural questions i.e. “questions which require straightforward use of techniques or learnt procedures to arrive at answers”.
Shockingly, 67 percent of class IV students of the most popular metro schools could not answer a simple question about the length of a pencil placed against a ruler, while 38 percent gave an incorrect answer to the question: ‘Among these people, who is alive today — Mahatma Gandhi, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi or Sonia Gandhi’?
Nearly half the students in classes IV, VI and VIII said the shape of a square object would change if it is tilted. And 45 percent of the students assessed in a 45-minute written test opined that spiders have six legs. All questions used in QES were carefully selected by EI to determine students’ compreh-ension and ability to use higher order cognitive skills such as critical thinking.
“EI sent out letters to 255 schools in the five metros to participate in QES, of which 89 agreed. These schools were voted the most preferred in the five cities through an opinion poll conducted by EI among a cross-section of respon-dents including parents, students and teachers. About 200-300 people were polled in each metro. Though they are not representative samples of the entire K-12 private education sector — which includes both top-end international as well as low-budget private schools — the 89 schools surveyed are perceived by the public as ‘top’ schools in these metros. The objective of QES was to understand and unpack notions of quality, assess whether students are learning cognitively, and evaluate academic environments in our top metro schools.
“The findings are disturbing as students in our best schools are not learning cognitively and reflect many of the biases prevalent in society towards gender, cultural diversity, civic and citizenship issues. This is disturbing given that these schools are role model institutions and produce a large number of future leaders. Clearly, there is a need for our schools to do more to develop our children into well rounded, sensitive and thinking individuals,” says Vvjayanthi Sankar, vice president (large scale assessments) of Educational Initiatives, which conducted QES. Promoted in 2001 by IIM-Ahmedabad alumni, EI provides learning outcomes measurement services to K-12 institu-tions with its flagship product ASSET (assessment of scholastic skills through educational testing) having been administered to 1.5 million students countrywide.
The conclusions of the QES study have shaken Wipro and EI managers (and woken up the edit writers of several heavyweight dailies), even if not trustees and principals of the vast majority of the country’s 80,000 private schools. Because the learning outcomes of primary and upper primary students of India’s much ballyhooed private schools suffer not only against their international counterparts, but also in comparison with SLIMS (Student Learning in Metros Study) 2006. Also conducted by Wipro and EI, SLIMS assessed students of 142 private schools five years ago.
According to SLIMS, even at that time students displayed alarming learning deficiences and scored way below international averages in maths, English and science. Five years later, QES has found that in all questions drawn from the SLIMS study, student scores declined by 7 percent, and the fall was greater in maths (class IV), maths (class VI), and English (class VIII). Moreover, QES reveals that practical competencies such as map reading, correct language usage in writing and general awareness about well-known facts, are inadequately developed in students of academically top-ranked primary-secondaries in metropolitan India.
“SLIMS assessed students in India’s top schools for their conceptual understanding and found that rote learning was widely prevalent. Five years later the QES study indicates that many of the same issues are still unresolved in our top schools, and students’ learning outcomes are worse than in 2006. This has disturbing impli-cations for our society since the top metro schools are widely regarded as role models for government and private budget schools. In reality what may be happening is that the schools are geared to produce good results in board and competitive exams and are unable to provide education that helps students think critically. This excessive focus on exam results may also be the reason why important issues like student attitudes and values aren’t adequately discussed in debates on quality of education. QES is a wake-up call to private school managements, principals and teachers to move beyond the rhetoric of holistic education. It’s not easy but given that these schools are open to change and resourceful, there’s hope,” says Sreekanth Sreedharan, the Bangalore-based manager of Wipro Applying Thought in Schools (WATIS). Launched in 2001 by Wipro with the objective of improving quality of school education in India, WATIS has reached over 2,000 schools and nurtured a network of 30 partner organisations.
QES also reveals wide differences between the learning outcomes of students of the country’s numerous (34) examination boards. While students from CBSE and CISCE — pan-India exam boards with 10,000 and 1,800 affiliated schools countrywide — performed best, the test scores of students from private schools affiliated with the Karnataka, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu Matriculation and Maharashtra state boards were significantly lower. Among the two pan-India boards, CISCE-affiliated school students showed significantly better learning outcomes than CBSE students.
The better scores of CISCE school students are attributed to this exam-ination board’s independence from government and its superior humanities syllabus. Unlike CBSE, which affiliates diverse schools (government, army, rural, etc), CISCE attracts the country’s top-ranked metro and boarding schools as affiliates. “Unlike CBSE, which has to be more mindful of government policies and rules, CISCE is an auto-nomous examination board. Whenever there’s government interference, it curbs the creativity of educators who need freedom to conceptualise and implement what’s best for students. CISCE schools don’t carry government baggage. The beneficiaries of CISCE’s autonomy are students of affiliated schools,” says Carl Laurie principal of the CISCE-affiliated Christ Church School, Mumbai.
Vivek Ramchandani, the well-known Delhi/Dehradun-based education cons-ultant and former founder principal of the top-ranked The Shri Ram School, Delhi and hitherto the Nairobi-based advisor of the Aga Khan Education Trust, believes there’s a philosophical difference of outlook between the two all-India exam boards. “CISCE is an independent, forward looking board, strong in the humanities and English literature. Consequently, its curriculum is broad-based and designed to provoke critical thinking and applic-ation. On the other hand, CBSE is a government supervised, if not cont-rolled, board. Its bias is toward STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) subjects which require some rote learning. Though recently CBSE has initiated some significant exam and assessment reforms, its affiliated schools are struggling to implement them. But board affiliation is not as critical a factor as is the willingness and ability of school managements to deliver curriculums effectively in classrooms. Good schools transform board syllabuses into excellent curriculums which encourage learning through critical thinking and application skills,” says Ramchandani.
The relatively poor learning outcomes of students from CBSE schools in QES is a warning that the slew of teaching-learning and exam reforms introduced by Union HRD minister Kapil Sibal over the past three years, have run into implementation problems, because they have been too quick to action them. In particular, the comprehensive continuous evaluation (CCE) system, which was introduced in 2010 to replace the sudden death class X board exam to evaluate student performance continuously through formative and summative assessments, is yet to be effectively implemented by CBSE schools because of inadequate teacher training and support.
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The defence of private school managements against the charge of encouraging rote learning and extreme examinations focus is that all the country’s 34 examination boards — including CBSE and CISCE — reward students’ memorisation skills and ability to present model answers. Therefore schools have no option but to drill and skill students writing class X and XII examinations to memorise model answers and standard facts to ensure success in board exams, whose grades determine admission into colleges and other institutions of higher education.
“Rote learning will continue if the testing pattern of board examinations doesn’t change. Students will continue to reproduce matter from textbooks to ‘correctly’ answer board exam questions which demand information, narration, or description. Although our students are more than capable of problem solving and creative thinking, examination papers are repetitive and examiners reward memorised model answers. Rote learning, falling learning outcomes and many other criticisms of QES are being debated in other countries too. Coac-hed minds is a common phenomenon,” says Devi Kar, principal of the CISCE-affiliated Modern School, Kolkata, ranked West Bengal’s premier day school in the EducationWorld India’s Most Respected Schools Survey 2011.
Curiously, students from schools in Kolkata and Delhi scored significantly higher in QES than their counterparts in Chennai, Mumbai and Bangalore. Authors of QES attribute this to “the higher number of CISCE and CBSE schools in both cities”. Mumbai students fared better than their counterparts in Chennai and Bangalore where there are large concentrations of state board-affiliated schools.
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Although the authors of QES are critical of the country’s most preferred schools for encouraging memorisation, school principals aren’t convinced that rote learning is entirely bad. Comments Padmini Sriraman, principal of the CBSE-affiliated Hindu Senior Secondary School, Chennai: “Rote learning makes it easier to learn and retain basic concepts including science definitions, mathematical formulae etc, and builds a useful foundation for higher secon-dary education. Though now with the introduction of CCE, there’s been an attempt to change the assessment system, improvements in cognitive thinking are visible only in a handful of forward looking private schools, as teachers are yet to understand CCE fully and change classroom pedagogies accordingly.”
Quite clearly, school managements and teachers whose reputations are on the line will continue to encourage memorisation of model answers as long as examination boards reward it. Therefore the lead has to be taken by exam boards to instruct their examiners to reward students exhibiting reasoning and cognitive skills, and more adventurous and explanatory answers. Unless boards unambiguously adopt a policy of rewarding the cognitive and creative rather than retention skills of students, in the manner of progressive offshore exam boards such as IBO, Geneva, CIE and Edexcel (UK) and the College Board Advanced Placement (USA), the pedagogical status quo in Indian schools is unlikely to change for the better.
Yet perhaps a more shocking revelation of QES is that the country’s top metro schools have failed and neglected to correct archaic social value premises — probably imprinted upon them by prejudiced and bigoted parents — of their 21st century students. Alarmingly the study reveals that students enroled in top metro schools exhibit “lower sensitivity” and “demon-strate lack of progressive thought” on issues related to gender equality, people diversity and civic responsibilities.
According to QES field researchers, 40-43 percent of classes IV, VI and VIII students opined that educating girl children is not as important as boys’ education and that educating girls is a waste of household and public resources. On the issue of acceptance of people diversity, 60 percent of students exhibited resentment towards ‘immigrants’ from other states of the Indian Union on the grounds that they take away jobs, fail to conform to the state’s traditions and create linguistic disharmony. Even more shockingly, 70-80 percent of classes IV, VI and VIII students believe that physically and mentally challenged students are burdensome, unhappy and ne’r-do-wells. And 60 percent of primary and upper primary students of the country’s most admired private metropolitan schools showed insensi-tivity towards HIV-affected people, and lack of awareness about the causes of HIV-AIDS.
These regressive social attitudes of children in the country’s most preferred English-medium schools is dismaying because they are the progeny of middle and upper middle class households, being consciously groomed for leadership positions in Indian society. According to the authors of QES, 63 percent of their parents are university graduates including postgrads and Ph Ds, 41 percent are business entre-preneurs and 84.4 percent of students tested have a computer and internet access at home. Moreover 74.7 percent were English newspaper readers, and 39.3 percent had more than 30 books to read at home.
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“Although disturbing, this data about students’ attitudes and prejudices isn’t surprising. Private school managements make no bones that their focus is on high grades and preparing students for the jobs market. Children are also conditioned to believe schools are places to learn, not for developing into good human beings. The larger purpose of education which is nurturing children to cope with the challenges of urban living, globalisation, migration, cultural diversity, and creating democratic, egalitarian and secular environments, is clearly ignored in school education. Even when schools adopt life skills programmes, their focus is narrow and outcomes based. They don’t offer a larger canvas — that there’s a difference between knowledge and knowledge application skills. There’s urgent need for school managements across the board to integrate process-driven approaches into the curriculum, where teachers engage with students to transform information and knowledge into positive relationships, behaviour, and attitudes,” says Dr. Shekhar Seshadri, professor of child and adolescence psychiatry at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS), Bangalore.
QES’ revelation of the obsolete attitudes towards gender equality and cultural diversity of elite private school students strengthens the oft-repeated criticism of Left intellectuals and civil society groups that India’s private schools are enclaves of privilege, producing alienated youth with an exaggerated sense of entitlement, and insensitive to the needs of a society in which half the population manages on less than Rs.20 per day. According to Ashok Agarwal, a Delhi-based lawyer and founder of NGO Social Jurist which has filed several petitions in the courts praying for judicial directives to make Delhi’s private schools more inclusive, the 25 percent reservation for poor and socially disadvantaged children in private schools mandated by the Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, is a positive intervention.
“The reason why the country’s top private schools are nurturing selfish students oblivious to the needs of society, is because they have barred the entry of the socially disadvantaged into their institutions for decades. The 25 percent quota in classes I-VIII made compulsory by s.12(i)(c) of the RTE Act is justified because it will compel student diversity in private schools, and give rich students opportunities to interact with and hopefully, learn to empathise with the needs and challenges of the poor majority. In the long term, it will improve their attitudes and behaviour and transform them into caring, positive adults with sympathy for the poor and disadvantaged. Private schools should embrace the 25 percent quota provision as an opportunity to end class segregation in primary education, and develop their students into socially responsible citizens,” says Agarwal.
While at a deeper level, the regressive social attitudes of elite school students could be attributed to non-inclusive classrooms, another important reason is insufficient attention and time given to co-curricular education. In the rat race for excellent board exam results, metro schools are cutting time allocated for co-curricular activities such as dance, drama, debate and music — proven as critical to developing liberal mindsets and attitudes.
QES reveals that the country’s top private schools pay mere lip service to co-curricular education. According to the study, though over 70 percent of 54 school principals interviewed agreed that co-curricular education is important for building self-confidence, self-control, life skills etc, half of them admitted their school “places no major emphasis in the curriculum for these areas, indicating what is being said is not often practiced”. School manage-ments allocate just 10 percent of time to physical education/sports and co-curricular activities such as music/art/dance/elocution/dramatics. About 60 percent of class time is spent on academic subjects.
“On their websites and brochures most schools trumpet the importance of co-curricular education. However, the spirit in which it is transacted and implemented has to be revisited. School principals and teachers need to realise that the skills required in today’s fast changing world are very different from what they were in the past. They must make time in the school day for supplementary activities which encourage cogitation, deliberation and discussion, and develop interpersonal skills and healthy attitudes. The quality of co-scholastic activities offered in schools needs to be re-thought,” advises Avnita Bir, principal of Mumbai’s prestigious CBSE-affiliated R.N. Podar School.
Student learning outcomes, attitudes and values, and quality of co-scholastic education apart, QES provides valuable information about leadership and management styles, teacher and principal beliefs about teaching-learning and student discipline, best practices for instructional quality, classroom climate, and academic pressure in metro India’s popular private schools (see box).
Almost conterminously with the release of QES which exposed the deficiencies of India’s top metro primaries, a more broad-based international study — Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) — which was released by the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Development (OECD) on December 16, confirms that secondary education in India is also in deep crisis.
PISA measures learning outcomes of 15-year-olds in reading, maths and science in 74 countries worldwide. Last year India (with students from Tamil Nadu and Himachal Pradesh) participated for the first time. Although Tamil Nadu and Himachal Pradesh are ranked high on human development parameters in India and are reputedly more progressive states, Indian 15-year-olds were ranked 73rd among the 74 student cohorts who wrote PISA in 2009, with the eastern Chinese metropolis of Shanghai topping in all three categories (see box).
The larger fallout of a hugely deficient K-12 education system churning out ill-equipped students without cognitive reasoning and problem-solving skill-sets, is that there’s a crisis of confidence in the country’s higher education system. Abysmal learning outcomes in a majority of India’s 603 universities and 31,000 colleges have created the phenomenon of “unempl-oyable graduates”. And the falling dominoes effect finally impacts Indian industry and agriculture, hamstrung by rock-bottom employee productivity and a perennial shortage of skilled personnel.
“The quality of school and higher education determines economic development. Because of the poor quality of our education system, Indian industry is facing a severe shortage of skilled people and employees who can grasp and solve problems. It’s very disturbing that students in India’s top schools learn by mugging and are deficient in the vital skills of problem solving, critical thinking and analysis. It’s imperative that these skills are augm-ented and become the focus of school education,” says Saloni Singhal, the Delhi-based spokesperson (school education) of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).
Meanwhile even as Wipro and Educational Initiatives are gearing to organise discussion forums with school principals and teachers in the five metros to deliberate on the disturbing conclusions of QES, attention needs to be directed towards large-scale reforms in the CBSE, CISCE and state examination boards, and mobilisation of resources for teacher training and development.
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“Given that rote learning is necessary for schools to stay at the top of the score card in board exams, the onus is on these boards to drive change. Our boards have a skewed understanding of knowledge which is reflected in their exam papers. Memorisation is the key, not conceptual understanding. The exam system needs a complete overhaul if schools are to teach students to learn differently. The National Curriculum Framework 2005 proposed several examination reforms, particularly relating to the design of question papers. The syllabus designed by NCERT is also well-thought out and balanced. These reforms must be immediately imple-mented to improve the quality of teaching-learning in all schools. And most important, these reforms must focus on improving the quality of teacher education and in-service training,” says Dr. Krishna Kumar, former director of National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT) and professor of education at Delhi University.
Hitherto, the complacent assumption within urban India’s 40 million middle class households which heavily favour K-12 private education, was that their children’s English-medium schools were comparable with the best globally. QES and India’s PISA debut should puncture this belief. Clearly, it’s time for the country’s influential middle class, the Union HRD ministry, and manag-ements and principals of premier private schools to accept the blunt reality that the rot in K-12 education is not only in the country’s 1.26 million government schools but has infected the great majority of 80,000 — including CBSE and CISCE — schools in urban India.
That students enroled in the country’s most preferred English- medium private schools suffer in comparison with average government school students in Western countries in rudimentary skills, is an indictment which calls for urgent reform initiatives. As model institutions for the nation’s government schools, metropolitan schools have a greater duty to innovate, lead and introduce best teaching-learning practices.
With Autar Nehru & Payal Mahajan (Delhi); Jayanthi Mahalingam (Mumbai) & Hemalatha Raghupathi (Chennai)