INSPIRATIONAL LEADERSHIP OF THE CATHOLIC SCHOOL
The Keynote Address given by
Archbishop Henry D’Souza
on 25th Oct. 1994 at the AINACS Meeting
This topic inviting Catholic schools to inspirational leadership can be a landmark in Catholic education. Catholic schools have a record of being pioneers in the field of education; they have set patterns of excellence. The thousands of applications for admission to our schools testify to the recognition of this fact. But in today’s context, is this the type of school which the Church wants to have? We have to face the question: What is the purpose of Catholic Education?
Although our schools are modernized, although we have high-tech equipments, we realize that something is missing. We are victims of an educational system which seems to deprive the child of its childhood. In its haste to give the child as much as possible within the 9-10 years at school it has kept on loading the syllabus. In all these additions, the worst sufferer is the child.
Hence, we have the phenomenon of the over-burdened preschooler. Already at 4 or 5 years the child is loaded with information. In the mistaken idea that he/she is getting a head-start, the child is drilled to know early what should be taught later. The consequence is that children get deprived of their childhood. They have little time to play, and less time to enjoy themselves with childhood hobbies. From class there is homework – then from homework there is tuition – then from tuition there are lessons, and son on. After taking into account the time spent in going to and from school (at times almost 2 hours), one can imagine the disastrous effects of the demands from the educational system.
The fault may be with the parents themselves. They are delighted when their children know the 3 Rs given even while they are in the kindergarten. Yet studies show that a child from 3-5 years has a limited capacity for eye and hand coordination, and needs much more practice in finger and wrist movements and control before he/she can start formal writing. The bones and muscles are not developed enough to sit in the same position for more than 10-15 minutes. The child begins to reason with forward thinking only from 4½ – 5 yeas; and to reversible thinking required for numbers from 6½ – 7 years. Before that it is only rote learning.
Yet these are made the requirements for admission. So-called good schools use these skills as criteria for the entrance test. Imagine the anxiety of parents and the pressure on children in a situation on where good schools are not easily available. Hence from the very start, the possibility of using methods where children learn while playing and play while learning is diminished. Could we examine the admission policy for entering a good school? The standards set for entrance may militate against academic sanity. It becomes a structural problem. To my mind the quality of the school is to be gauged by its capacity to teach, and not the brilliance of its pupils. If ignorance of the 3 Rs would be made a plus point for admission, our schools might become catalysts for restoring the joys of childhood back to the child.
What about the school itself? They are known for discipline and order. They are outstanding in their academic achievements. But these same characteristics seem to make them partners for perpetuating an unjust society. They instill a fierce competitive spirit which leads to rugged individualism.
A Catholic School Br.
What about the value system? Recent surveys have shown that economic values are uppermost in the hearts and minds of the young in India and that religious values occupy the last place” (Pastoral Plan for Catholic Schools in India
In 1992 the Department of education set up a National Advisory Committee headed by Professor Yash Pal specifically to suggest means for reducing the academic burden on students. The recommendations of this Committee are available – the Catholic Schools could set about studying them.
The report spoke of decentralizing the writing of text books and of avoiding the urban bias of their content. It praised some of the voluntary agencies, which had started innovative work in this field. Is this not a challenge to AINACS to do likewise on a more formal and organized basis?
The report has also talked of pre-school children. It highlights the commercialization of nurseries where few educational principles are observed. Learning material is often introduced at an unnecessarily early stage in total disregard of educational psychology. Mathematics textbooks for classes 4 r 5 bring in proportional reasoning which is not suited to the average age of such classes. History books begin with ancient India
Learning as a holistic process is often nullified by timetables, which compartmentalize all subjects. So much time for history, so much for geography and so on. Is it possible to have a cross-curricular approach, which would incorporate the study of the social, geographical, economic, biological, chemical and other aspects of a situation, indicating how all contribute together towards the proper growth of a community?
Such an approach would require a radical rewriting of textbooks. Initial experiments indicate that they would become eminently successful in forming the whole person- and this factor is one of the important goals of Catholic education, and therefore, should be appealing to Catholic Schools.
The Examiner of Sept. 1994 had an interesting article by Heather Godinho entitled “Education and children”. She writes about Bombay International in Babulnath, a co-educational and parent-run school. No, examinations till Class VI; the aim is for all-round performance, reasoning and conceptual understanding take precedence over memorizing by rote. No fixed time-table; children bring in shells and flowers and other such things which interest them. Lunch is prepared daily by groups-mothers, teachers, etc. She quotes Fr. Peter Paul Fernandes. “To love to learn everywhere and always is the most precious gift that one can make a child”.
It is high-time that our schools replaced the self-destructive and socially harmful competitive system by cooperative methods of learning. It is necessary to make the class move as a body, the fast helping the slow, the clever assisting the dull. All grow in knowledge together. It is important to recognize that every child has plus points and special gifts. Recognition of these gifts, instead of scolding the deficiencies could become an important person-oriented approach to education assisting the child to realize her/his uniqueness and worth. A family-oriented and family-involved educational system would have far-reaching beneficial effects for society and the nation.
Concern for others will take away self-centredness. One such expression is an outreach programme in the school to the street-children; or each one teach one in the school or in teh neighbourbood; or an organized programme of sharing with the less-privileged the facilities of the schools with personal involvement of the students – the poor can enrich the ethos of the school in unique ways.
It is clear today that the world is inter-dependent. The North cannot exist without the south. The city needs the village and vice-versa. Man needs nature and nature needs to be nourished and protected, if it is to be life-sustaining and fruitful. The list is endless. Ecology and environment have entered into modern day consciousness. The holistic development of the child requires that he/she be in harmony with the family, with the neighbours and the world. It is in this perspective that we are called to inspirational leadership in our Catholic Schools.
TOWARDS A NEW VISION IN CATHOLIC EDUCATION
Archbishop Henry D’Souza
Archbishop of Calcutta
The Catholic Church has a formidable array of educational institutions – primary, secondary, high, college – scattered all over the country. In most cases the institutions were started for Catholics while being open to children of all communities. Appreciation for catholic education is manifest in the pressure for admission from all sections of society.
In the wake of this success of our catholic educational system in India India India
It is accepted that education is an important means for bringing about a transformation in society. After five decades of independence however, illiteracy is still a major problem in the country’s under-development. Government statistics show that our people comprise 50% of the illiterates of the world. This is a matter of grave concern, since education helps to bring about equality among people, to give dignity to persons, and to empower people for work and employment. In India
The catholic school is a learning community animated by love and manifesting in a remarkable manner the claims of gospel values. The institution would have an atmosphere of trust and support. The staff would be working as a serving community in the interest of the learning community. There would be a sense of belonging among students, staff and management. It is clear that such gospel values cannot be confined to a few prayers at the beginning of the day or some religious symbols on walls. Evangelical values would want to transform and characterize the school system and structure. This goal would be the justifying rationale for the Catholic Church to be involved in education.
Educational institutions tend to measure their excellence in terms of records and financial success. Sociological surveys indicate that these are self defeating and generate anger and revolution in the deprived. A just society would want to base itself on a fostering of communion and an awareness of the interdependence among people. A person-oriented approach should be the school effort. It would also be very evangelical.
Catholic education would want therefore to work for a school system which would be more in tune with the needs of the nation and the community with a more open type of approach, allowing for adaptation in rural areas to agricultural needs and adjusting to conditions and pressures on parents and pupils in urban areas.
The school calendar would take into considerationlocal cultural events, including weekly markets and other such realities. There would be greater emphasis on creative learning than on stuffing knowledge into the mind of children. Consideration would be given to first generation learners, children from low income group and working children. Such would receive personal support through group learning, peer teaching and flexibility in the time table. It would be part of the school ethos that the strong help the weak, the quick assist the slow. Children would pick up values of mutual assistance and community well-being so that they grow together in a spirit of love and sharing.
Evaluation of children would change from a system of examination which disqualify people, to a method of assessment which would promote learning and affirm efforts through encouragement and remedial action. There would be positive steps to recognize improvement while allowing a reasonable space for children to grow and develop at their own pace.
It does seem necessary for catholic education, while striving for excellence, to review the past and face with creative initiatives the challenges of modern conditions. There would be a grater stress on the formation of persons in their wholeness as individuals and social beings, than on mere academic performance. The perspective of gospel values in every sphere of the school would surely bring about a transformation in educational institution. Our Catholic schools would then be models for building a just society and catalysts for change in the educational system of the country.
TOWARDS A NEW VISION IN CATHOLIC EDUCATION
Archbishop Henry D’Souza
Archbishop of Calcutta
The Catholic Church has a formidable array of educational institutions – primary, secondary, high, college – scattered all over the country. In most cases the institutions were started for Catholics while being open to children of all communities. Appreciation for catholic education is manifest in the pressure for admission from all sections of society.
In the wake of this success of our catholic educational system in India India India
It is accepted that education is an important means for bringing about a transformation in society. After five decades of independence however, illiteracy is still a major problem in the country’s under-development. Government statistics show that our people comprise 50% of the illiterates of the world. This is a matter of grave concern, since education helps to bring about equality among people, to give dignity to persons, and to empower people for work and employment. In India
The catholic school is a learning community animated by love and manifesting in a remarkable manner the claims of gospel values. The institution would have an atmosphere of trust and support. The staff would be working as a serving community in the interest of the learning community. There would be a sense of belonging among students, staff and management. It is clear that such gospel values cannot be confined to a few prayers at the beginning of the day or some religious symbols on walls. Evangelical values would want to transform and characterize the school system and structure. This goal would be the justifying rationale for the Catholic Church to be involved in education.
Educational institutions tend to measure their excellence in terms of records and financial success. Sociological surveys indicate that these are self defeating and generate anger and revolution in the deprived. A just society would want to base itself on a fostering of communion and an awareness of the interdependence among people. A person-oriented approach should be the school effort. It would also be very evangelical.
Catholic education would want therefore to work for a school system which would be more in tune with the needs of the nation and the community with a more open type of approach, allowing for adaptation in rural areas to agricultural needs and adjusting to conditions and pressures on parents and pupils in urban areas.
The school calendar would take into considerationlocal cultural events, including weekly markets and other such realities. There would be greater emphasis on creative learning than on stuffing knowledge into the mind of children. Consideration would be given to first generation learners, children from low income group and working children. Such would receive personal support through group learning, peer teaching and flexibility in the time table. It would be part of the school ethos that the strong help the weak, the quick assist the slow. Children would pick up values of mutual assistance and community well-being so that they grow together in a spirit of love and sharing.
Evaluation of children would change from a system of examination which disqualify people, to a method of assessment which would promote learning and affirm efforts through encouragement and remedial action. There would be positive steps to recognize improvement while allowing a reasonable space for children to grow and develop at their own pace.
It does seem necessary for catholic education, while striving for excellence, to review the past and face with creative initiatives the challenges of modern conditions. There would be a grater stress on the formation of persons in their wholeness as individuals and social beings, than on mere academic performance. The perspective of gospel values in every sphere of the school would surely bring about a transformation in educational institution. Our Catholic schools would then be models for building a just society and catalysts for change in the educational system of the country.
TOWARDS A NEW VISION IN CATHOLIC EDUCATION
Archbishop Henry D’Souza
Archbishop of Calcutta
The Catholic Church has a formidable array of educational institutions – primary, secondary, high, college – scattered all over the country. In most cases the institutions were started for Catholics while being open to children of all communities. Appreciation for catholic education is manifest in the pressure for admission from all sections of society.
In the wake of this success of our catholic educational system in India India India
It is accepted that education is an important means for bringing about a transformation in society. After five decades of independence however, illiteracy is still a major problem in the country’s under-development. Government statistics show that our people comprise 50% of the illiterates of the world. This is a matter of grave concern, since education helps to bring about equality among people, to give dignity to persons, and to empower people for work and employment. In India
The catholic school is a learning community animated by love and manifesting in a remarkable manner the claims of gospel values. The institution would have an atmosphere of trust and support. The staff would be working as a serving community in the interest of the learning community. There would be a sense of belonging among students, staff and management. It is clear that such gospel values cannot be confined to a few prayers at the beginning of the day or some religious symbols on walls. Evangelical values would want to transform and characterize the school system and structure. This goal would be the justifying rationale for the Catholic Church to be involved in education.
Educational institutions tend to measure their excellence in terms of records and financial success. Sociological surveys indicate that these are self defeating and generate anger and revolution in the deprived. A just society would want to base itself on a fostering of communion and an awareness of the interdependence among people. A person-oriented approach should be the school effort. It would also be very evangelical.
Catholic education would want therefore to work for a school system which would be more in tune with the needs of the nation and the community with a more open type of approach, allowing for adaptation in rural areas to agricultural needs and adjusting to conditions and pressures on parents and pupils in urban areas.
The school calendar would take into considerationlocal cultural events, including weekly markets and other such realities. There would be greater emphasis on creative learning than on stuffing knowledge into the mind of children. Consideration would be given to first generation learners, children from low income group and working children. Such would receive personal support through group learning, peer teaching and flexibility in the time table. It would be part of the school ethos that the strong help the weak, the quick assist the slow. Children would pick up values of mutual assistance and community well-being so that they grow together in a spirit of love and sharing.
Evaluation of children would change from a system of examination which disqualify people, to a method of assessment which would promote learning and affirm efforts through encouragement and remedial action. There would be positive steps to recognize improvement while allowing a reasonable space for children to grow and develop at their own pace.
It does seem necessary for catholic education, while striving for excellence, to review the past and face with creative initiatives the challenges of modern conditions. There would be a grater stress on the formation of persons in their wholeness as individuals and social beings, than on mere academic performance. The perspective of gospel values in every sphere of the school would surely bring about a transformation in educational institution. Our Catholic schools would then be models for building a just society and catalysts for change in the educational system of the country.
WHO IS LEADING OUR SCHOOLS?
Like the Frog in a Kettle
A look at our educational institutions today, reminders one of the familiar story of the frog in the kettle. Put the frog in the steaming hot water and it will jump out immediately because if can sense that its in a hostile environment. But drop the frog in a kettle of room-temperature water and it will stay there cosy and content with those surroundings. Slowly, very slowly, increase the temperature of the water. Surprisingly, the frog doesn’t leap out. It continues to stay there, unaware that the environment is changing. Continue to increase the heat until the water starts boiling and the frog is cooked, quite content, perhaps but nevertheless cooked!
Our schools might be expected to be more aware of current changes in the environment than the frog in the kettle. But one sees that generally there is a kind of insensitiveness to those changes. More recent entrants in the field seem to be adapting to changes and moving ahead of us. We continue to operate as though our environment has remained the same. Like the frog, we may be faced with the real possibility of dying because of our unresponsiveness to the changing world around us.
Ill-groomed Leadership
One important factor contributing to this state of affairs is inadequately groomed leadership. Our principals, by and large, are not equipped to take an active and ongoing role in supporting a reform effort and take risks to develop a positive school culture that encourages change.
In our system there are no organized professional development programmes, as in many western countries, to adequately prepare those holding these posts to meet the priority demands of constantly changing environment. A couple of university degrees do not make one a dynamic leader.
In diverse environments where an entire system is in decline or in need of improvement, there are negative organizational behaviours – resistance, avoidance, passivity and feeling of helplessness. A weak and directionless leadership, in such a situation, necessarily creates a death spiral! It requires a strong, competent and effective leader to address these behaviours by promoting dialogue, engendering respect, sparking collaboration and inspiring initiative.
Present day Leadership
Strong competent and effective leadership is at the heart of all successful organizations, be they public, private or non-profit. An increasing body of evidence – recent studies and surveys – confirms that such leadership is also important in schools. But it is leadership of a special kind. The demand today is to shift focus from Bs (books, buses, buildings and budget) to Cs (Curriculum, Content, Communication, Collaboration, Community building. There is a growing consensus that the old ‘Command and Control’ leadership models are out of touch with the realities of what it takes to run today’s high accountability school systems. Good leadership for schools is shared leadership. It may have many forms and many names : distributive leadership, change facilitation and constructivist leadership.
The old model of leadership with strict separation of management and production is no longer effective. Principals must serve as leaders for student learning. They must know the academic content and pedagogical techniques. They must work with teachers to strengthen skills. They must collect, analyze, and use data in ways that fuel excellence. Principals also must be able to permit and encourage teachers to exercise leadership outside the classroom. There are several such areas, ranging from selecting text books and instructional materials to course designing. Principals that are effective leaders of school change have to be proactive. They have to initiate action,anticipate and recognize changes in their environment that will affect their schools, and challenge the status quo, the established ways of operating that interfere with the realization of their organizations vision.
In a Squeeze
Principals are literally in a squeeze within an increasing number of expectations. They are expected to be instructional leaders responsible for best practices in teaching and learning, custodians of school properties and efficient running and appropriate resources in the school at a time when resources are diminishing, liaison officers, responsible for communication and good relationship among teachers, students, parents, community, authorities and different levels of organizational hierarchy, and agents of change, responsible for administering educational reform. Above all, they must deliver on every child’s high academic performance. Principals are expected to strike a balance between all these pressures and their personal resources. With the increased physical, social, moral and educational responsibilities, balancing between instructional leadership and management has become increasingly difficult.
The traditional role of the principal was an administrator who “worked with and through others to accomplish school goals efficiently.” Within that role were included the realms of leadership and management. Management meant to be the Chief Executive Officer, a single person who was ultimately responsible for everything that goes on in a school – supporting the work of teachers through providing necessary resources, building a supportive climate, communicating with parents, planning, rescheduling, book-keeping, resolving conflicts, handling student problems and dealing with Govt. Officials. Leadership, on the other hand, suggests, an emphasis on newness and change, implying that a leader be an inspirational agent of educational changes. The role of the administrator has expanded from being an instructional leader and a manager, include accountability for everything that goes on in the broad school community.
What kind of strengths are we looking for in the Principals of 21st Century?
(i) Instructional Leader
Principals who devote bulk of their time, talents, energy to improving the quality of teaching and learning, including new teaching methods that emphasise problem solving and student construction of knowledge. Good instructional leaders have a strong commitment to success for all students not just for a ‘gifted’ few, and are especially committed to improving instruction for groups of students who are not learning now.
Such principals know how to evaluate instruction and give frank and powerful feedback that encourages teachers to teach better and students to learn more. Those principals engage the whole school in continuous dialogue about what good teaching looks like and whether students are doing quality work. Often the work of principals is judged in terms of teacher growth and demonstrable gains in student learning.
Becoming a true instructional leader does not mean usurping the job of the teacher. Instead it means that leader will provide teachers with informed feedback, guidance, support and professional development that will help them do their job better.
Manager
How much emphasis should an educational leader place on instructional leadership, relative to management skills and other critical competencies? Some very successful principals could not truly be called instructional leaders but they know how to get the best out of resources on hand, how to nurture good teaching and learning amid external pressures. But this does not apply to leaders who hide behind their heavy management load as an excuse for their lack of instructional involvement. At the same time, some leaders who have excellent instructional leadership skills have run aground because they are not competent managers. Principals need to shape an organization that demands and supports excellent environment. Therefore, purposing, maintaining harmony, institutionalizing values, motivating, managing, explaining, enabling, and supervising, all managerial skills go into making a competent leader. The choice is not whether a principal is a leader or manager but whether the two emphases are in balance and indeed they complement each other.
(ii) Effective Communicator
An increasingly essential dimension of leadership is the ability to communicate and collaborate with people inside and outside the school. The ‘top-down’ approach of a principal who takes decisions and expects others to carry them out does not reflect the real delegation/distribution of power or the true source of motivation in today’s schools. Leadership is a shared process involving principals, teachers, students and parents. An effective leader can rally people around meaningful goals and inspire them to work together to accomplish these goals. A good leader has powerful ways of connecting with others and knows how to build constituencies that push for change and break down institutional barriers to teaching and learning.
This is not to say that every decision has to be made through consensus. Most of our schools still look like highly centralized, topdown systems. While you actually have complete authority, everyone else shares responsibility for the outcomes of learning.
Principals also need public relations and media skills, as well as political survey, to educate the public about what has to be done and persuade them that these goals are crucial to their children’s future. Principals also must be able to work with other community agencies and organization to create structures to address the social service needs of children and families.
Charismatic Visionary
An effective characteristic of Principal as leader is to have a strong charismatic Vision of teaching, learning and excellence. (Vision includes the development, transmission, and implementation of an image of the future). A leader with a vision provides meaning and purpose to the work of the school. The vision, however, is not directed from the top but derived from the collaborative process of determining goals and vision from all community participants. It is a shared vision, which provides a common ground for all participants, as long as the leadership models the common educational beliefs of the whole school community. The process of developing a shared vision promotes collegial and collaborative relationships. This ensures that the leader and followers have a shared set of values and commitment. It bonds them together in a common cause in order to meet a common goal.
Agent of Change
Leaders with a shared vision, guide, even provoke their organizations to change, adapt and reform. They are proactive and risk takers. They recognize shifts in the interests and needs of their clientele, anticipate the need to change and challenge the status quo. Leaders of change recognize that people in the school are its greatest resources. This implies that the leaders value the professional contributions of the staff, ability of the leader to relate to people and fostering of collaborative relationship. Above all, they are continually alert for opportunities to make things happen and if the opportunities didn’t present themselves, they create them. They test the limits in an effort to change things that no one else believes can be changed.
There is a way forward:
All this does not mean that we expect every principal to be a super hero. There are extraordinary leaders all over the country who can skillfully balance all the dimensions of leadership described above. It is possible to prepare people for leadership jobs – people who are proficient and committed but not necessarily extraordinary. Leaders can be made; they aren’t just born.
There is a pervasive need to identify, recruit (people, not just for their academic qualifications but for aptitude and commitment), train and place high-quality principals in our schools.
The notion of leadership capacity as broad-based, skillful involvement in the work of leadership, expands the concept of collaborative leadership to include a complement of manager and leader. Leadership becomes a focus on the collective empowerment of people towards the common goal of providing appropriate physical, human and emotional resources to improve student and teacher learning.
Gratian Vas
[Matter taken from Schools as an Agent of Social Change – XXXIV National Convention, AINACS 2000]
Education for Social Change: Dilemmas and Imperatives
By Paul V. Parathazham
1. School and Social Change
When one thinks of the theme of this convention, The School as an Agent of Social Change, one is immediately faced with the familiar chicken and egg problem: Which is first: the chicken or the egg? In this case, does the school shape the society? Or, does the society shape the school. This question has been answered in three different ways.
A. Schools do not and cannot shape society
Many eminent thinkers and scholars subscribe to this notion. According to these thinkers, envisaging of the school as an agent of social change is an idea that is utopian in the extreme. Thinkers of this persuasion believe that education is an instrument forged by the ruling classes to preserve their own interests and thereby help to maintain the status quo in the existing economic and political power structure.
Thus Paulo Freire, the renowned Brazilian educationist and author of that modern day classic The Pedagogy of the Oppressed, says:
The schools where systematic education is developed do not shape society, but instead society shapes them. It is impossible to expect schools to transform society….The oppression of the masses, which is the problem of the exercise of power, was not caused by the schools and therefore will not be solved by the mere transformation of the schools. Transformation of reality cannot be mediated by educational changes. That would be a utopian panacea. On the contrary, it is transformation of society by political action that will change education.
There is nothing like neutral education. Education is a political at.
Those who wield power define what education is. They determine the ends it should pursue and what its methodologies should be. Neutral methods do not exist. It is naïve to expect the ruling classes to practice a liberating education which will make the masses realize the oppressive character of the rule by the privileged minority and which will enable to dislodge the very same ruling classes. They cannot be expected to design the kind of education that will work against the preservation of their power.
Gunnar Myrdal echoes the same view when he says that school systems mirror and “reinforce the inequalities in the societal structure”. As a subsystem, the educational system is deeply subordinated to and dependent upon the economic and political systems and the reigning cultural values. It therefore basically corresponds to, and reflects, these broader systems and, in turn, strengthens them.
The educational system of a country are moreover deeply affected by politics, for “all basic policy decisions in education are political in their essence. Those who wield political power are generally able to control all different social subsystems and manipulate them to their advantage. The social groups in power, therefore, have always manipulated the education system, especially when these happen to depend upon the state for their very existence, to strengthen and perpetuate their own privileged position. The existing power structure moreover tries hard to ensure that “no radical reconstruction of education contrary to its interests takes place.
Latapi puts this even more forcefully: “The educations system is a product of conscious profile, markedly unequally distribution of educational opportunities among regions or social classes is not a result of chance but of the relations of power which are policy…Therefore, it is utopian to think that through the magic of a beautiful egalitarian ideal, the decisions of the state will produce educational equality; for education is nothing but a function dependent upon the configuration of power in society and educational policies reflect existing imbalances in the distribution of power.”
They maintain that the dominant culture of society is reproduced and strengthened by educational system. “Education mirrors the ideology of the dominant group in a society” (Ahamadi): institutional education is thus “an attempt to initiate students into the rituals of the dominant culture” (Davies).
According to this view, a socio-economic transformation or revolution should come first and that all the needed educational reconstruction will automatically follow. There is a fundamental necessity to change the economic and social structure before the system of pubic schooling ca be changed. For ruling class initiated educational reforms will always be applied in a way that will reinforce capitalist hierarchies.
B. Education the most Important Agency of Social Change
In contrast to this, there is another view, which holds the educational system can bring about key changes in socio-economic, political and cultural fields. Education is seen as an equalizer of opportunity, an agent of social mobility and as a means of individual and societal liberation. This optimistic understanding of education is often diffused and taken for granted. It is reflected in the statements of many, if not most, national leaders, planners and educationists. FYP III for example asserted: “Education is the most important single factor in achieving rapid economic development and technological progress and in creating a social order founded on the values of freedom, social justice and equal opportunity.” And the Kothari Commission report proclaimed: “The destiny of India
C. Relative Autonomy Thesis
The third view, which I find the most acceptable, abandons both these extreme positions of social change through education or educational change through social revolution and accepts a middle view. In spite of its basic subordination to broader structures, education possess a relative autonomy and can thus make a real, but limited, contribution to social change. Education ,may be the product of history and society, but it is not their passive plaything. Though largely conditioned by the socio-economic and political power structure and basically performing a socializing, legitimizing ad confirmatory role, education has also a liberating potential….(Desrochers)
Thinkers of this school believe that all education has a dual character. As a process of socialization it makes individuals conform to the norms and values of society and its establishment, thus dominating and domesticating them; at the same time it has the capacity to generate a spirit of inquiry and questioning of the accepted truths, thereby liberating the human mind from the shackles of the past and the present. (Murickan)
In fact, education itself is a dialectical process. It indeed leads, on the one hand, to a strengthening and perpetuation of the status quo, and on the other, to social change and development.
As Kothari Commission has long ago pointed out: “The direct link between education, national development and prosperity….exists only when the national system of education is properly organized, both from quantitative and qualitative points of view. The naïve belief that all education is necessarily good, both for the individual or for society, and that it will necessarily lead to progress, can be as harmful s it is misplaced…It is only the right type of education, provided on an adequate scale, that can lead to national development; when these conditions are not satisfied, the opposite effect may be the result. (1.18)
The education system is never politically neutral; it always performs three functions simultaneously: it helps the privileged to dominate, domesticates the underprivileged to their own status in society, and also tends to liberate the oppressed…performs a delegitimizing function.
Which of these functions shall dominate and to what extent depends, in no small measure, on the educators and those who manage and administer these educational institutions. In other words, whether a school functions as an agency of domestication or liberation depends, in small measure, the choices you make as educators and administrators of educational institutions.
2. Educational Situation in India
We need first to take a close look at the educational scene in India India
- The existence of generalized illiteracy and even of a rapidly growing number of illiterates, coupled with a tragic and continuing neglect of adult education,.
- The colossal and conspicuous failure in the field of elementary education with regard to coverage, facilities and relevance.
- Massive and institutionalized inequalities prevailing in education.
- The country’s insufficient and biased educational budget.
Let us take a closer look at each of these features.
A. Generalised Illiteracy
Education today is generally recognized as a ‘human right’. The 1948 UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaims: “Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages.” The 1959 UN Declaration of the Rights of the Child is still more specific: “The child is entitled to receive education, which shall be free and compulsory, at least in the elementary stages.”
In its “Directive Principles”, unfortunately not enforceable by law, the Constitution of India acknowledges the right of all to education (Art. 41) and set up the target of universal elementary education by 1960. “The State shall endeavour to provide, within ten years….for free compulsory education for all children until they complete the age of fourteen years.
The deadline laid down by the Constitution for Universal elementary education was 1960. Long forty years have passed since that deadline. Still almost half of India India India
In 1951 there were 301 million illiterates (83.3% of 361 million population) in the country. Today, after 40 years of planned development, the ranks of illiterates in the country have grown to more than 450 million, a 50% increase in absolute terms, larger than the population of any country outside China China China after the revolution (1949) and India India and in China
The sluggish growth rate of literacy reflects our failures in the fields of both primary and adult education.
B. Colossal Disaster in Elementary Education
The Constitution first fixed 1960 as the target date for achieving universalization of elementary education. It was then revised to 1970, then to 1976, then to 1988, then to 1990 and then to the year 2000. All these target dates fixed by different governments have come and gone, and still there are in India
Though according to the latest statistics available, the gross enrolment in primary school has reached 93.4% of the country’s children, the retention level is very low. Out of every 100 children enrolled in class I, only 62 reach class V, the rest (38%) are adding up to the vast army of illiterates. (Or to put differently, out of 100 children 93 enroll in school; and only 58 complete class V).
When we compare our situation with other countries in our neighbourhood, we realize that this pathetic state of affairs is the result of willful neglect. During 1986-93 period, of the 100 children enrolled in class I, 86 in Indonesia , 88 in China and 92 in Sri Lanka India
Mere enrolment in elementary classes is not going to create any dent on the problem of universalization of elementary education. What is required is the completion of the course. In other words, universal retention is a must. At present low retention and high drop-out rates continue to erode the gains from educational expansion. In this respect the completion of class IV or V is of special significance, for this level corresponds to the attainment of literacy in the Indian setup (whether IV or V is required is disputed). Out of 100 enrolled, only 40 reach class five! In other words, the majority of India
And among those who do come into school, many fail. As Carnoy points out: “Since poor children generally do badly in school, they are branded as “failures” early in life simply because they are unable to succeed in school tests and exercises. Worse, perhaps, is the self-concept of these failures and drop-outs. The society thus reinforces their self-image of incompetence and ignorance. Many children in the world are brought into school only to fail. And their experience of failure has a negative impact on their self-esteem.
Today’s educational system operates as a ‘sorting out’ machine. It fails the poor, then brands them as ‘failures’, and pushes them out to do the dirty work for the rich!
Educationists generally agree that the major reasons for this overall situation are socio-economic.
The obstacle to primary education is more economic than academic. Drop-out ratio coincides with poverty-ratio, according to number of studies. As the Kothari Commission has observed, a child is willingly sent to school between the ages of 6 and 9 because at this stage he or she is more of nuisance than help at home. After the age of 9 or 10, the child becomes an economic asset because he can work at home or earn something outside. This is especially true of girls who have to assist the overworked mother at home. The long-term solution to this problem can only come through general economic improvement. But in the immediate situation, the only way to overcome this difficulty is to provide part-time education so that children can work as well as learn.
(i) Shocking Schooling Conditions
The lamentable conditions of primary and middle schools greatly contribute to their low educational standards and even to the tragic phenomena of non-enrollment, irregular attendance, stagnation, wastage and failure. Despite the claims of the govt. to the contrary, there are still many rural and tribal areas which do not have a primary school within one kilometer. And many of the schools which are said to exist are in fact ‘ghost schools’, which exist only on paper.
A large number of these rural ad tribal schools have only one class room and one teacher for all five classes. In fact, there are studies which show many schools are without even one teacher for varying periods of time; and some teachers sub-contract the teaching work to others who are not qualified.
The physical conditions of primary and middle schools are still more distressing, particularly in rural areas. Large number of primary schools especially in the backward states like UP, MP, Orissa, do not even have the bare essentials to function as a school, like black-boards, lavatories, drinking water, playgrounds and often even a chair for the teacher to sit down. With its bare, sad and oppressing atmosphere, the “average” primary school is a national shame. Unless this deplorable state of affairs changes, we may as well forget about revitalizing primary education.
(ii) Irrelevant Content and Boring Pedagogy
People will be attracted to education only if they see in it a help in solving their life problems. However, primary education with a heavy academic bias is irrelevant to the life-situation and needs of most children, especially the poor and the rural majority. An important means of creating a genuine social demand for learning opportunities – which is a precondition for universal education – Is to tune education to the lives ad needs of the deprived. The inability to sell education to them is only partially due to their ignorance. It is even more due to the fact that t available education is not really saleable. Based on essentially Western, middle class and urban concepts, it is removed from the values and needs of a traditional, poor and rural society, from which the educated community itself is alienated. Primary education should therefore be radically transformed so as to satisfy the genuine needs and legitimate aspirations of oppressed rural people. It should become flexible and adaptable to local conditions.
In short, non-enrolment, drop-outs and failures at the primary stage of education are due to poor school facilities, unrelated curriculum, poor methods of teaching and poverty.
(iii) Wrong Model
According to Naik “the largest part of our failure is, however, due to the wrong of the model of the education system we adopted, namely, the traditional formal system of a single-point entry, sequential annual promotion from class to class, and full time instruction by full time professional teachers. The system first of all excludes all workers – whether children, youth or adults – from its purview, and is, therefore, unable to spread education among the poor people. Single-point entry meant that all those who were unable to enroll themselves in class I at age six simply missed opportunity for formal education. Moreover overemphasis on professionalism (on professionally trained teachers) increases unit costs and makes the spread of education extremely difficult, if not impossible. The system is therefore inimical to both quality and quantity. In a sense 5he major stumbling block in the realization of mass education is the formal educational system we have adopted.
Education for our People, A Policy Frame for the Development of Education, a document prepared by J.P. Naik and endorsed by more than 40 eminent educationalists, fully shares this view. The greatest handicap to the achievement of universal elementary education has been the formal system of education. It increases costs through its insistence on exclusive employment of full time teachers, keeps millions of children out by its insistence on full time attendance and converts the bulk of children from poor families who are required to work into drop outs or push outs.” In an appropriate model, the document goes on to say, “all three channel of learning, namely, full time, part time, and own time (learning) should receive equal emphasis and status. And a multi-entry system should be adopted along with considerable flexibility in the choice, content and duration of course, and all social institutions as well as all teaching resources of the community should be utilized for educational purposes. Incidental and non-formal education should be given as much emphasis as formal education and these three systems should be blended in an integrated fashion. Instead of only preparing for higher levels, lower stages should be self-sufficient and terminal.
C. Massive and institutionalized Inequalities
The third fact of the educational situation is the massive inequalities still prevailing between men and women as well as between the general population and disadvantaged groups such as Scs and Sts and the economically poor. Regional imbalances, urban-rural-tribal disparities, and inequalities between various ethnic/linguistic and religious communities. In most of these sectors, substantial progress has been made, but we still have a long way to go. Our educational system has allowed the privileged groups to corner most of the educational opportunities and has thus have either strengthened old inequalities or created new ones. In the last analysis, socio-economic differences are probably the deepest and most stable source of inequalities in educational opportunities and achievements.
There is still a big gap between the female literacy of 39% and male literacy rate of 64% (differential of 25% points), In certain states of the country like Rajasthan, the female literacy rate is as low as 20% and Bihar it is about 23%. In fact, in Rajasthan only 11 of every hundred rural women are literate, and in Bihar the rural female literacy is as low as 17.95%.
Similarly, there is great disparity between the literacy rate among the Scheduled castes and scheduled tribes and the rest of the population. In 1991, literacy rate among the SCS was 37.41 and among STS 29.6% compared to 62.65% literacy rate among the rest of the population.
Regional imbalances constitute another important dimension ofh te massive inequalities prevailing in Indian education. 1991 literacy rate fluctuates from nearly 90% *9.91) to about 38% in Bihar and Rajasthan. There are striking rural-urban disparities as well. The urban literacy rate is 75% in contrast to the rural literacy rate of 44%.
One can therefore conclude that “the largest beneficiaries of our system of education are boys, people of urban areas, and the middle and upper classes. Educational development is benefiting the ‘haves’ more than the ‘have nots’.
What is even worse than the unjust distribution of educational benefits is that inequalities have become institutionalized in a dualistic educational system, which contains two distinct streams: the high quality elite sector and the low quality mass sector. Already in 1966 the Kothari Commission highlighted the existence of the double standards or streams in Indian education and the nefarious consequences of these institutional inequalities. At present, education “is tending to increase social segregation and to perpetuate and widen class distinctions. There is segregation in education itself – the minority of private, fee charging, better schools meeting the needs of the upper classes and the vast bulk of free, publicly maintained, bur poor schools being utilized by the rest. Good education is available only to a minority who can ‘buy’ it, and not to all children or atleast to all able children from every stratum of society. This position is undermocratic and militates against the ideal of an egalitarian society.
The elites sent their children to elitist schools where they are equipped with the knowledge and skills to inherit the elite status. Thus the educational system succeeds in placing the children of the elite more firmly in control of the levers of economic and political power. The dual system of education is far more effective in strengthening privilege than equalizing educational and societal opportunity. It is a gateway to privilege.
D. Insufficient and Elitist Budget
Sectoral expenditure on education highlights the wrong priorities in our planning. In our country plagued with so much illiteracy and having chosen formal schooling for all 6-14 year old children as its main remedy, considerably less than one-third of the total education allocation has been spent on this sector. Grater proportion of the educational outlay is spent on higher education. Since secondary and higher education mostly benefit the middle casts/classes, large investments in these sectors indeed mean in actual practice to sponsor and subsidize the well-to-do. In other words, it means helping the haves and neglecting the have nots.
3. Possibilities for Relevant Action
The foregoing analysis has shown that the educational system as it exists and functions today in India
This will imply among other things, the following priorities and programmes: (a) reorienting our educational priorities to make the common people, especially the poor and the oppressed, the principal beneficiaries of schools rather than the middle and upper classes and castes; (b) universal coverage in one form or another, which means placing emphasis on adult literacy, primary and elementary education and non-formal and part-time or own-time education for children; (c) creation of a national system related to the lives, culture, needs and aspirations of India’s masses and not of the elite; (d) promotion of secular and democratic values such as justice, liberty, equality, tolerance and competence that resonate with our constitutional ideals; (e) radical changes in content, methodology so as to provide the common man and woman with the required “minimum educational package” or “basic education; (f) use of various ways and means – such as work experience, contact programmes, involvement in community development schemes, and common schools – to combat and prevent the alienation for the educated from the masses; (g) vocationalisation and specialization responding to the country’s needs, measures for qualitative improvement at all levels; (h) people’s responsibility for and participation in education; (i) budgetary allocation to promote these priorities, and so on…In short, nothing short of a massive reorganisation of national priorities can really suffice.
In this task, what concrete contribution can the Catholic schools – administrators, educators, parents, students, and the church at large – make? How can they answer the major educational needs of the marginalized majority and foster justice in both education and the society at large? Can anything relevant be done in the field of formal education, in the schools we run?
The present situation and the long history of failure to implement the many sound recommendations for educational structure and policies undoubtedly create a climate of frustration and disillusionment. A mood of apathy and even despondency seems to have settled on the world of education. Many sincere educationists say: “we would like to do something to impart better education, but it is not possible with the present system”. So they plod on with their day-to-day tasks of school administration, without thinking about the larger goals of education. Such a defeatist attitude is playing into the hands of the vested interests who have stake in carrying on with the present system as it is. It is also one-sided attitude which forgets that schools do enjoy a certain autonomy and that it is within your power to change the system at least to some extent. In spite of the basic dependence of education on society and of the tremendous resistance to institutional changes, there indeed exist certain “pockets of freedom” and “zones of possible action” – which can be systematically expanded – and formal/non-formal education can become a crucial factor in the promotion of new social consciousness.
Much more than is often believed can be accomplished through formal education. In spite of the serious drawbacks and limitations caused by the educational system, it is indeed possible to create relevant schools and colleges. And it is possible for a genuine educator to function meaningfully in an ordinary school. Yet to achieve positive results, it is imperative that administrators and educators be profoundly aware of the wrong orientation of the present system and seriously try to go beyond it, and even against it.
A. Setting Meaningful Goals and Values
The renewal of forml education first of all demands the clarificatioin of goals and values. One;s approach to goals and values in education is deeply shaped by one’s vision of the society to be promoted.
(i) Education for liberation
It must be frankly admitted that today many educational institutions have no clear perceptions of their goals and as a result no commanding vision, no clear set of priorities. As a consequence, schools are often manipulated to accepting changes they have not consciously planned and the teachers routinely drift along.
Education is essentially a three-fold process: (1) imparting information and knowledge; (2) development of skills to earn one’s livelihood and solve the problems of day to day life, and (3) cultivation of attitudes and values. Education thus means communication of knowledge, skills and values. The intellectual training of the young is only one aspect of the integral formation of a human being.
The late Geore-Soares Prabhu has characterized the aims of Christian education in these words: “All education, it has been said, is either education for domestication or for freedom. The non-elitist, transforming, prophetic, dialogical and critical pedagogy of Jesus is highly liberative….in a double sense: it liberated people by making them conscious of their worth as children of the one Father in heaven irrespective f socio-economic status. Secondly, it liberated them from manipulative myths which legitimized their oppressive and alienating society by pointing towards a new fraternal and non exploitative ‘world’ in which men could live together as brothers and sisters. Any pedagogy that claims to be Christian must be liberative in this double sense.
(ii) Education in the service of society
Education theories have in the past tended to emphasize its individual dimension almost exclusively. According to this view, education is primarily for the benefit of the individual. Its objective is the full and harmonious development of all the powers of the individual so as to make him a better human being. Today there is a transition from this individualistic to the communitarian outlook. According to this view, education must benefit the community at least as much as the individual. The stress throughout must be not merely on develo0ing the students personality and faculties for his or her own benefit, but on making him/her a better citizen who will contribute his/her talents, skills and other capabilities for the greater good of the community. Vatican II Declaration on Education underscores this when it states: “A true education aims at the formation of the human person with respect to his ultimate good and simultaneously with respect to the good of the society of which he is a member. Julius Nyerere emphasizes the social role of education in strong terms: “When millions are dying of hunger and disease, what justification can there be for spending large sums of money to enable a handful of privileged persons to enclose themselves in ivory towers so as to improve their own minds…?
The needs of our country today demand a reordering of priorities among the goals of education. In the past, because of our emphasis on liberal, individualistic and competitive approach the goal of individual development was highlighted and social development was generally ignored. When the creation of a new society becomes the national objective, it follows that the highest priority will have to be given to the social objectives of education and their effective linking with developmental goals.
(iii) Value Education
That education should be value-oriented is a truism. The Indian educational system is sometimes blamed for preserving, or at least for not challenging enough the traditional feudal society and its value system. The official emphasis on inculcating Indian values can easily become a ruse for reverting to the values of the earlier oppressive values of Brahminical and upper class traditions. Speaking of Kothari Commissions intention to promote values, heritage and culture through education, Mohan simply asks: What values? Whose values? Which heritage and which part of our composite culture are we going to teach.
Since the aim of value educatioin is to enable the student tot be really India, truly moder, and deeply human, T.V. Kunnunkal suggests as a curriculum frame “the four fundamental values mentioned in the Preamble to the Constitution, namely, justice, equality, freedom and fraternity. These values have, ont eh one hand, genuine roots in the cultural traditions of country and realistically take into account the future needs of the people, if we are to endure as one country and one people. At the same time they cut across the narrow domestic walls ad hve become acceptable at the international level as well.
(iii) A Critical Pedagogy
The education system is also accused of promoting conformist and passive attitudes/values such as submission, acceptance of the existing order and fear of conflict. This is, for example, seen in the mentality of teachers and their methods. Future teachers we are once asked in a survey about the qualities they considered of primary importance in a pupil. Being attentive, discipline and docile took first place in 41% of the cases. A critical mind, thoughtfulness received the first rank only in 2% of the cases. The role of the teacher who sits by himself and is the absolute authority instills in the end conformity and submission. Few educators are conscious of the inconsistency between educational beliefs and educational reality. Students are relentlessly challenged to be bold, enterprising, critical and creative. But if a student is foolish enough to take the education at his word, he will find himself labeled a rebel. For the official system rewards only conformity, submission and docility. Any desirable innovation, change, new ways of thinking and action are doomed to an early death because conformity is often a respectable disguise for resistance to innovation ad change. We will do well to reflect what has highest premium in our schools: submission or self assertion? Conformity or creativity? Initiative or inertia? Educating for a new society, a liberative pedagogy must inculcate assertiveness rather than submission, creativity rather than conformity, and initiative rather than inertia (passivity).
(iv) A Pedagogy of Cooperation
Education is often characterized by a desire for excellence which implies competition, self development and therefore a kind of individualism and self-centredness. By favouring individual effort and success or team work, solidarity and cooperation, education inculcates individualism, selfishness, and even a certain mistrust of others as rivals to be defeated rather brothers and sisters to be care for. School situations often encourage brighter students to complete for a few places at the top, where winning comes only at the expense of losing. Moreover, our society rewards intelligence and high grades with scholarships, the guarantee of best jobs, salaries and perks. No wonder then that the bright people tend to look upon their talents as their own private property which they can use for their own self aggrandizement. Teachers usually argue that competition and prizes are required to bring out the best in the students. I am not at all sure if competition is a value, whether it can ever be healthy.
This is not to suggest that teachers and educators should accept laziness and mediocrity. They should rather transform the students motivations and foster brotherhood and sisterhood, concern for others and cooperation, rather than competition, which breeds individualism and personal ambition. Competition should thus be replaced by cooperation, i.e. an effort to help the weaker students so that the whole group might advance. We must help the student to see that their gifts are given them for the community first and foremost, and only in the process of serving the common good may they enjoy the rewards that society offers to gifted people. By insisting that gifted students use their gifts for the building up of the school and local community in very practical and specific ways, the school will provide opportunity for the students to experience the satisfaction and sense of fulfilment that comes from enriching the lives of others. Daily opportunities should provided for team work and mutual help. Group marks could be granted for certain subjects…The service of others must become the heart and Soul of educational institutions and their internal and external activities. Instead of mainly rewarding personal academic success, prize distributions should emphasize the growth of social qualities. With imagination and creativity, educators must discover the most effective ways and means of inculcating brotherhood and sisterhood and cooperation; with much courage and perseverance, they must change the ingrained individualistic traditions of our educational institutions.
Challenging questions concerning values have therefore to be raised: What values do we really cultivate in our classrooms and educational institutions? Which ones deeply mark our students and animate them through life? Do our students truly learn to be men and women for others? Do they acquire the values of brotherhood, service, cooperation, respect for others, tolerance, justice, freedom, generosity and honesty, or those of individualism, ambition, competition.
Self-centredness and intolerance? Do our students become committed to the egalitarian ideals enshrined in the Constitution, or do they still mainly seek wealth, power and prestige for themselves? Whether the schools functions as agents of social transformation or the instruments of the status quo depends on the way we answer these questions.
B. Education for a New Society (Social Justice)
The all India Seminar on “Church in India” proclaimed nearly three decades ago: “The Catholic educational endeavour should be part of the process of bringing about radical social change, specially by helping the poor and the underprivileged and by spreading the message of brotherhood and social justice through the entire network of relationships within the academic community…Unless the commitment to social justice and brotherhood of man becomes an active force in the actual working of Catholic educational institutions, they do not claim to be Christian…The Church does not want its educational institutions to produce worshipper of success and security”. A decade later (1978) the CBCI declared that our educational and other institutions should become genuine witnesses to the Church’s concern for the building of just society and thus effective instruments of social change.
Education for justice implies that our schools should function (a) as protest force challenging the prevailing values, attitudes and structures of our unjust and exploitative system, and (b) as a creative force fostering the values and attitudes conducive to the creation of a new society.
(i) Community involvement and service
Such an education requires a close relationship between the school and the community of which it is a part. The Kothari report states that the curricula should motivate the students “to understand and contribute participatively to the immediate community and environment and concretize the process of learning by relating theory to real life situations.” Most of our schools and colleges now seem to live in splendid isolation from their surroundings, without any institutional commitment to the community or to social justice. This situation must change if the schools are to be effective agents of social transformation. Our schools should find ways of being part of the community of the poor by getting involved in issues that concern them, and rendering whatever assistance they can. In spite of numerous declarations to this effect, most of our schools are yet to discover and live our solidarity with the neighbourhood.
(ii) Crating Critical Awareness
Such involvement in the neighbourhood is an important means of creating in the students a critical awareness of the social reality of India
Educators should help students become conscious of their own experience and surroundings. This means encouraging them to verbalize and share their small and big problems of poverty – be these concerning food, housing, educational expenses, traveling, pocket money, etc., and discrimination they experience due to caste, religion or sex. Low caste and poor students will have much to say about such matters. This also means challenging them to take stock of what they see every day without noticing: the beggars and rag-pickers in the city streets, the hard labour of agricultural and construction workers, the half-naked and starving children, unemployment and child labour side by side, and the ugly spectacle of the obscene luxuries of the rich amidst the misery of the masses.
C. Educating the Marginalised Majority
Educating for a just society involves first and foremost ensuring justice in education. Justice in education calls for equalization of educational opportunity by attending to the specific needs of those who have been denied equality so far, particularly, the poor women, Scs and Sts and other educationally backward sections of the population. Equal opportunity must be provide not only in access, but also in conditions of success, the removal of injustice in the field of education.
(i) Admission Policies
Many, if not most, of the Catholic schools have in recent decades changed their admission policies n favour of the poor and disadvantaged sections of our society by giving preference to the children of the poor and establishing quotas for various disadvantaged sections. Even so, the misplaced concern for the prestige of the institution which hinges on academic excellence, a number of our schools adopt a policy of selection on the basis of merit-which is highly correlated to social status.
The academic success of these elitist schools and the popularity they enjoy among the rich and powerful of the land, they are increasingly subject to pressures from these classes for admissions to their children. On account of these pressures, and the elimination of the academically less successful, and the high fees charged, the weaker sections get pushed out even against the best intentions of the school administrators. Time has come for our schools to make a choice: a choice between prestige and power that accrue from maintaining high academic standards and the service of the marginalized, which may entail loss of prestige and power.
(ii) Remedial Measures
It is evident that equalizing access to education is far from sufficient to ensure equal opportunity. Equalizing access is, of course, a necessary first step. Equalizing the chances for educational achievement is a more difficult objective. Children indeed come to school carrying inequality in their satchels, as someone put it, for major social and cultural differences in the conditions of their material existence, cultural background, life-experience outside the school and parental attitude to schools – militate against eh socio-economically poor. Their chances of achieving success during the early years and, still more, of progressing along various avenues are still lower. Many of the students are unable to pass at all, or pas only after several attempts.
To treat all children equally in such circumstances is only “to manage and maintain inequality and even to increase it. Several remedial measures should therefore be adopted. First of all, academic remedial measures are absolutely essential, so much so J. Misquitta even writes: “if they are not prepared adapt their methods or to do remedial teaching, schools may just as well not admit the socio-economically backward children, for dropping out would only increase the psychological barrier to any further education.”
Secondly, the recruitment of teachers (eg. Women, Scs and Sts), the choice of the curriculum, the school timings, the preparation of instructional materials and the conduct of examinations must answer the socio-cultural needs of the disadvantaged.
Thirdly, the extracurricular activities of the school – sports, speech practices, singing, dancing, acting, distribution of various responsibilities and so on, rather than being oriented to the best or maximum development of a few, must be centred on normal development of all. The motto must be SERVICE OF ALL, and not PROFICIENCY FOR A FEW. Activities that promote unhealthy competitive spirit involving only a select few and incurring much expenditure (like inter school dance and other competitions) must be avoided, while activities that draw out the hidden talents of all students and make for all round development should be encouraged. Class functions, in which more students take part and benefit, should be normally preferred to school functions.
In spite of remedial efforts, academic results are likely to come down – at least to some extent. As T. Kunnunkal has pointed out: “Standards will fall…and so will the schools ability to win medals and certificates at state or national levels. But if we cater to those who can get an education even if we don’t provide it and thus neglect the many who have no such means, our Christian standards will fall. We have to make a choice between maintain academic standards and Christian standards in our schools. If large number of students do well because of high capabilities and financial resources, are we not basking in borrowing sunshine? What glory is there in such achievement? Given the circumstances, our results are normal and to the expected. The real glory would be to make failures into success, third into second, and second into first divisions. Our past achievements are anachronistic in today’s world of glaring disparities and vast inequalities. Education for social transformation means that we have to educate the less privileged and the downtrodden by giving them access to our schools even if it means lowering our stands a little to make it possible for them to reach them and not fall by the way.
Conclusion
All this and more is possible even within the constraints of the present system. There must be positive and sensitive encouragement for teachers and students to be able to swim against the tide. Ifw e but use the freedom we have to create the freedom we want! But first we must want this freedoms trongly enough to overcome the opposition to it, and responsibly as well in accepting to be accountable for it. Undoubtedly change is risky, but then not changing in a changing situation of crisis may be an even bigger risk, if not a complete disaster.
Moreover, in turning our students to fir the systems requirements are we really discharging our responsibility towards them? Over-estimating our influence could well be arrogant pride, but neither should we be pusillanimous in underestimating the significance of the role educators can play, with discernment and faith, with generosity and commitment. The temptation is to postpone decision, until there is no need to make them. They get made for us by circumstances beyond our control. This of course is a drift and can only lead us into the dustbin of history!
More practically we need to identify and study new and relevant initiatives, and wherever we find them support and extend them. Some like Eklavya in Hoshangabad district of M.P., Dharma Bharati in Indore , and REAP in Bombay
It is important for a pedagogy of change to contest and provide for alternatives to the conventional ‘truth;, which is all too often nothing but imposed convention of hegemonic groups. It is precisely in this that Giroux wants teachers to be “Tran formative intellectuals”. For then teaching as a ‘subversive activity’ can further advance a consequent learning as well, and together we can bring down the status quo and begin to build communities of solidarity for peace” (Heredia).
CATHOLIC EDUCATION FOR THE YEAR 2000
Introductory Talk by
Fr. Gregory Naik S.J.
at the XXIVth National Convention
AINACS
Introduction
Christians are known all over India Christian Medical College in Vellore in 1976, Mrs. Indira Gandi said: “I would like to take this opportunity to express the Nation’s greetings and my own to the work done by you and the Christians in India
There is no doubt that individual Christians even in this country have excelled in almost every other field of human endeavour. Even the notorious Niyogi Committee of the mid ‘50s had the following confession to make:
“The contribution of Christian missionaries to the shaping of Indian life in modern times has indeed been very impressive. They established schools and colleges, hospitals and dispensaries, orphanages and institutions for the maimed and the handicapped; they elevated the neglected classes to high social positions and made them worthy of their dignity as men and inspired them with self-respect. They stimulated many religious and social reforms in the elevation of the status of women by giving the lead in female education. The community centres and industrial schools opened by them are, like other institutions the best of their kind.”
All this notwithstanding, it is still true that the Christian community in India Madras
Christian schools have been able to infect a large number of non-Christians with a sense of dedication and commitment to education. So far as selling of the Christian religion is concerned, your work is not very commendable. But selling commitment to special service, commitment to education, that work has been simply wonderful. And many non-Christians who are working today in non-Christian institutions who have been students of your institutions have caught the spirit of service, the spirit of commitment in their training, that has been a very major contribution. After all, you cannot achieve anything worthwhile in education unless the teachers are committed to education. Now this commitment to education can have two sources. It comes from commitment to scholarship which is a good thing. But when it comes fro a stronger motive, like service to society or religion or God, I think the commitment is raised to an entirely different level altogether; and such a commitment is what you have been able to achieve for a number of years, and to communicate it to others.
We realize that by opening the doors of our schools to all, irrespective of caste, creed, language and sex we have been able to exert a healthy influence on the Indian society, especially through the past pupils. It is said that about 75% of the members of the Constituent Assembly that gave us the Constitution of India had some time or other gone to a Christian school or college. One can notice Christian influence especially in the Preamble to the Constitution. Referring to the rest of the Constitution, the famous Hindu writer Ka Naa Subramaniam says in his book “The Catholic Community in India India India
The question facing us at present is: how significant are our catholic schools still, especially as they are part of a system that seems to be largely ineffective in realizing the national goals set by our Founding Fathers? What are the problems that we face and the challenges awaiting us as we enter the next millennium? What will be our response to them?
During these two days we are going to do the following:
- Review the present situation
- Identify the main concerns and challenges that need a response from us
- Propose a methodology for the improvement of our present service in schools.
Naturally, I have no monopoly of either information, or of analysis of the present situation. Hence my role in the first part of the programme will be mainly to elicit information and reflection from the participants. In the second part, I shall present to you briefly a methodology of school improvement which is already being followed by a number of schools around the country and which now the AINACS would want to adopt and promote.
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To claim that 1.20% of educational Institutions in India
Our involvement in the educational work in India Bengal . Eventually with the Charter Act of 1813 the colonial administrators, were enjoined to grant financial aid for the promotion of education among the natives. But even then, as J.P. Naik writes, “the Company patronized schools of learning for the upper classes of society, while the missionaries organized primary schools giving instruction through the mother tongue of the people….” “Their work,” he continues, “was not very extensive during the period under review. But it has great value as the pioneer work which led to the building up the modern educational system of India
Whilst protestant missionaries did get some support fro the East India Company, Catholics were very much hindered from working freely within the Company’s jurisdiction. The rudimentary schools attached to some old Churches in Calcutta Calcutta
Elsewhere, under the Portuguese and the French, the situation was better. The credit of establishing the first Catholic school, which attracted students from all over the East, goes to the Archdiocese of Goa which in 1540 founded the Colegio de Santa Fe, later called St. Paul’s College, and entrusted it to St. Francis Xavier in 1542. Portuguese missionaries also started schools in other parts of Goa, in Daman, Diu, Cranganore, Hooghli, Chittagong
What necessitated the establishment of Catholic schools under the British rule was the policy of religious neutrality followed by the British. They refused to provide religious instruction in the educational institutions conducted by the State. In the earlier years religious instruction used to be compulsory in Christian schools, but later on, as these began to receive recognition and aid from State funds, they had to accept the “conscience clause” and make the instruction optional. Even now our Constitution rules that “No religious instruction shall be provided in any educational institution wholly maintained out of State Funds”, (art. 28 (1), but this does not stop those institutions from giving that instruction on a voluntary basis. (art. 28 (3)).
In many rural parts of the country, missionaries had started primary schools not only to provide religious instruction and cultural formation to Christian children but in order to exert a healthy influence on others as well. Before long, Catholic Institutions, especially in cities, began to attract a large number of middle – and higher-middle class and even high-class non-Christian children many of whom later occupied important places in the bureaucracy of the country, in politics, and in various professions. The speedy indigenization of the hierarchy itself is a proof of the effective work of the Catholic educational institutions.
1. The Context of Catholic Education
Catholic schools are part of the larger education system in the country, which in turn is a sub-system of the Indian Society. Hence, in order to understand the relevance of Catholic schools, we need, however briefly, to consider that socio-economic and educational context.
Much progress has taken place in the country since Independence
In the educational front, although the percentage of literacy has gone up from 16.7% in 1951 to 36.2% in 1981, the real number of adult illiterates has risen from 173.6 mn to 245 mn during the same period. There has been growth in the number of educational institutions, but 20% of the rural population have no schools at all because they are living in villages with less than 300 people each. 40% of the primary schools have no blackboards, 13.5% have no room of any kind, and another 13.7% have only mud huts, almost 150,000 have only one teacher and 2,628 have no teacher at all – to say nothing about schools that exist only on paper but not in reality
Although there has been an increase in the enrollment, especially of girls, the drop out rate, especially in rural areas and among SCs, is alarmingly high. The Seventh 5-Year Plan explained that “drop outs and non-attendance of children at primary stage of education aredue to poor school facilities, unrelated curriculum, poor methods of teaching and poverty”. (Vol. 2, p-257) “Operation Blackboard” was a feeble attempt to provide basic facilities but he seriousness of the national about education is belied by the fact that Plan outlays on education have been decreasing from 7.2% of the total in the First Plan to 2.6% in the Sixth. The 7th plan tried to reverse the trend by raising the outlay to 3.5%. I am not certain whether it was actually done. What is still more glaring is that the allocation of funds to elementary education within that outlay has come down from 56% of the total in the First Plan to a meager 29% - the lowest ever – in the seventh.
An analysis of this overall situation would, I think, underscore the following needs to be tackled at the national level:
1) A more serious attempt at the universalisation of elementary education, which would include easier access to schools, basic facilities and a relevant curriculum which might encourage sufficient retention of pupils in the school. (see the Perspective Paper on Education by Committee for Review of National Policy on Education 1986 (“Perspective” for short) pg. 2, n.3, pg.4 n.8, pg.7 n.iii).
- Equitable distribution of educational facilities in rural and urban areas, among different States, and of funds among the various stages of education.
- Greater emphasis on the quality of education, and even excellence.
- Upgrading of the status and quality of teachers.
- Universalisation of adult literacy.
2. The Reality of Catholic Schools
It is within this context that Catholic schools exist. What is characteristic about them?
The original purpose of Catholic schools in India Poona , and St. Mary’s High School, Mazagaon, Bombay India
What, then, is the purpose of Catholic schools now? There seems to be some confusion in the minds of many. Is it to educate Catholic children? Then how is it that so many of them are refused admission because they do not measure up to the standards set for admission by the respective schools? Are they meant to give religious instruction to catholic pupils? If so, how is it that religious formation gets such low priority in mist schools?
When the Constituent Assembly guaranteed us the Minority Rights, what was their intention? In the historic Supreme Court Judgment – In Re The Kerala Educaiton Bill 1957, Chief Justice S.R. Das speaking for six out of the seven judges had said:
“The minorities quite understandably regard it as essential that the education of their children should be in accordance with the teachings of their religion and they hold quiet honestly that such an education cannot be obtained in ordinary schools designed for all the members of the public but can only be secured in schools conducted under the influence and guidance of people well versed in the tenets of their religion and the traditions of their culture. The minorities evidently desire that education should be imparted to the children of their community in an atmosphere congenial to the growth of their culture. Our Constitution – makers recognized the validity of their claim and to allay the fears conferred on them the fundamental rights referred to above.”
Are we really using the Minority Rights for this purpose and does that purpose characterize our Catholic Minority schools? What is really “Catholic” about Catholic schools? What are the characteristics of Catholic schools in India
We may distinguish two sets of characteristics: normative and operative. Normative characteristics are the ones we profess in our official documents of the Church in general as well as in the directory of each school. We have some very inspiring and challenging statement sin the Vat. II Declaration on Christian Education and the trilogy of the Congregation for Catholic Education: “The Catholic School”, “Lay Catholics in Schools: Witness to Faith” and “The Religious Dimension of Education in a Catholic School”. These documents tell us what a Catholic school ought to be and in that sense provide an ideal we should be aiming at. The reality, however, falls very short of that ideal.
CATHOLIC EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS
GOAL FOR THE 21ST CENTUR
By Adrian Almeida
A quality education system that provides all students with a learning experience relevant to their current and future needs in order to stimulate continued Indian economic and social development.
India faces significant challenges as it continues its program of economic and social development in the evolving information age and the increasingly competitive world economy. To meet these challenges, the country has two mutually reinforcing goals:
- Maintaining strong economic growth and sustainable development
- Building strong communities and cohesive society.
A relevant, quality education system is the bridge to achieving these goals. As India experiences the rapid technological change and globalization of the 21st century, it will need citizens who are increasingly highly educated, broadly skilled, adaptable, and motivated. These citizens will be India’s most important resource.
To bring about the education system capable of producing such citizenry and workforce, India requires a massive and integrated effort on four fronts concurrently:
* Quality - improve learning and the effectiveness and relevance of education
* Efficiency - improve the use and allocation of resources
* Equity - continue improving access for under served populations (e.g. rural girls)
* Quantity - continue improving participation and retention
We re making significant improvement in expanding access (quantity and equity rural and female education). Even though more needs to be done in these areas, special attention must be given to improving the quality of the learning offered to the students and the effectiveness and efficiency of administration and management of the education system.
Achieving quality education will require strong political backing and leadership, since traditional structures and personnel practices would have to be modified. A national dialogue, since all education constituencies should share the responsibility for meeting the challenges facing Indian education, must be encouraged.
Four priority areas would be the focus of this dialogue:
- Curriculum and Assessment
- Teacher development and Support
- Management Systems and Structure
- Buildings and Facilities
Curriculum and Assessment
A major reform of the system of courses and curricula is required. All students should receive an education that covers all essential learning areas, skills, attitudes, and values. Neither general nor technical secondary schools currently do this. The courses and curricula should build upon students’ achievements in basic education, provide studies that develop the core competencies required in adult life, prepare students for a range of possible jobs, enable students to follow personal interests and ambitions, and ensure that all students achieve to their full capacity.
Student assessment must be broadened to include the full range of curriculum objectives and be used as a measure of school performance and diagnostic test to guide student development; not only as a screening tool which limits individual development by restricting further educational opportunity for most students.
Teacher Development and Support
There is a need for thorough review and development of courses to ensure that training is given to prepare for the teaching of all students, including those with special need and Teachers need to have the necessary attitudes, values, and skills required to achieve student objectives in the classroom environment.
There is a need to provide teachers throughout India with comparable levels of training and support. There will also be a need for preparation of a diversity of instructional materials from which teachers can choose those best suited to the needs of their students.
Teacher motivation will be greatly helped by the development of a new sense of professionalism. While it is important that teachers receive an adequate salary, provision should be made to make available non-monetary records. These may include recognition for having expertise in specific essential skill areas, opportunities for special training, or participation in professional seminars and conferences.
Management Systems and Structure
The achievement of quality education requires effective and efficient management systems and structure at the central ministry, state govt. districts, panchayats and school levels. Throughout this system, the govt. must decide upon and implement new roles and responsibilities. The current highly centralized system results in weak management at other levels.
Buildings and Facilities
The above changes will require an assessment of possible modifications in school buildings, facilities, technologies, and learning aids. Attention will need to be given to providing appropriate learning environments for under served populations, gifted students and those with special academic or physical needs.
Additional legal, tax and regulatory incentives may be necessary to stimulate greater participation by the private sector, local organizations, and individuals in the possible construction, management or maintenance of schools.
QUALITY ASSURNCE PLAN
By Adrian Almeida
The purpose of the quality assurance plan is to ensure that, after training, the employee can perform his job effectively. This would depend upon the clear definition of training outcomes. It would also depend upon the following inputs which are critical to the design, development and implementation of a good training programme.
1. Curricula 4. Teaching Aids
2. Trainers 5. Facilities
3. Students 6. Standards of Assessment
1. Curricula
- All curricula that are designed would be tested for its quality.
- Subject matter experts and employees in the relevant fields and trades would be consulted.
- Pre-testing of curricula on select group of students would be performed.
- As part of the continuous quality improvement plan, curriculum will be evaluated on a periodic basis with trainers and students and modifications if any will be carried out.
2. Instructors
All instructors would:
- Have acceptable academic and technical qualifications.
- Have experience in teaching.
- Understand clearly the objectives of the courses.
- Be subjected to periodic evaluation by students and principal.
3. Students
A data base will be created to include and ensure:
· Continuous tracking of student performances.
· Accurate and fair assessments of student work performance.
· Counselling services will be available for students who fall blow the mark.
4. Learning/Teaching Aids
· All steps to ensure that state of the art/appropriate teaching aids are available for students for better learning.
* For technical training adequate hand tools, instruments and equipments required for demonstration and training will be assured. This will be vigorously supervised and ensured. It will be ensured that all obsolete and damaged items would be replaced and all machinery is in good working condition.
5. Training Facilities
· Facilities shall have good lighting and ventilation, be free from noise and dust, provide for comfortable and adequate working space and promote safety of the teacher and the student.
· Monitoring of training facilities to ensure their environmental friendliness, and the conditions conducive for learning will be continuously and vigorously perused.
6. Standards of Assessment
· Assessments will be standardized to ensure fairness and accuracy.
· All tests will be pre-tested to ensure their utility and relevance.
· All tests will be considered and approved by a committee of experts.
QUALITY EDUCATION IN CATHOLIC SCHOOLS – BUILDING COLLABORATION AND TEAMWORK AMONG THE ADMINISTRATION
By Adrian Almeida
The objective of Total Quality Management is
· to engage everyone in the school in a totally integrated effort towards improving performance at all levels.
· bringing Principals and individual contributors together in teams, not just the usual working relationships but recognize their interdependence and value collaboration.
The relevance of collaboration and teamwork
Experience teaches us that working collaboratively offers exciting possibilities, capturing such excitement is hard work. The TQ School Principal has to help the team members to understand four major factors:
1.Their mission and the outputs they create to support that mission.
2.The customer of their outputs.
3.That customer’s requirements.
4.How to use their interdependence.
The TQ School Principal participates in the team’s endeavours and shares responsibilities. He must provide the tools and resources the team members need to meet their customer’s requirements and they are properly motivated to get the job done. He has to b someone skilled in eliciting answers from others – sometimes from people who do not even know that they know.
Teamwork cannot survive without interteam and intrateam communication. Instead of competition, emphasis is on teamwork – collaboration between departments, collaboration with customers and suppliers, collaboration between staff and management.
Helping and Blocking Factors for building collaboration and teamwork
A School Principal has to focus on vital behaviours that will best help in achieving the goal and at the same time have to be aware of the behaviours that will block his progress.
Helping Factors: Five things that TQ Principal can do
1. Recognize and Use the Power of Team Work.
“No one of us is as smart as all of us” is the motto of teamwork. It is the example of the whole being greater than the sum of parts.
2. Proved the Training for Team Activities
Staff must have training in the tools nd processes necessary to improve their work methods and interteam deliberations.
3. Facilitate Collaborative Effort
The transition to teamwork takes time and encouragement. TQ Principal helps the staff make the transition from being a cluster of individuals to acting as a team by facilitating, coaching and supporting them in their problem solving, quality improvement, and collaborative activities.
The criteria to evaluate team’s progress:
1. Team integrity
2. Process discipline
3. Results
4. Innovation
5. Team development and growth.
4. Recognize and Reward Team Activities
One of our greatest sources of satisfaction in oife, regardless of what our responsibilities may involve, is to be told on regular basis that our work is appreciated.
A TQ Principal knows the importance of establishing a work atmosphere that fosters the development of personally satisfying work relationships. A positive work environment ensures that people are encouraged and motivated to be proactive to total quality.
5. Remove Obstacles to Teamwork
The TQ Principal helps the expansion of teamwork and collaboration by removing the four most common obstacles that stand in a team’s way. They are:
· resistance to change
· lack of training and skills to function as a team
· lack of resources to accomplish its tasks and
· school’s compensation programmes working against collaboration and teamwork
Blocking Factors
Five things the TQ Principals should not do
1.Don’t “delegate” without giving full management support
2.Don’t highlight individual performance at the expense of team effort.
3.Don’t fail to invest time in teamwork
4.Don’t promote competitive suggestion systems
5.Don’t fail to participate with your team.
A collaborative approach information sharing problem solving, and decision making can clearly produce a higher level of accomplishment and parent/teacher/student satisfaction ; the tools to achieve these goals emphasize teamwork and consensus through facilitation ad good meeting management.
THE EMPOWERING EDUCATOR : A CQI APPROACH TO CLASSROOM LEADERSHIP
By Adrian Almeida
Educational institutions are like circus elephants to the extent that they both learn through conditioning. Young elephants learn to stay in place from trainers who shackle them with heavy chains connected to deeply-embedded stakes. Older elephants never try to get away, even though they have the strength to remove the stake and gain their freedom. Their early conditioning limits their movements with only a small metal bracelet around their foot that, astonishingly, is attached to nothing. Like powerful elephants, many organizations (educational and industrial) are bound by early and possibly obsolete conditioned limitations. “We’ve always done it this way” is as constraining to an organization’s and individual’ progress as the unattached chain around the elephant’s foot.
Contemporary managers can no longer act as dictators, cops or task masters. The traditional bureaucratic culture that for many generations emphasized the planning, organizing, directing and controlling functions is becoming obsolete.
It is being replaced by Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) culture that focuses on leading, empowering, assessing and partnering (Schmidt & Finnigan, 1992). Many authors suggest that this alternative approach to management enhances variables critical to organizational performance and will better enable those firms that can break free of traditional management restraints to survive in an increasingly competitive global environment.
They also believe that empowered managers who are capable of empowering those around them by creating at atmosphere that promotes trust, teamwork, autonomy, process improvement and the ability to cope with change will become the new prototypes (Atchinson, 1991: Block, 1987; Lous, 1986; Neilsen, 1986). It is not surprising that Coming’s CEO, Jamie Houghton said, “If you really believe in quality, empower your people” (Dumaine, 1990).
Empowerment
Empowerment implies
· enabling people to understand the reality of their environment.
· Reflect on the factors shaping that environment, and
· Take steps to effect changes to improve the situation.
It is a process that encompasses people deciding
· where they are now,
· where they want to go, and
· developing and implementing plans to reach their goals, based on self-reliance and sharing of power.
It helps people to liberate themselves from mental and physical dependence
It is, in essence,
· the ability to stand independently, think progressively
· plan and implement changes systematically and
· accept the outcomes rationally.
Traditional pedagogies are not compatible with the quality practices and needs of evolving contemporary industry. Our changing role as educators and suppliers to organizational employers creates conditions that encourage students to make demands on themselves and not to dependent on us (Belenky, eta. 1986; Glasser, 1990; McKeachie, 1986). Individual independence, initiative and creativity are highly valued in competitive markets. Yet, these qualities are not typically being nurtured in the traditional educational system that rewards compliance and conformity.
Thus, “operating in a bureaucratic [cycle] increases the tendency to experience ourselves as vulnerable, losing control, and somewhat helpless.” Although this way intended to describe a industrial, philosophy, it directly parallels the prevailing traditional philosophy operating in many classes.
Many educators still approach their classes in the bureaucratic way by overemphasizing:
· lesson plans
· hierarchical class structures
· directing student behaviour and
· controlling reward or punishment mechanisms.
An empowerment paradigm can provide a mechanism to break the chains of the past. It can be characterized by the following elements:
a) the use of “Psychological contracts;
b) the creation of enlightened self-interest;
c) the sue of authentic considerable effort to indicting how these elements act as antidotes for industrial bureaucracy.
The practices he describes are as applicable to the teaching-learning process as they are to industry. Examples include:
· educators calling and viewing themselves as facilitators rather than instructors,
· calling students learning partners in an effort to reduce the hierarchial role relationship,
· creating a vision for the class,
· conducting attitude surveys during the term rather than at the end of the term only,
· encouraging participatin and free expression
· being flrxible in setting assignment due dates
· being more supportive and less judgmental.
We believe that the payoff for traditional dependency is that if we act on someone else’s choice and it does not work out well, it is not our fault. But blaming others while remaining shackled to obsolete practices offers little real consolation to the poorly performing individual or organization. Therefore, the need to change paradigms is as great in educational organizations as it is the business or governmental organizations.
It is unfortunate that, like their managerial counterparts, many educators have ye to figure out how to manage the classroom environment so that students are intrinsically motivated to perform high-quality work. As a result, many students voice the same concerns raised by their counterparts in industry.
Current thinking in organizational behaviour point to the need and effectiveness of empowerment in organizations. Block (1987) believes that a cycle of tradition bureaucratic controls “unintentionally encourages people to maintain what they have, to be cautious ad dependent.”
a) the use of patriarchal contracts
b) the creation of myopic self-interest;
c) the use of manipulative tactics and,
d) the perpetuation of a dependence mentality.
Block contends that while this cycle “has these advantage of clarity [it] pays the price of not allowing people to take responsibility.”
a) creates its own resistance;
b) denies self-expression;
c) reinforces the belief that success is outside the person’s control;
d)promotes approval seeking;
e) makes people say what they don’t mean; and,
f) fosters the sue of negative political behaviour.
· Being more open with information (e.g. stating how they intend to assess assignments), and
· Being available to students.
To survive in modern organizations (corporate or educational), students must learn how to become both empowered themselves and how to empower others in order to contribute to desirable quality outcomes.
In place of the traditional bureaucratic paradigm, we propose and encourage educators to adopt an empowering style and to implement a CQI-based approach. I believe this approach serves to create challenging and stimulating classes that increase student feeling of ownership, self-efficiency and motivation.
This allows them to own their learning of the concepts explored in class and encourages a substantial majority of them to perform high-quality work. It is precisely these qualities that are required by their future employers. Unfortunately, they are not being developed within the traditional educational paradigm. Therefore, I describe the methods of educators may use to model the behaviors of empowering teachers and to create empowered students.
Educator Readiness for CQI
To assess your commitment to adopting a CQI approach to becoming an empowering educator, you may wish to reflect on these questions:
1. What are my motives for considering a new teaching-learning approach?
2. What is there about the teaching-learning process that most excites me?
Can I achieve desirable outcomes without a “CQI” or empowerment approach?
3. Do I feel comfortable viewing my students as partners? As customers?
4. Do I truly believe that the processes of teaching and learning can be continuously improved in
my class?
5. How comfortable do I feel releasing authority and power to students?
6. How well do I handle ambiguity and uncertainty?
7. What am I willing to risk or give up to build a “quality-driven” class environment?
8. How comfortable will I feel “advocating” quality or empowerment to my students and colleagues?
9. How have I dealt with long-term commitments to change in th past?
10. How comfortable will be in learning role? Do I mind being seen by others as a learner?
11. Am I willing to change my style of teaching, if I necessary, to make empowerment approach work?
Inevitably, you will discover potential forces restraining efforts to implement the empowering educator philosophy or practices. Devise method for removing these possible barriers in advance of any attempted implementation. If these barriers seem like insurmountable obstacles, you are probably not ready to commit to changing your teaching-learning system. Resolve to review these questions again periodically when you or conditions may have changed.
STRATEGIC ISSUES FACING AN EDUCATIONAL INSTITUION
By Adrian Almeida
Finance/Revenue Issue
How can the institution achieve financial independence and stability and secure sufficient resources to support services necessary for the execution of mission?
Community Needs and Involvement Issue
How can the institution successfully monitor changing community needs and develop effective responses (support and long-range) appropriate to mission and priorities?
Human Resource Issue
How can the institution recruit, train and retrain a sufficient number of qualified people with diverse backgrounds to address our paid and volunteer staff service needs?
Organizations/Structural Issue
What organizational structure will best serve the institution in meeting current and future community needs through the provision of quality, cost-effective services?
Communication/Visibility Issue
How can we enhance institute visibility and inform the public of our mission and services and the resources we need to carry them out?
National Issue
How can we more effectively educate the national sector on the attitudes of local funders, exert greater influence on them to respond to our need for increased financial accountability, and better identify the local benefits derived from the national sector through our fair share contributions.
Service Effectiveness Issue
How should we evaluate our service methods and results to (1) assess efficiency in providing mandated services, (2) measure effectiveness in addressing needs of targeted community populations, an (3) ensure that marginal services will be strengthened or discontinued?
United Way Issue
How ca we strengthen our relationship with other schools in our area on mutual understanding of our respective organizational missions and requirements for client and community service?
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