Here is the truth as I have seen it. The vast majority of Indian children do not reach their potential. By grade 3, over 75% of children already face a learning gap. In grade 5, more than half our children can’t do basic division, or read a grade 3 text. Less than a third of children who start school will actually graduate from college. For rural, Muslim girls, only 3% make it to college today.
At Teach For India, we call this the Grey of the Education System.
The truth is, across the education system there is brokenness. We aren’t attracting our top talent into education. For those who choose to be a teacher, our teacher training institutes are largely sub-quality. Our school leaders are usually veteran teachers who don’t have the skills or training to effectively lead schools. Once in school, our teachers and leaders lack autonomy and are often burdened with a range of non-teaching tasks. Our curriculum doesn’t embed the 21st century skills needed to prepare our kids for the present, and future. Our teaching methodology is largely rote. Our examination system does not test understanding or measure holistic outcomes. Across the country today kids are often unsafe. And power is in the hands of adults and not shared with children.
I have seen a school of 1000 children where all the teachers in the school sit in the sun, sipping chai, while the kids run around all day. I have seen inspiring quotes written in beautiful cursive on a blackboard only to see mindless copying from the board in class. I have seen kids get whacked across the wrist, hand, back, legs, face with belts, sticks or a hard hand.
I have seen too much Grey; there is a lot to be fixed.
At Teach For India we strive for the Sunshine. And there is lots of hope across India.
Thanks to tools like ASER, and policies like the Right to Education and the National Education Policy, there is increased awareness and acceptance that the system needs to change. There is a growing openness to work together – government, NGOs, civic society – to bring about that change. There is a rising sense of empowerment in students that is making them stand up for what they believe is right. There are classrooms and schools that are showing us that a new type of education – one that can make the world better - is possible. There is the potential of what technology can do for education. And perhaps most significantly, there are driven, passionate people who are choosing to be in education.
I have seen teachers with unthinkable dedication and courage – who have set up girl’s football teams, fasted with their children to show them that fasting and studying are both possible, who hand out their phone numbers so that kids can call them at night with homework queries, who spend endless hours just listening to the many challenges that their students’ face. I have seen students, as young as ten, facilitating study centers for younger children, lobbying the government to clear the dumping ground near their home, setting up a healthy food business to stop junk food being sold at their school door. I have seen a group of children study the preamble of the constitution to deeply understand the meaning of the word fraternity, and then champion an approach of love by holding safe circles across cities for people to come together and discuss democracy.
I have seen such potential in children given opportunity. So much that I actually published a book, Grey Sunshine.
Thirty years into this work, I ask, with all the grey, what will best bring the sunshine?
While much has been written about – a focus on early childhood, teacher training, technology in education, a focus on gender - here are my top 5 bets.
#1 Widen the purpose of education
Until we expand the purpose of education from rote-based, academic examinations leading to competition from a job, we don’t have a real starting point for change. We know today that education is much more – that it must be holistic, infused with the 21st century skills and mindsets that all children need. And we need to test for that. Unless we change what we measure, we won’t really shift the system.
#2 Make learning safe
Not enough is written about all the many factors that stop a child from being ready to really learn. We need to listen to the diverse challenges our children face – both at home and in school – that range from bullying to anxiety to abuse – and create safe spaces in our schools for children where they can voice their opinions and be accepted for who they are. We need to focus on relationships of belief and love so that no child ever feels they are alone in dealing with the many ups and downs of life. We need to make schools safe spaces not just for children, but for teachers and staff too. If everyone felt valued, and loved and supported, our schools would be very different places.
#3 Reimagine the role of kids in education
If you look at the scale of the problem in our country, it’s simply not going to be enough if only adults—teachers, policymakers, school leaders— are involved in changing things. We need to stop seeing students as this mass of 300-odd million kids that need to be educated and start seeing them as partners in driving their own learning and that of other children. We need to create opportunities for them to learn from each other in class, sit on school governance committees, be an integral voice in policies impacting education and children.
#4 Make education about changing the world, gently, and with love
We need to give our student opportunities to learn through making the world better. Imagine students working on problems and projects they choose and really care about and building knowledge, skills and mindsets through the solving of these problems. Imagine students shifting things by small, consistent, everyday actions of love. Imagine what the world would be like for all of us if everyone practiced kindness, care, understanding, listening, accepting, embracing diversity.
#5 Bring the most passionate and skilled people into education
We must give paramount importance to finding ways to attract and retain enough passionate and skilled people at all levels of the education system. If we do this, everything else will improve. If we do not, we run the risk of throwing countless resources at band-aid solutions that will not sustain the test of time.
I imagine an India where education is truly about unleashing every child’s fullest potential and I know that that India is the country I want to live in.
Teach For India is a non-profit organisation that is a part of the Teach For All network, working towards eliminating educational inequity in India. The Fellowship recruits college graduates and working professionals to serve as full-time teachers in low-income schools for two years.
Shaheen Mistri - Founder and CEO, Teach For India
