Dummy schools lay bare the deep rot

MY neighbour once told me, “My child doesn’t waste his time and energy going to school. Instead, I send him to a coaching centre which prepares him for what really matters — I mean the acquisition of the ‘skills’ for cracking the tests like JEE and NEET. And there is an arrangement with his school. Even if he is absent throughout the year, he can sit for the board exams. The school manages it.” During my conversation with him, I realised the intensity of his instrumental reasoning — his belief that the only thing that matters in life is ‘success’, and there is no higher or nobler goal of education. He is not alone; in fact, the rationale of standardised tests for getting admission in medical/engineering colleges has been allowed to invade our consciousness and shape our notion of ‘practical’ education, giving birth to what we seem to have normalised — the existence of ‘dummy schools’ and simultaneous glorification of coaching centres in almost every locality. Not solely that. We are also encouraging our children to internalise the fundamentals of corruption as they realise that if there is a proper ‘setting’ or some sort of ‘adjustment’ between schools and coaching centres, they can appear in the board exams even if they do not attend a single class.

Without radical measures, it would be really difficult to save education from the lucrative business of gigantic factories.

Of course, the CBSE and state boards are aware of this malpractice, and occasionally, we hear about some raids or punitive measures against these dummy schools. But then, this corruption cannot be combated unless we do something deep and substantial about the following:

First, it is important for us — adults and parents — to educate ourselves and widen our understanding of education or the meaning of ‘success’ we desire for our children. Of course, it is good if our children learn physics, chemistry, mathematics and biology. There is also no harm if they learn how to solve the riddles of these disciplines — quickly, instantly and smartly. But then, this ‘skill’ is only a fragment of what all great pedagogues would regard as truly meaningful, holistic and life-affirming education. At a deeper level, education is about the cultivation of all the major faculties of learning, seeing and making sense of the world one lives in — say, the power of intellectual cognition and reasoning for sharpening critical thinking; the development of artistic and aesthetic sensibilities for a deeper understanding of human emotions and feelings; the spirit of working together and appreciating the worth of comradeship, cooperation and solidarity; and above all, the art of relatedness to the larger ecosystem. But then, when we want our children to forget everything else, become purely one-dimensional, adopt only the strategic techniques for cracking standardised tests, we cause severe damage to their physical, psychic and moral health. They become solitary/egotistic competitors; and they lose what is really important for evolving as sensitive and dialogic beings — the company of good teachers who act as catalysts, the experience of working together with peers and exploring the world through books and craft, theatre and football, and theory and praxis. Well, my ‘pragmatic’ neighbour might say that everything is ‘settled’ if his son joins one of the IITs and eventually manages to get an attractive ‘package’. But then, what is the meaning of this ‘success’ if from deep inside he remains wounded, broken and alienated?

This is not to suggest that our schools are necessarily capable of providing the kind of holistic education I am talking about. In fact, barring remarkable exceptions, our schools fail to inspire our children to celebrate the ethos of a creatively nuanced and critically engaged education. Instead, with the burden of the official curriculum, the tyranny of the time table, the monologue of the teacher in the overcrowded classroom, the hierarchisation of academic disciplines in terms of science vs humanities, the ritualisation of weekly tests and annual exams, and above all, the same goal of producing ‘toppers’ — our schools often fail to provide a truly substantial alternative to what branded coaching centres are designed to do. Possibly, the coaching centres, as pragmatic parents like my neighbour think, do it better simply because these shops entertain no illusion of nurturing the child’s holistic development, and concentrate only on the techniques of solving the MCQs for cracking the tests like JEE and NEET. Is it the reason why our schools are surrendering and witnessing with utter helplessness how the coaching industry is colonising the consciousness of youngsters and their parents? The growth of dummy schools, it seems, is irresistible.

Even if there are good schools gifted with a life-sustaining culture of learning, it would not be possible to resist this trend, unless we alter the mode of selecting youngsters for professional and higher academic courses. The importance attached to hugely problematic standardised tests like JEE, NEET and CUET has led to the devaluation of what one learns and how one performs in schools. It is, therefore, important to give equal weightage to one’s school performance. Furthermore, it is necessary to replace these standardised tests with a fairly decentralised and qualitatively different mode of examination that, far from remaining contented with the MCQ-centric ‘objective’ questions, seeks to evaluate one’s interpretative skills, one’s ability to deal with a complex problem and entertain ambiguities or plurality of possible solutions, one’s mental orientation or aptitude for pursuing a career in engineering/medicine/foundational sciences/liberal arts, and one’s interest in good books and new ideas. Without these radical measures, it would be really difficult to save education from the lucrative business of the gigantic factories and resist the normalisation of dummy schools.