Inequality stopping children from learning in schools in South Asia

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The built-in inequality in classrooms is stopping children from learning well. This dilemma has put India in a “big stuck” and the situation in Pakistan is no different when looked through the lens of the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER). This was stated by ASER Centre, India, director Dr Rukmani Banerji during her presentation on “Every child in school and … learning well? Evidence and experience from India” at the opening session of a two-day international conference on “Quality – Inequality Quandary – Transacting Learning Relevance & Teacher Education in South Asia” organised by the South Asia Forum for Education Development (SAFED) and Idara-i-Taleem-o-Aagahi (ITA) in collaboration with the Education Testing Service (ETS), Princeton; UK aid and Foundation Open Society Institute at a hotel here on Wednesday. Dr Banerji said survey reports in rural India showed that classes’ composition was complex in terms of students’ age, language and learning levels, resulting in huge implications for instruction and equity. Quoting ASER survey results, she said students of different learning levels and capacities were sitting in a classroom and teachers were teaching all of them on a par. Resultantly, students’ learning levels were found far less than the desired levels. At least, she said, fifth standard students must be fluent in reading Grade-II text and solve similar level arithmetic questions. She regretted that textbook level for a specific grade was too difficult for most children and classrooms were not friendly at all. Still, Dr Banerji said, “big change can happen if governments make strategic moves based on evidence and reality”. In India, she said, close to 200 million children (97 per cent) aged 6-14 were enrolled in schools. There was a need for India as well as Pakistan to move from ensuring schooling to guaranteeing learning for all children. ANP vice-president Bushra Gohar said children should be more important to any government and stressed the need to invest more in education from country’s own resources instead of looking toward the World Bank and other donor agencies. She said only “political will” could help bring about a change in the depressing education scene in the country. Calling for strict accountability process, Ms Gohar stressed the need for improving village schools as well as strengthening public-private partnership. She said there was a lot of political pressure for posting and transfers of teachers and “teachers have been lost somewhere in the system”.