Is There Anyone Listening?
- By Nandini Bhautoo-Dewnarain
- Published 01/29/2010
What if your ten year old comes back from school and tells you they have to learn about tax relief strategies, about incentives to investors, about M.I.D.A. , about D.B.M., not as a game but as a serious subject for their CPE syllabus? 'Ludicrous' would say anyone with common sense.
Does a child need to learn all this. Are they at that age capable of understanding these issues? Should their minds be forced to learn about concepts which go beyond their understanding? And yet this is what they do in STD VI! Big talk is on about introducing creative options. What do we do about the present batch of students? There is no one to turn to to get an answer about the 'philosophy' ( is there one? ) behind these ridiculous aspects of the 'syllabus'.
The teachers will tell you that they have to cover these topics because it is part of the syllabus. No one at the Ministry can inform you about the logic behind these aberrations. There is so much opacity behind the whole issue of CPE- who are these venerable pedagogues who for more than twenty years have devised
a killing machine for our children's minds?
The Ministry talks in abstractions but they do not seem to have concrete knowledge of what's happening in class. The MES will tell you they are merely administering the exams, not determining its contents. The MIE will say their task is limited to providing text books. Who then is the phantom body behind these exams? Are these people in touch with social realities? Do they have a real life? Are they in touch with the changing debates in education? Or are these people so caught up in their dinosaur world that they have no ears for the present? And this hopeless situation is what is causing so much distortion in our system.
Ridiculous importance given to a few old idiots who probably want to preserve their prestige and pre-eminence in close circles, leads to a situation where teachers say they will inform international instances that their rights to give tuition have been curtailed. Kafkaesque!But you cannot blame, them can you? Example comes from above. Meanwhile the grinding machine runs its course and more sacrificial victims are led to it. IS THERE ANYONE LISTENING?
Does a child need to learn all this. Are they at that age capable of understanding these issues? Should their minds be forced to learn about concepts which go beyond their understanding? And yet this is what they do in STD VI! Big talk is on about introducing creative options. What do we do about the present batch of students? There is no one to turn to to get an answer about the 'philosophy' ( is there one? ) behind these ridiculous aspects of the 'syllabus'.
The teachers will tell you that they have to cover these topics because it is part of the syllabus. No one at the Ministry can inform you about the logic behind these aberrations. There is so much opacity behind the whole issue of CPE- who are these venerable pedagogues who for more than twenty years have devised
The Ministry talks in abstractions but they do not seem to have concrete knowledge of what's happening in class. The MES will tell you they are merely administering the exams, not determining its contents. The MIE will say their task is limited to providing text books. Who then is the phantom body behind these exams? Are these people in touch with social realities? Do they have a real life? Are they in touch with the changing debates in education? Or are these people so caught up in their dinosaur world that they have no ears for the present? And this hopeless situation is what is causing so much distortion in our system.
Ridiculous importance given to a few old idiots who probably want to preserve their prestige and pre-eminence in close circles, leads to a situation where teachers say they will inform international instances that their rights to give tuition have been curtailed. Kafkaesque!But you cannot blame, them can you? Example comes from above. Meanwhile the grinding machine runs its course and more sacrificial victims are led to it. IS THERE ANYONE LISTENING?
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