To Build a Country, Build a Schoolhouse (Amartya Sen, 2002)

INTRODUCTION

‘To Build a Country, Build a Schoolhouse’ (Amartya Sen, 2002).

Rights-based, child-friendly schools are powerful tools to fulfill the rights of children (Unicef.2004). Besides they provide meaningful education of good quality. Focus on children means focus on future. A fabulous future not only for children but also for our nation is possible if we focus on schools.

Education for All – Global Scenario

In the 1990 Conference on ‘Education for All’, the nations of the world pledged to achieve universal primary education by 2000 (UNESCO, 1990). However by the year 2000, 104 million school-age children were still not in school. Out of this, 57 percent were girls. Up to 94 percent belonged to developing countries mostly from South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. However the Millennium Development Goals have set a more realistic yet difficult deadline. By 2015, all children everywhere should be able to complete a full course of primary schooling ensuring gender parity (World Bank, 2005).

Primary Education – Indian Scenario

Article 21(A) of the Constitution, confers on the citizen the fundamental right to free and compulsory education between ages 6 and 14 (2005). However only 47 out of 100 children enrolled in Class I reach Class VIII, putting the dropout rate in primary and elementary schools at 52.79%. The dropout rate at the primary level (Class I to V) for girls is 33.72% and for boys it is 35.5% ( Prime Minister of India Dr. Manmohan Singh (2005) while addressing the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan functionaries has expressed his distress on the drop out rate in our schools. According to him, the reasons for this include the lack of adequate facility, large-scale absenteeism of teachers and inadequate supervision by local authorities. Dr. Manmohan Singh (2005) refers to Primary Education as the foundation of the knowledge pyramid. He has urged the State Governments to rejuvenate their elementary education systems through appropriate policy changes and effective governance strategies.

Primary Education in Tamil Nadu

The official statistics for the TamilNaduState (Policy Note 2004-2005) reveal that the primary classes dropout rate of 16% in the year 2001-2002 has come down to 8% in the year 2003-2004 and further to 6% in the year 2004-2005. Further, the State strives to achieve the objectives listed below:

To enroll all school age children in schools.
To provide five years of schooling to all these children before 2007.
To prevent dropouts fully before 2010
To ensure minimum levels of learning.

The objectives would be far from being made real without considering the child-friendly dimension to education. Time has come for the state to realize the need for education in tune with the likes of the child. This is the only way to arrest wastage in Primary Education.

Education that is not child-friendly is no Education

Professionals like Psychiatrists, Psychologists and Social Workers who are engaged in the field of promoting mental health are beginning to recognise school as an agency for the promotion of mental health (Gandhi, 1990). School Phobia, School Refusal, Anxiety related Psychosomatic Disorders; Adolescent Suicides are the net results of an unfriendly education system. Rigidity in the way the school functions, education is imparted and children are handled, alienates children from the school system. Of what use is the education that is not child-friendly? Education is for the child and the primary concern in the process is the child. Education at the cost of child’s life and joy is an irony.

Statement of the Problem

There is increasing evidence to prove that the schools have inadequate holding power. In other words, school proves to be unattractive for the child. Children who are admitted drop out because there is something wrong about the curriculum, teaching methodology, classroom processes, examinations, school infrastructure or the way in which they were handled. If schools could be child-friendly then education would also be child-friendly. Subhash (2000) mentions that by the time the students complete their formal education, they are drained of all the freshness and curiosity with which they started their education…Naturally their contribution to the nation is not of much significance.

The presence of educational inequality denies education of quality to the poorest of the poor children in the nation. An education that is not of quality could hardly be child-friendly because poor quality means disrespect for the child. It is for this reason that the present study attempts to identify Child-friendly school systems in Chennai Corporation Primary schools. Chennai Corporation Primary schools primarily cater to the poorest of the poor children from Chennai city. Enriching the educational environment and making school child-friendly for these children would ensure benefits of all educational planning administration to the most deserving section of the society. There is tremendous scope for School Social Work interventions in this field to ensure child-friendly practices and processes. Ensuring child-friendliness in schools would accelerate the Education for all movement. State’s attention from its own schools has drifted. Private schools are glorified as success schools. Such a move would push out the poor children from the school system. This would have an adverse effect in the primary school enrolment and completion rate. The present situation provides a fitting context for a study of this nature. The parents and teachers admit that the quality of education in Corporation Schools has improved considerably in the recent years however there is need for further support and to provide positive reinforcement at the field level to the teachers and the heads of the schools. This also means providing additional teachers and classrooms for schools with good strength, considerably high standards of academic performance and child-friendly practices.

Education and Social Work

Amartya Sen theorises Education as an important Freedom. Education is development. It creates choices and opportunities for people, reduces the twin burdens of poverty and diseases, and gives a stronger voice in society. For nations it creates a dynamic workforce and well-informed citizens are able to compete and cooperate globally - opening doors to economic and social prosperity.

Social Workers around the globe pay increasing attention to Pre-Primary and Primary Education and Schools. At this point of time, there is consensus among social activists that little could be achieved in the field of Development without strengthening Basic Education.

School Social Work

In view of changing as well as emerging roles, the present day school is required to perform the following tasks:(Gandhi, 1990)

To teach specific cognitive skills, such as reading, writing and to impart information
Orienting the child to his/her intellectual heritage and seeking to commit him/her to its ends
To teach the child cultural goals and values and to make clear their relevance
To provide an atmosphere which is conducive to learning
To provide models for problem solving and role taking
To overcome any gross deficiencies in child performance in role taking

Rationale for the study of Child-friendly school systems

Education is a vital tool in economic productivity, social transformation and empowerment. Children constitute almost one-third of the population and there are laws, policies and as many as 122 programmes and schemes to address their needs. With the historic 86th amendment, Education has become a Fundamental Right. However despite best efforts, only a small minority of the population has attained the Constitutional goal of eight year of schooling (Probe, 1999). Economists perceive the issue of drop out as wastage. To add value to the money spent on primary education, the first step is respect for the child. Low educational achievement appears to be an economic problem resulting from poverty, child labour etc. however the psycho-social aspects of the problem requiring the child to be kept first and making the education process enjoyable for the child thereby ensuring child-friendliness is the actual beginning. The attitude of the teacher towards education and children is a deciding factor. This decides how learning occurs. The methodology of teaching, disciplining style of the teacher, the extent to which the child actively participates in the learning, the focus on the child, concern for the child and the child’s family situation are some of the aspects of child-friendly schooling. Very few studies have attempted to record how teachers and children understand child-friendly schooling. In other words, what is actually friendly and enjoyable to children? The rationale for the present study is the need to arrive at a comprehensive understanding of the present school system, identify the friendliness causing factors within the present system and to ascertain whether they contribute to child-friendliness from the child’s perspective

Need for the study

Anjali Gandhi (1990) quotes Rose and Marshal in her study, “School Social Work in India has not yet become a movement and is still treated as an experiment”. Though there is increasing awareness on Positive Mental Health in Schools and Child-friendly practices it has not led to School Social Work Movement. There is growing misconception in the minds of the people that state-owned schools are infereior compared to Private Schools. This leads to dwindling of strength in state-owned schools and mushrooming of private schools. The state indirectly favours private initiatives. The poorest of the poor children are left with no choice but to enter ‘low quality, ill-equipped, profit-minded private schools with untrained teachers.’ This increases the risk of unfriendly education where the parents have no say. With hike in the fees children are withdrawn from such schools. Girl children are the first to be taken away. The study is an attempt to ascertain facts and confirm presence of child-friendly systems in Corporation Primary Schools.

Objectives

To formulate a culture-specific description of child-friendly schools systems pertaining to the Primary Schools of Chennai Corporation
To identify the role of heads of schools in influencing child-friendly school practices in Chennai Corporation Primary Schools
To study the influence of infra-structural facilities on child-friendly school systems
To study the influence of teaching methods on child-friendly learning
To understand the role of teachers in the child-friendly school system
To understand the children’s perception of child-friendly learning

Basic assumptions of the study

The present study is based on the assumption that there are Child-friendlySchool Systems in Chennai Corporation Primary Schools. The study assumes that there are various stakeholders, processes and practices in the Primary School System and all of them in turn contribute to the Child-friendliness in the school.

Limitations of the Study

The present study focuses only on the local field reality or the school situation
There are a lot of systemic factors that may influence child-friendliness in a school. The education system including the factors dictating the structure and functions, the syllabus, prescribed pedagogy, anticipated results, the authorities and the like. Family factors such as type of family, education of the parents, type of house and involvement of the family in the child’s education may have an impact on the child-friendliness as experienced by the child. However the present study confines itself only to the school with its facilities and style. The heads of the schools and teachers are studied with focus on their attitude towards education and child. The study attempts to learn from the child its expectations, likes and dislikes experienced in the school.
The study has adopted qualitative method extensively and is guided by the field reality hence there was little scope to use standardized tools. Measurement, assessment and grading were not given much importance and only simplified, locale-specific, culture-specific tools were originally developed and used.
The Checklist developed by the World Health Organisation could not be used for the present study since it is applicable for children above 14 years’ of age. The present study focuses on Primary Schools, which meant age group in focus is from 6-11 years only.
The study was restricted only to Chennai an urban area. The rural situation is not taken into account

Chapterisation

The first chapter would consist of the Introduction, the second chapter is devoted for the Review of related literature and Description of the Methodology constitutes the third chapter. Fourth Chapter presents the analysis and interpretation of the data pertaining to School facilities, Heads of schools and the Teachers. Fifth chapter consists of the analysis and interpretation of the data relating to Children, Parents and Communityfollowed by Chapter Six highlights the Results. The Seventh chapter is the Discussion Chapter that relates to the findings of the study with the previous studies. Chapter Eightpresents the suggestions and conclusions.