PISA - An edible item or what?

PIZZA generally pronounced as PISA is a delightful Italian cuisine which has become pretty popular in India too.  But how many people know the other PISA, which is like the world cup for cricket or football or even Olympic games connected with the quality of school education globally.  PISA, known as Programme in International Student Assessment, is one of the world’s biggest international education surveys, conducted by the Paris based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), every three years since 2000.  It has 34 member countries including UK, USA, Australia, Japan, South Korea, Germany, France, Canada etc., but the International student assessment is open to non-member nations too.  The PISA test is conducted for school going students in the age groups of 15 years and 3 months to 16 years and 2 months, to ascertain the Pupil’s scholastic performance on Mathematics, Science and Reading. 

 PISA claims to measure education’s application to real-life problems and life long learning.

In other words, pupil’s knowledge to solve problems in real-world contents is tested and hence, rote-learning will not help to secure higher points.  To fulfill OECD requirements, each country must draw a sample of atleast 5000 students, but small countries like Iceland and Luxemburg, where there are fewer than 5000 students per year, an entire cohort is tested.  Apart from taking the test, participating students are asked to answer questions pertaining to their learning habits, motivation and family.

With regard to importance of PISA test, Andreas Schleicher, from OECD said “Your education today is your economy tomorrow. Your country’s competitiveness and your individual job prospects are heavily influenced by what happens in other countries.”

Since the year 2000, Finland stood first in all tests viz., Mathematics, Science and Reading literacy. For the first time, China and Indian students also participated in the PISA test in 2009.  India was represented by students from Tamilnadu and Himachal Pradesh, considered as best performing states in India.  It was reported that from Tamilnadu alone, students numbering 6,78,968 from 158 Government,Government aided and unaided private schools including CBSE schools participated in the PISA tests.  It was also reported that about 2.3 crore students took part in the PISA  tests.  Tamilnadu and Himachal Pradesh were counted as different entities.  Totally 74 developed and emerging economies took part.

The shocking result was, out of 74 global participants, Tamilnadu secured 72^nd position, Himachal Pradesh secured 73^rd position and last position went to Krygystan.  China emerged as the world’s cleverest country with the first rank in all the three tests, students from rural and urban areas performing uniformly well.

PISA results sent shock waves to all educationists in India. The world was shocked and surprised at the exemplary performance of China and extraordinarily disappointing show of India.

Government of India blamed “Out of Context” questions in the PISA format for India’s poor show and wrote to OECD on the issue, stressing the need to factor in India’s Socio-cultural milieu in the type of the questions asked.

But even countries like UK and USA quoted many differences in their countries but accepted the rules prescribed by OECD.

The results brought out the facts, some are highlighted here:

1.Indian students are exposed to rote learning and memorizing, rather than understanding the concept and practical application of the same.

2.As regards reading, the test is administered in the language of instruction and not necessarily in English. English proficiency is not the issue unless English is the medium of instruction.

Since OECD did not change the testing format, India opted out of 2012 and 2015 PISA tests, fearing the repeat of the dismal performance by Indian students.

The PISA 2012 test results were anxiously awaited by all the 65 participating countries including USA,UK. China etc.

With over 5,10,000 students taking  part, the results of PISA 2012, were published on Tuesday December 3^rd 2013 at 10 AM (GMT). It was an encore for China, topping the list again.  Finland which was the topper till 2006 PISA test, secured 12^th position in Maths.  Asian countries like Singapore, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan took the first 7 positions in Maths.  UK was in 26^th position, USA 36^th position and the last 65^th position went to Peru. USA scored lower marks in Maths and Science than the OECD average scores.  Boys did better than girls in Maths.

About top score by China, TIME World, claimed that by sending much better educated children from Shangai and Hongkong, China is cheating the world student ranking systems. But it is not acceptable to most of the readers, as they conclude, Chinese children are hardworking and have work ethics.

CNBC blasted the poor performance by USA and other western economic powers such as Germany, France and UK . A German newspaper described the experience as an “instructive disaster”

A Finland magazine FINNBAY headlined “Golden Days Where Acceptance of Finland’s Success in Education is Over” Another Finnish newspaper, headline was “Finnish education is crumbling down!”

One reader from US, cogently summarized his views as under:

“Bring back competition. Get rid of tenure. Pay on performance. Remove grading curves. Bring back limited corporal punishment. Only winners get prizes and losers fail. Not everyone is ‘gifted’ “

By avoiding such an important international educational exam, India is cheating itself and is not keen to equip its children with appropriate real-life academic skills.

Our schools are a failure and we are no longer parenting.  It is time for us to wake up.

 

CCE - A CRITICAL ANALYSIS

One of the important features of Right to Education Act is introduction of Continous and Comrehensive Evaluation System in order to make children stress-free, freedom from year-end examination, assess students from various other perspectives like attitude, aptitude, social skills, extra-curricular skills etc., rather than the monotonous method of examination, which ever leads to the tendency to commit suicide and try to eliminate rote-learning and cramming. Grading system, instead of awarding marks, is another advantage.

 The concept imported from the West is certainly laudable.

But there are many drawbacks too in the system as of now. CCE introduced in CBSE schools two years ago is not fully understood and appreciated by 67% of teachers and 58% teachers oppose the system, according to a survey. It is possibly on account of sudden introduction without adequate preparation. Thus educating, training and evaluating the teachers are essential pre-requisites for the success of the system.

 Teachers’ ignorance and inadequacy of training will be like a blind man guiding another blind man.

Secondly, there is a tendency among students to make presentation of papers preparation of projects based on inputs down-loaded from internet or copied from friends. Thirdly, parents are also to be blamed as they readily substitute the children for project preparation.

 Indian schooling has the dubious character of “One teacher school” which is about 12% to 17% overall. There is a huge shortage of about 10 lac teachers, substantial number of untrained teachers and part-time teachers of about 9.44%. Average student teacher ratio in India is 42:1, much higher than RTE stipulation.

 With so many impediments, can CCE succeed? India is not Finland which ranks first in terms of quality education in schools and the best talent comes to teaching profession, without any need to evaluate the performance at any point of time.

 CCE in India is a boon or bane? Time alone will answer.

Business standard review on my books

What you see above is the review of Business Standard, on my three books, GLOBALIZATION - AN OVERVIEW, CORPORATE WORLD - AN OVERVIEW and ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES, on 29th January 2010 edition.

SEMINAR ON PROPOSED EDUCATIONAL REFORMS IN TAMILNADU

SEMINAR ON PROPOSED EDUCATIONAL REFORMS IN TAMILNADU

A seminar was organized on 25th July 2009, at Shri Natesan Vidyasala Matric Hr Sec School, Mannivakkam, near Tambaram, on the proposed educational reforms at school level, in which more than 500 parents, teachers from various matric schools, students and educationalists participated. Prof. R Balasubramaniam, Retd. Principal, A M Jain College, Meenambakkam, presided.
All the participants opposed the proposal to scrap 10th public examination and also introduction of uniform syllabus in Tamilnadu. They welcomed the Tamilnadu legislation to regulate private school fees with a caution that good schools should not be harassed.
Dr N Ramasubramanyan, Founder of Natesan School, dealt with all issues in detail, in his special address. He mentioned that proposal to scrap 10th public examination, is applicable to CBSE schools only, which is also not correct since there is no motivation for students to accomplish any target till 12th standard, which is too late. But there is definite need for reforming public examination which is at present a rote learning system. Introduction of seminars, workshops, practicals, continuous assessments etc. as part of public examination, would certainly enhance better learning skills. Opposition to the proposal by Kapil Sibal, HRD Minister, to introduce uniform syllabus throughout the country is unfortunate. Uniform syllabus throughout the country would certainly be beneficial to parents and students considerably.
Introduction of uniform syllabus in Tamilnadu alone would lead to deterioration of quality education. In this regard, the statement made by Chief Minister, Tamilnadu in the legislative assembly, with a foresight and in the best interest of matric school students, has to be welcomed.
The noble objective of obviating exploitation of parents and students by passing legislation to regulate private school fees in Tamilnadu is certainly laudable. However, certain provisions of the legislation suffer from principles of equity and natural justice.

1. Empowering the Govt officials to fix the fees, administer and pass judicial orders u/s 3 (2) will be quiet inappropriate as executive and judicial power should not be with the same person.
2. Secondly, the central government’s right to education bill provides for free education to poor children to the extent of 25% of seats in private schools. The Government would offer some pittance as compensation which cannot be compared to the voucher system in the west. The Tamilnadu Government does not take into account such loss in the legislation.
3. To get recognition from the education department, private schools should provide excellent infrastructural facilities. Private teachers also demand very good salary. Otherwise, they have other employment avenues open to them, including lucrative e-teaching.
4. If the Tamilnadu government fixes low fees not commensurate with the infrastructural facilities, future growth and decent return on investment, private schools cannot survive. The provision regarding “The right to appeal” is inadequate.
5. Though this law is also applicable to private CBSE schools in Tamilnadu, ICSE schools (Presently numbering about 56 in Tamilnadu) seem to be out of the purview of this legislation.
6. The district committee U/s. 11, with the Chief Educational Officer, at its helm of affairs and a team of Govt. officials as members, has enormous powers of investigation of a school, search and seizure of documents, and application of criminal procedure code. This could lead to inspector or license raj.
7. Thus with the Damocles sword hanging above private schools, it is apprehended that private schools are under threat of nationalization in an indirect way.
8. There are different kinds of schools functioning. Government schools are liberally funded by the Government, Sarva Siksha Abyan Scheme, funds from MLAs, MPs, corporates and philanthropists.
There are private schools promoted by Corporates, which have no problem in releasing substantial funds for creating excellent infrastructure and payment of fabulous salaries to teachers.
There are private schools in which children of rich people, top corporate executives study. There will be huge inflow of funds into these schools.
There are professional fund-raisers, whose business is to seek donation from any one and every one, whether required or not. Some also use political and religious clout to collect donations. Vast resources are collected by such institutions by fair and foul methods and the end-use of funds cannot be traced in most of the cases.
There are other schools which are run with no other source except the limited resources from promoters. Majority of such promoters have good intention to serve the society without profit motive.

Fee structure cannot be the same for all such schools. But legislation has no criterion to take stock of such situation while determining the fees structure.

But, it is heartening to note that Minister of School Education has given assurance that suitable amendments would be made to make it fair and equitable to protect the interests of private schools.

Dr Ramasubramanyan, concluded by saying that education to every child can be made a reality only with public and private participation.

Gayathri Ramachandran, Principal of Natesan School, proposed the vote of thanks.