THE NATIONALIST educators, which included even liberal-minded English men and women, successfully assimilated the salient features of western education, logical thinking and scientific temper. Their poineering efforts were amply complimented and reinforced by the invaluable contribution of such orginisations like Ramakrishna Mission, which set up numerous schools. These value based schools aimed at fulfilling the educational ideal of Swami Vivekananda, who, emphasized on 'man-making' and 'character-building' education for children to grow up as men with 'muscles of iron' and 'nerves of steel'. These educationalists' thoughts and actions of building up a morally, socially and economically strong India ran almost parrallel to the movement for political freedom of the country.

The collapse of the national economy of a few countries in the recent years reaffirms the position that the value-based education for children must serve as the backbone of any nation's essential growth and prosperity in every sphere-be it in economy, politics or human resources. How the absence of such human values as honesty can strike shattering blows even at the heart of hardcore professional business orginisations, is typically exemplified in the total disintegration of the mighty multinational companies like World Com, Enron and Arthur Anderson. In contrast, the re-emergence of Japan as a global economicpower out of the ashes of the World War 2 is a living testimony to the quality of her people, with their zealously guarded intrinsic human values.

  A willing suspension of educators' responsibility in inculcating human values still leaves them with their assigned task of educating the children to become academically and professionally competent, for which clarity in numerous concepts of various subjects and their application is absolutely essential. In order to achieve this objective the nationalist educators of the past went about setting up of a large number of schools, where though mother tongue remainded the language of communication, they laid great emphasis on the learning of English as a learning subject of study right from the primary school level.

  Significantly, till about the independence of the country, students had to read textbooks and write answers of all subjects in English for their matriculation examinations. In a way these schools are comparable to the British grammar schools, the breading ground of most intellectuals, professionals, statesmen and politicians of the country.

  However, the qualitative growth of the mother tongues and education being the state subject, the active initiative and the encouragement of the State Governments in free India led to a slow and gradual switch over from English to the mother tongue as the language for examinations in vernacular medium institutions at least up to the school level.

 In spite of such a change, the focus and emphasis on conceptual clarity was never compromised. The study of English continued to receive such importance that students of this academic background never faced much difficulty in pursuing the higher education in professional courses like engineering and medicine and academic courses like physics, chemistry, geology and zoology, which continued to be taught and examined in English language. Subsequently, politicizing of the language issue resulted in a strange kind of linguistic fanaticism. The first and worst casualty were possibly students of states in the Hindi-belt, where learning of English and its use was almost pushed into oblivion. Ironically, the latest in the casualty turns out to be West Bengal, once probably considered the most progressive of all states: the leftist government abolished the teaching of English at the primary level, though very recently the damage control process has began by its reintroduction.

  Meanwhile, there has been a horrifying shift in the objective and priority in education. Examinations tend to have replaced the pursuit of knowledge. When the tests and examinations are not even the means but a mere tool of assessment of a student's acquisition of knowledge, they have turned out to be the only goal for students, serving as the greatest motivating force in learning. Almost everyone- be it the policy maker, the syllabus farmer, the educator, the teacher, the tutor, the publisher of the helpbooks, the parent, and above all, the student - is desperate to wriggle out somehow from the most uncomfortable rigmarole of the educational process called tests or examinations. Such is the strange system that there is only one objective before all students - marks, scored at any cost, whether deserved or not.

  This deification of marks in examinations has created problems. Attempts at academic achievement of one kind often resulted in the failure of both: a student, making an all out effort for success in the IIT entrance examinations may land up in a precarious condition when neither the student succeeds in entering IIT nor does he have to his credit the level of academic achievement he deserves in senior secondary examinations. In other words, numerous competitive entrance tests for admission into professional institutes like the IIT and the medical colleges have added a new dimension to the educational objectives for the school-going children. Though the tests remain within the school syllabi, students are required to have an altogether different kind of academic orientation, resulting in the emergence of a number of mercenary professional coaching centers and a rich crop of help books and postal assignments.

In fact, the students are faced with the demand of a parallel approach to learning with an altogether different pattern of tests like multiple choice questions, wherein the quick application of sound theoretical knowledge is expected of the students. Of course, some schools have entered into business negotiations with these coaching institutes and allow them to hold classes within the school premises to meet these special requirements of the students. But, it neither speaks well for the schools nor does it act as compliment to the syllabus framing and examining Board.

  For the benefit of the students, there must be a synchronisation of the patterns of examination for the Board and the entrance tests in professional institutes. If the authorities concerned fail to modify it, schools can modify its testing patterns in the middle and the primary levels so that an intelligent student's dependence on special coaching is altogether eliminated. Equally significant is the need for harmonising the inculcation of values with the academic and professional competence. Managers of education today must come to the realisation that it is impossible to achieve this objective with any kind of technological gadgets, unless a highly competent teacher takes the centre stage as a living example, with the allowances of a bit of an unaware imperfection here or a little error of judgement there. No amount of training can create such a teacher: Teachers of this kind are born with their overflowing love for children and it is this love, which forever keeps them a learner to help their students learn their subjects well as well as shape them as good human beings. It may be impossible for any school to have all teachers of this kind, but even the presence of two or three teachers can make a substantial difference.

Finally, in order to have a pragmatic solution to a lot of present day problems in education the policy-makers of school education can learn from the wisdom of educators the initiators of modern Indian education, particularly the importance they attached to the teaching of English to fulfil the aims and objectives of school education, without the craze for the so called English medium schools, which are linguistically worse than most vernacular medium schools of the pre-independence era.

Courtesy : The Hindu