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What keeps the students away?

Mahmood Hasan
If primary education is meant to help build the foundation of human resource (HR) development, then efficiency of the primary sub-sector must be seen in the context of learner achievement.***
IN our country only about half the population over 11 years of age are literate. This includes those with ’initial level literacy" ("ability to read and write sentences, and, know the four basic rules of arithmetic." with limited ability to use these skills) and those with "ad-vanced level literacy" ("ability to read and write fluently, competency in four arithmetic rules and ability to use the skills in everyday life"). There are more people in the former category (30.2%) than in the latter (18.6%) (Literacy Assessment 2008).
It is not clear how meaningful the initial level of literacy is. Given the strong correlation of literacy skill with wealth status, one would assume that the vast majority of those literate at the initial level are from the disadvantaged sections of the population.
They have fewer opportunities to use their skills and are expected to revert back to illiteracy. This means that in the foreseeable future close to 70% of the population over 11 years of age could be illiterate. Incidentally, 11 years is about when children pass from primary school.
In the 6-11 age group, only 57% can read and write. This means that, taking into account that 50% dropout, out of every 100 children enrolled only about 29 manage to acquire the basic competencies. the level of literacy of the achievers.
Le., the 29%, remains uncertain, which means that over 71 failed.
The assessment of 2008 does not look into why 50% dropout and over 71% do not acquire the basic competencies in literacy. It is assumed that poverty is the principal reason for half the children dropping out. which reinforces the existing incentive package and supports the argument in favour of a mid-day meal.
It needs to be emphasised that while material incentives have increased enrolment they have not succeeded in retaining children in school, let alone ensuring their learning, therefore, they need to be revisited.
This is not to deny children their right to a mid-day meal or to suggest that their families would not benefit from material incentives but to emphasise that any material incentive package should be administered outside the school framework. Schools should focus on learning, and learning alone.
Clearly, half the children dropping out and three-fourths of the learners not acquiring the basic competencies in literacy reflects on the efficiency of the primary education system as a whole.
If primary education is meant to help build the foundation of human resource (HR) development, then efficiency of the primary sub-sector must be seen in the context of learner achievement.
Efficiency measures (coefficient of efficiency ) used by Unesco. UNDP and
Unicef focus on "repeaters" and "dropouts" and do not take Into account nonachievement on the part of the learners. Until this critical parameter is included in the analysis of efficiency, the findings would at best indicate a partial view of the reality.
Systemic efficiency in primary education, to be meaningful, must include non-enrolment, non-completion, repetition, and most importantly, non achievement. Education for all (EFA) will be more meaningful with one simple definition; acquisition of defined skills, competencies and knowledge by all children in every community.
With regard to learner achievement, Unesco also suggests that completion and learner achievement are synonymous, assuming that completion of the primary cycle automatically leads to acquisition of the defined competencies. This helps focus on the reduction of dropouts without taking responsibility for learner outcome.
The two positions advanced by the leading UN agencies suggesting that non-achievement neither has to be a measure of efficiency, nor does it need to be seen as a critical target, has clearly influenced our national planning strategy. Assessment 2008 findings, however, question the validity of these expressed positions and some of their assumptions.
I would submit firstly, that quality fundamentally means learning. Learning is what primary school is all about. We, therefore, need to move away from our obsession for enrolment, equity and inclusiveness for the time being and focus squarely on learning. -
Second, our schools do not ensure learning because most of us are not aware of how learning takes place and
what it takes to ensure learning in the classroom. This is one of the reasons why discussions in workshops and seminars on the quality of primary education continue to drift in favour of a discussion on access, equity, inclusiveness and, more recently, mid-day meal. Quality, consequently, is reduced to rhetoric.
Another case in point is the Primary Education Development Project II (PEDP II), our national program designed to improve the quality of education in the mainstream schools. It has achieved significant progress in terms of measurable hardware such as schools and classrooms built, recruitment and placement, number of teachers trained
inC-in-Edandsoon.
Naturally, the project assumed that all these would automatically lead to changes in the learning environment inside the classroom. But things didn't change. This was probably because nobody knew what was expected in terms of learning environment and teaching learning inside the classroom.
Naturally, nothing happened. The learners continued to sit in neat rows quietly listening to the teacher lecturing from the prescribed textbook that require the learners to rote learn the question answers, the perfect recipe for boredom and frustration.
Third, poverty is central to many of our problems but this is not why 50% of
our children drop out of school. It is non-learning and attendant boredom and frustration both on the part of the learner and the parents that lead to high dropout.
As for the achievers, our system of assessment captures, mainly, the learners' ability to recall from memory, not what they know and are able to do. Rote learning is not the same as learning.
Fourth, if we could ensure that children had a great time learning, free from intimidation, every child in the community would enrol, complete the cycle and learn.This claim is based on the performance of 700 active learning schools across the country.
Lastly, the technology of quality teaching and learning has been available for about five decades in most of the English speaking advanced world, and has been strengthened and refined over the years. The challenge for the developing countries was to adapt the key elements of the model and make the package culture specific.
Therefore, it is difficult to see how the consultant regime in the past decades could have failed to transfer the proven technology of "active teaching learning" to the developing world. Instead, every few years they have come up with new packages and slogans. Every time the package failed to deliver, they recorded "incremental progress," best seen as their protection pill.
(1) This is defined as ’ideal number of pupil years needed for a pupfl cohort to complete the primary cycle, expressed as a percentage of the actual number of pupil years'. "It summanses the consequences of repetition and drop-out on the efficiency of the education process in producing graduates" EFAThe Year 2000 Technical Guideline p. 18
Dr. F R Mahmood Hasan is an educator specialising in tho quality of Primary Education.