Showing papers in "Contemporary Education Dialogue in 2007"
TL;DR: In this article, the authors set out a typology of identifying the economic and political aspects of provision through using the Hirschmanian concepts of "exit" and "voice" and mapped the educational initiatives by state and non-state providers in India to gain an understanding of how the new models of education such as PPPs would affect the current provision of education.
Abstract: There are many obstacles to the successful provision of universal primary and secondary education. The failure of state schools to provide adequate schooling is a serious hindrance to achieving the international goal of Education for All. Non-state providers of education are regarded as an alternative but the variation in the quality of education provided is a growing concern. Educational partnerships between the public and private sector have been regarded as a way out of this impasse in the United States and Western Europe and there has been considerable debate about the economic and political implications of these public private partnerships (PPPs). Disentangling the economic and political dimensions of provision would further our understanding of these new models of educational provision. This paper sets out a typology of identifying the economic and political aspects of provision through using the Hirschmanian concepts of ‘exit’ and ‘voice’. The idea of exit draws on the mainstream economic understanding of free entry and exit with the latter occurring when individuals were no longer satisfied with what was on offer in the market. The term voice is used to denote political activity undertaken by an individual to ensure the continued provision of a good and/or the quality of the good. Conceptualizing educational provision in relation to exit and voice permits the examination of how the role of the market and community affect the access to and quality of education. Educational initiatives by state and non-state providers in India are mapped onto this typology to gain an understanding of how the new models of education, such as PPPs, would affect the current provision of education.
16 citations
TL;DR: The Regional Resource Centre* (RRC) as discussed by the authors is conceptualised to enable the creation of spaces and mechanisms that help institutionalise some of the ideas and strategies with which the USRN is envisioned to function.
Abstract: he University-School Resource Network (USRN) is a network of institutions in Delhi that are concerned with T school education and have resources and expertise that they wish to use to address issues of quality and equity in education. The underlying thrust of the project is to strengthen school education and enable institutions of higher education to play a creative role in this process. The Regional Resource Centre* (RRC) is conceptualised to enable the creation of spaces and mechanisms that help institutionalise some of the ideas and strategies with which the USRN is envisioned to function . The RRC also works closely with teachers and offers itself as a platform for encouraging, supporting and undertaking research that can directly inform educational practice and theory-building. Towards facilitating classroom-based research by teacherpractitioners, the RRC has, during the past year, supported five teachers in Delhi with fellowships to develop their research ideas. This Teacher Fellowship Programme aims to start a
9 citations
TL;DR: The role of phonological awareness in the acquisition and mastery of languages with non-alphabetic writing systems associated with some of the Indian languages has been studied intensively because of its relation to schooling and the acquisition of literacy as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Phonological awareness is a form of metalinguistic awareness that has been studied intensively because of its relation to schooling and the acquisition of literacy. However, much of this research has been confined to languages with alphabetic scripts such as English. It has been noted that children who are born deaf or acquire deafness very early in life before they have learned their native language and those who are raised in an aural-oral environment do develop some awareness of letter-sound mappings and other spelling regularities by drawing on information from lip-reading and residual hearing. Such children nevertheless have to do a lot of catching up in language in order to be effectively integrated in schoolwork. There is limited published evidence about the role of phonological awareness in the acquisition and mastery of languages with non-alphabetic writing systems associated with some of the Indian languages. Specific literacy acquisition problems faced by hearing-impaired children studying in r...
4 citations
TL;DR: Saxena as mentioned in this paper claims that more than the concerns regarding local knowledge which followed during and soon after the National Curriculum Framework 2005 was brought out, it is the confusion in the representation of pedagogy, cognition and epistemology in the NCF that is of serious concern.
Abstract: Sadhna Saxena in her paper in the special issue of Contemporary Education Dialogue 4(1) claims that more than the concerns regarding local knowledge which followed during and soon after the National Curriculum Framework 2005 was brought out, it is the confusion in the representation of ‘pedagogy, cognition and epistemology in the NCF that is of serious concern’ (Saxena 2006: 54). Her main contention in the first part of her paper seems to be that the constructivism espoused by the NCF 2005 overemphasises the primacy of the child in knowledge construction and thus does not acknowledge the need for instruction and teaching in learning, or the learning processes involved in the different disciplinary areas (ibid.: 57). She seems to be in agreement with Matthews
4 citations
TL;DR: The expectation of the child's commitment to society and its goals and the perception that the task of schools is to ensure that students learn and know how to adjust' and "fit into" society is evident in our curriculum and evaluation processes, which have a benchmark against which a child's performance is measured as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Schooling practices, both in traditional and more contemporary educational institutions, consider the child a tabula rasa, on which society writes itself through socialisation practices beginning in the family and through educational processes that emphasise conformity, similarity and homogeneity. This is evident in our curriculum and evaluation processes, all of which have a benchmark against which a child's performance is measured. The academic conformity that is expected of children is only one aspect of the problem that plagues education in the severely competitive Indian secondary school system. The greater predicament is the expectation of the child's commitment to society and its goals and the perception that the task of schools is to ensure that students learn and know how to ‘adjust' and ‘fit into' society. Of course, there are children who rebel and are considered deviant; and there are children who consciously endeavour to be different, not in a self-conscious or self-oriented manner, but as individuals committed to developing a new society that is based on justice and equality, and a concern for nature and the environment, for social renewal and change. This, however, is not a widespread phenomenon as these attributes are generally not valued or encouraged in either public or private schools in contemporary India.
3 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present an alternate explanation for the declining enrolments and dropouts from municipal primary schools in nine metropolitan cities, pointing out that the phenomenon of negative growth of enrolment at the primary stage is seen only in those cities where the next level of education is provided only/mainly through private-aided schools.
Abstract: This paper presents an alternate explanation for the declining enrolments and dropouts from municipal primary schools. In the urban context, dropout has more usually been interpreted as a ‘preference for private/English-medium schools’. On the contrary, this paper points out; this ‘dropout’ could have been forced upon the poor by structural features introduced within the system of educational administration during the British period. Using evidence from studies of nine metropolitan cities, it is pointed out that the phenomenon of negative growth of enrolment at the primary stage is seen only in those cities where the next level of education is provided only/mainly through private-aided schools. Further, studies show that in Mumbai, the anxiety to ensure admission to aided secondary schools causes children to seek admission in aided secondary schools at the fee-charging primary stage itself. It is this manifested anxiety, this paper argues, that could be causing the observed phenomenon of low enrolment, dropout, etc. Thus, instead of representing a desire to leave schooling, the dropout could be likened to the backflow of smoke from a blocked chimney, seeking a way to progress upward. There is therefore a need to examine more closely the flows within the system of education, as also the role of subsidised private schools in providing continuity of education for children from municipal primary schools.
3 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, an ethnographic case study of Class VIII students of a government rural middle school in the state of Madhya Pradesh in India is presented, where the authors analyze their experiences and knowledge of their local material world, and contrast them with a critique of school science to understand how well school science corresponds with learning needs and resources of students in rural India.
Abstract: This paper presents an ethnographic case study of Class VIII students of a government rural middle school in the state of Madhya Pradesh. It analyses their experiences and knowledge of their local material world, and contrasts them with a critique of school science to understand how well school science corresponds with learning needs and resources of students in rural India. It highlights the adverse implications of the gap between the learning needs and resources that students bring to the science classroom, and the learning opportunities that school science offers. It also argues for a more culturally responsive science education that preserves hopes for personal and societal peaceful progressive change through education for underprivileged students in India.
2 citations
TL;DR: Ramchandaran et al. as discussed by the authors pointed out that despite the fact that the issue of making elementary D universal was a priority for the makers of the Indian Constitution and has received a fresh impetus from the Government of India since the 1990s in terms of policy and programming (e.g., with schemes like District Primary Education in the mid-1990s and Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan in 2000), nearly 70 million children between the ages of 6 and 13 continue to be deprived of their fundamental right to elementary education.
Abstract: espite the fact that the issue of making elementary D universal was a priority for the makers of the Indian Constitution and has received a fresh impetus from the Government of India since the 1990s in terms of policy and programming (e.g., with schemes like District Primary Education in the mid-1990s and Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan in 2000), nearly 70 million children between the ages of 6 and 13 continue to be deprived of their fundamental right to elementary education. In recent years this gap between the stated goal of the Indian State and the grassroots reality has attracted the attention of several research scholars (Ramchandaran 2002; Vaidyanathan and Nair 2001) and NGOs (listed in Appendix III of the volume under review) working in the field of education.
1 citations
TL;DR: The question of "What is truth?" was asked by Pilate when Jesus Christ was on trial before his crucifixion, and no answer was given by the Roman authorities as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: ‘What is truth?' asked Pilate when Jesus Christ was on trial before his crucifixion. He got no answer. This question has come up again and again in the two millennia that have passed since then. The remark that Padma Sarangapani made, that ‘This opposition of “truth” with “sense-making” in fact does not hold in the epistemology of science where theorising and explanation are the key endeavours and not the search for truth per se. Scientific truths taken outside their contextualising theories are of little scientific significance', raises this question again. Is science part of our search for truth?
TL;DR: It might have been helpful if the authors had provided a list of tools used by the authors, together with the correlation matrices that appear to have been the basis of some of the generalisations that they have made.
Abstract: particularly those who are engaged in the education of socially disadvantaged groups. However, it might have been helpful if the authors had provided a list of tools used by them, together with the correlation matrices that appear to have been the basis of some of the generalisations that they have made. Further, in several tables the sum of the percentages of components adds up to more than a hundred. Although this sort of error may not affect the results of the study, it does point to the need for greater care in presenting data.