Outlook:
Looking at the complex scenario of science education in
India, three issues stand out clearly. First, science education
is still far from achieving the goal of equity enshrined in
our Constitution. Second, science education in India, even
at its best, develops competence but does not encourage
inventiveness and creativity. Third, the overpowering
examination system is basic to most, if not all, the
fundamental problems of science education in India.
The science curriculum must be used as an
instrument for achieving social change in order to
reduce the divide based on economic class, gender,
caste, religion and region. We must use textbooks as
one of the primary instruments for equity, since for
a great majority of school-going children, as also
for their teachers, it is the only accessible and
affordable resource for education. We must
encourage alternative textbook writing in the country
within the broad guidelines laid down by the
National Curriculum Framework. These textbooks
should incorporate activities, observation and
experimentation, and encourage an active approach
to science, connecting it with the world around the
child, rather than information-based learning.
Additionally, materials such as workbooks, cocurricular
and popular science books, and children's
encyclopaedia would enhance children's access to
information and ideas that need not go into the
textbook, loading it further, but would enrich
learning that takes place through project work. There
is a dearth of such materials with rich visuals in
regional languages.
The development of science corners, and
providing access to science experimentation kits and
laboratories, in rural areas are also important ways of
equitably provisioning for science learning. Information
and Communication Technology (ICT) is an important
tool for bridging social divides. ICT should be used in
such a way that it becomes an opportunity equaliser by
providing information, communication and computing
resources in remote areas. ICT if used for connecting
children and teachers with scientists working in
universities and research institutions would also help in
demystifying scientists and their work.
For any qualitative change from the present
situation, science education in India must undergo a
paradigm shift. Rote learning should be discouraged.
Inquiry skills should be supported and strengthenedby language, design and quantitative skills. Schools
should place much greater emphasis on co-curricular
and extra-curricular activities aimed at stimulating
investigative ability, inventiveness and creativity, even if
these are not part of the external examination system.
There should be a massive expansion of such activities
along the lines of the Children's Science Congress, being
held successfully at present. A large-scale science and
technology fair at the national level (with feeder fairs at
cluster/district/state levels) may be organised to
encourage schools and teachers to participate in this
movement. Such a movement should gradually spread
to every corner of India and even across South Asia,
unleashing a wave of creativity and scientific temper
among young students and their teachers.
Examination reform should be initiated as a national
mission, supported by adequate funding and high-quality
human resources. The mission should bring teachers,
educationists and scientists on a common platform;
launch new ways of testing students that would reduce
the high level of examination-related stress; curb the
maddening multiplicity of entrance examinations; and
undertake research on ways of testing multiple abilities
other than formal scholastic competence.
These reforms, however, fundamentally need the
overarching reform of teacher empowerment. No
reform, however well motivated and well planned,
can succeed unless a majority of teachers feel
empowered to put it in practice. With active teacher
participation, the reforms suggested above could have
a cascading effect on all stages of science teaching in
our schools.
