Textbooks and teacher education in the Equity and Quality Paradigm

1. Textbooks and teacher education in the Equity and Quality Paradigm Anjali Noronha Eklavya Madhya Pradesh

2. Defining the terms • Equity: A fair and just access to ‘quality’ education – i.e. an access to everyone – regardless… • Quality: An education that enables one to critically and creatively examine one’s life conditions and change them where required in order to live a wholesome and sustainable personal and collective life. There is no quality education without equity.

3. Equity , Quality and Quantity (Scale) the elusive triangle • J.P. Naik wrote this article 35 years ago and its as if he wrote it yesterday – the same barriers to equity, an exclusive set of schools – that purportedly improve quality in that they provide access to mobility (he did not define quality separately) and increase in quantity at the cost of quality in the mass of schools.

4. Textbooks and Teacher preparation • Even if uniform textbooks are not the best medium of education and have their limitations – at present they are one route to increase the spread of equitable education as they are almost universal instruments in the large system. • If we use the understanding of quality above – it necessarily means that the lives of different kinds of people particularly the marginalised need to be represented in the textbooks in a critical and reflective manner as also ‘other lives’ that are related or contrasting – so that the ability to critically and creatively examine are developed through these opportunities.

5. Some examples from eklavya tbs • Primary school – children’s own experiences –particularly of marginalised sections. Class 1 and sameena ki diary • Critical reflection on what is happening around – akaal and kanha. • Reflection on man land relationship elsewhere – vaana bogaana

6. Social Science • Critically reflecting on working experiences – agriculture, bidi and chamda. • Policy issues Agriculture policy and poverty • Decision making and agency of the women – nagaron mein suvidhaon kaa prabandh. • Constitution and caste

7. Influence on other textbooks • Madhya Pradesh • NCERT • Ladakh – district level – only district level tbs made in 2002 • Other States

8. Teacher preparation • Equipping the teacher to critically examine aspects of education that they need to deal with. • A teacher education paradigm that is a judicious mix of reflective theory and practice.

9. D.Ed reform • In NCTE – appeal for a four year university course – resistance – led to a reformed D.ed framework – has moved states towards reform • Two important aspects – reflective reading of original texts; more immersion in schools as a whole rather than practice teaching alone.

10. Field and community placement Foundation courses F Subject proficiency and pedagogy oundatioubjec

11. Struggles with teacher preparation • Rajasthan – need to change did not really an appeal not to change and particularly not to increase rigor as that would exclude a large number of needy women. • Language – accepting plurality – resistance to explicating the variety in languages of Rajasthan • Resistance to philosophical and sociological issues

12. Challenges • Lack of availability of appropriate research in the and reading materials in the Indian and State contexts and in the vernacular. • Lack of appropriate resource persons with the time required for this work. • Too much hurry – change at the complete state level – no time for piloting even for one batch. • Privatisation of teacher education – provision of readers to all student teachers. • Due to privatisation of schools availability of schools for immersion.

13. In conclusion • Process of textbook development needs to incorporate analytical and critical content of reality. • Needs to develop scope for children to bring in their own and other local experiences and reflect on them. • Reform of pre-service teacher education should be lengthened to 4 years so as to develop an equipped and reflective teacher so that modular in service courses and resource centers, can replenish and strengthen.