By mid-2004, we had already been working for over two years in the 45 taluks of North East Karnataka in partnership with the government education functionaries. We would visit schools, have periodic meetings and regular workshops with the heads of teachers and other teachers to support them in their work. Around that time, we initiated a simple four-page monthly newsletter that we circulated to all the 9,000-plus schools. Every issue would have short articles of practical interest to a teacher. Invariably, it would only be at the monthly meetings that the teachers would read the newsletter and that, too, because we would ask them to. Far from contributing articles to the newsletters, the teachers were still barely reading what was being supplied to them. Two years later, we had reached a stage where the editor of our newsletter was the Surpur block education officer. And the work continued. Painstakingly, slowly, imperceptibly the needle was shifting on the ground. One had to read every small sign to catch the signals of the progress. And that is the story of this essay, these small but significant signs. Eight years later...
It was a rain swept Sunday this July at Shahpur, another taluk in Yadgir district of North East Karnataka. A holiday, but by 10am the large hall was overflowing with over 370 people, mostly teachers from the government schools in the district. Many had come with their spouses, an indication of the pride they had in their work. The event was “Sahamanthana”, a conference to share the findings of “barefoot research” by the rank and file teachers of the district. More than 30 teachers and functionaries were presenting their research studies (mostly small studies located squarely in their day-to-day work) either by talking about it or displaying this as a poster in the hall. Pause to consider the journey they have traversed from 2004 when they were not yet in the habit of reading a monthly newsletter to the stage in 2014 where they were confident to conduct and write about their research. Sitting there amongst those teachers was a spiritual experience, for one could sense what a journey it had been for the teachers to reach the stage of being a “reflective practitioner”.
Everyone has heard the lament that there are not enough teaching learning material nor are teachers creating such material for themselves. In 2007, we shared Deepa Dhanraj’s brilliant film Young Historians on how teachers and children can study their local history and make history education much more meaningful than the mere memorisation of dates and events. When the film was first shown to teachers in Surpur, it was received with numbness and ennui. But over time as they worked together in a journey of their own capacity building, they reached a stage in 2011 when some of them could come together to create their own home-grown short films about the history of their taluk as teaching learning material for the children of their schools.
As teachers and children talked to elders, visited the fort and “manzils” in their villages, they realised the value of creating such material around local history to kindle children’s interest in the subject.
Almost simultaneously, similar, small but significant changes on the ground are taking place. If only we look for them. Up north in the remote and still feudal districts of Tonk and Sirohi in Rajasthan, in 2008, teachers began to take the first tentative steps as they voluntarily came together once a month in their personal time and on holidays to discuss, share and help each other with issues related to their academic work. In a pervasive feudal environment, female teachers from remote blocks travel to district headquarters to attend this forum that is not a directive from their officers in the government. Unknown and unsung, these are torchbearers of the kind of change one cannot even comprehend unless one knows the kind of sacrifices they are making. Six years on, the voluntary teachers’ forum is an established initiative and has spread to pockets of Karnataka, Uttarakhand, etc.
The lack of rapport between school and community has always been a wicked problem. In 2007, a cluster of schools with external help held a “Mela” to show their community how their children were learning mathematics. Today, that concept has spread from Yadgir to districts as far-flung as Uttarkashi and Udham Singh Nagar. Like most things on the ground it has taken time—from the first school where it was attempted to within the cluster; then to another cluster and then to other taluks. This pollination happened not because of any official directive but because a group of teachers were excited by what another group of teachers had tried. And so, in these schools, it is no longer the sterile formality of the parent-teacher association but a vibrant connection between school and community as both come together to appreciate the education of their children. The Mela may be a small milestone but is an initiative that came from people on the ground.
What I am saying is that ordinary teachers in rural government schools, with all the constraints, when brought together and guided well, are embracing the opportunity for professional growth and development. How huge, how difficult, how exulting every small change and development on the ground is can be gauged from the fact that it takes years of unflagging commitment for every such change. We talk of systemic change and “changing the system”, as though some magical policy changes will bring about transformation overnight. Far from it. Every small change on the ground is actually a painstaking giant step for the teachers and their supporting officers who are ploughing lonely furrows in distant Aruppukottai or remote Purola. The complexity of issues in Indian school education is so daunting that a number of issues have to be addressed simultaneously over a period of time for any kind of impact. Meanwhile, these groups of teachers—and we will find them in every district of our country—are showing us what change is on the ground.
The author is registrar and chief operating officer of Azim Premji University.
Email: giri@azimpremjifoundation.org