JK State Knowledge Commission needs fleeting attention

Posted By: Sadaket Malikon:Nov 2, 2008 11:30 AM

Jammu: Despite political upheaval and trauma, the pro-active educationists of the state are veering to formulate a platform that transforms the state into knowledge-based society. The educational programmes under the pretext of the so-called politically legislated reforms has led to the tattering educational affairs, which in turn has compelled the local educationists to come up with vital agenda to set up a state level committee under the style of Jammu & Kashmir State Knowledge Commission (SKC). The point here I want to post is that a major change is needed in the current system of higher education and research. However, the commission is expected to make the right recommendations and needs to know the real causes of past failures. The past record of knowledge management in the state is the crying need of the hour. According to my studies, the single central cause of the failure of knowledge management in the state was that ignorant people attempted to manage knowledge. Certainly, these people—politicians, bureaucrat';s etc—wanted control for obvious reasons. But the single biggest problem was their ignorance. The education system is caught in a social geometry of complex power structures. Situated within a political-economy in which patronage and patrimonalism play key roles and in which corruption (in all its various forms and shades) remains the key source of rent-racking, the system continues to get more layered and convoluted in the state. The government school system is not a rationally driven and coherent apparatus of state policy. Instead, its everyday work is continuously and varyingly reshaped. The setting up of State Knowledge Commission under the patronage of National Knowledge Commission (NKC) can act as a key advisor to the state education Department to fulfill the long pending needs of education system. In seeking to deliver and institute mass education in the state, the State Education Department has grown in size and complexity to become one of the largest employers at the state level. The department itself functions within a highly differentiated education system. At least nine different types of schools (based on differences in management, board of exams and medium of instruction, and which range from the very basic Ashramshalas that cater to Advise children in remote areas to the upscale, five star ';international public'; schools) cater to varied socio-economic classes. And within this differentiated educational system, the department is primarily focused on the delivery and management of ';government'; schools, the basic structure of the education department is hierarchical. However, this hierarchy has become more complex with the advent of large scale programmes such as the TLM (Total Literacy Mission) District Primary Education Programme (DPEP) Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), which have introduced structures parallel to those already existing at various levels. The major consequence of such a move has been, for education officials, a blurring of reporting relationships and primary accountabilities across administrative tasks, programme monitoring, and academic responsibilities. The state education department gives attention to the related organizations in educational governance, reforms of the system have largely remained piece-meal and reactive, failing to have any significant impact. In the last two decades or so the interface of the department with various other structures has increased substantially. This has ultimately led to work and its understanding being refracted in terms of these multiple spheres of influence. At one level are the elected local bodies that play a crucial role in channeling the large amount of funding through programmatic interventions, but have still not been able to engage substantively with qualitative aspects of all levels of education. It is worth to note that when a state which is unable to provide even primary education to all its citizens after nearly 53 years of independence, embarks on a curriculum-making exercise on behalf of a much fissured and fractured national community, the political nature of the exercise necessarily causes anxiety. Depending on what is the current flavor of reform zeal, some part of the system is targeted for alteration; sometimes it is the curricula and textbooks. Mostly it is the teachers, and sometimes it is the children themselves who become subject to various tests and measurements by the recently state Knowledge Commission. No significant effort has been directed to altering the very orientation and structures of the system/department itself and its inter-linkages to the various institutions and its imprint on the multiple agents who constitute it. The curriculum, which is needed to be changed in the state, has not changed yet. The curricula need sea changes to delete the traditional concepts and introduce newer one taking into account the language, mother tongue, society and culture. Besides the hidden political agenda by the NCERT stressing that the medium of instruction ideally, ought to be the mother tongue at all the stages of school education. In case where the mother tongue and regional language are one and the same for the learners, it should be the medium at all the levels or up to the end of the elementary stage. And in case of the learners whose mother tongue and the regional languages are different, the regional language may be adopted as the medium of instruction from the third standard. The State Knowledge Commission (SKC) must look into the problem of the system at local and village level taking into account the needs of the day before giving recommendations for reforming education in the state. It may advise the state education department in matters of institutions of knowledge production, knowledge use and knowledge dissemination. However, it is expected by the state educational fraternity that the group may offer advice on how the state can promote excellence to meet the knowledge challenges of the 21st century. Promote knowledge creation in science and technology laboratories, and promote knowledge applications in agriculture and industry. The commission must suggest how the Government';s knowledge capabilities can be made more effective, making the Government more transparent and accountable as a service provider to the citizen to explore ways in which knowledge can be made more widely accessible. The Committee may suggest for vital reforms at school and higher education, which needed to change. With a multitude of problems and the diversity of languages, the medium of instruction remains a topic of impassioned debate in the state. Teaching in the mother tongue fuels pride, fostering multilingualism in our schools, however, is far from smooth sailing. The change in the sphere of curriculum development is expected from the pro-active educationists of the state. Instead of glamorizing a formula that eludes effective implementation of programmes and curriculum, a formula that has proven to be non-practicable, a viable alternative school curriculum should be worked out by introducing vocational training subjects at all level. The Commission indeed is a holistic step on the part of educationists of the state and the immediate patronage by the National Knowledge commission at New Delhi. I hope the commission will prove helpful in suggesting regarding the policy legislation to concerned quarters. The commission is an effort to collate and distribute the fruits of these experiences, which will enhance the quality of teaching and learning in crucial areas. Curricular plans without constructive instructional components tend to muddy the waters. With equal emphasis on curriculum and instruction, we can better serve student community of the state. Moreover, the Open and distance learning system, which need to be regulated by the government and problems in terms of quality ought to be sternly dealt with. There is indeed a need of fleeting attention on the part of newly constituted State Knowledge Commission to face the challenge.

Overwhelmingly, the concept and approach of the state';s dedicated educationists must be praised by the people in educational governance so as to enable them for transforming the state into a knowledge-based economy……!