In education reform, parents are a problem

It seems that even educated parents seem to be a road-block to education reform in India. My article in The Wall Street Journal from a week ago.

http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2010/06/09/in-education-reform-parents-are-a-problem/tab/comments/
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“They will ruin our children!” an angry passenger seated next to me at Delhi airport muttered, shaking his head incredulously. His eyes seemed fixed on the headlines of a daily newspaper, which showed a few young students in school uniform holding hands and laughing cheerfully.

I remembered the article instantly, having read it before leaving for the airport. Delhi’s schools had just declared their CBSE results for Grade X students a few days before and the article examined the unusually low number of students who had failed or were given “compartment” results that allow for retesting.

The article attributed a large part of this success to CBSE’s newly introduced system of Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation, one which many educationists had seen as long overdue in our archaic system of education. Under CCE guidelines, students were—for the first time—awarded grades instead of numerical scores in their recently completed board exams.

“Can you believe this?” said the passenger, a middle-aged man with large spectacles whom I later learned was an IT manager. He was clearly anxious to share the source of his anger. “When we were students, giving board exams was a serious affair. It has become a joke now. What will happen to India without competition among students?”

The man’s frustration was one I had witnessed before—just a few days ago a hapless parent had called me complaining that his son, a consistent top-ranker, had received only a grade and not a numerical average which could be advertised as a mark of his intellectual prowess.

Despite this, I wondered about the critical role that parents play in the upkeep and reform of our system of education. As if bureaucracy, lack of funding, poor training and tight regulations were not enough to push for an urgent facelift in our schools, even educated parents seemed to be a road block to education reform.

On the one hand, I could pretend to empathize with the passenger. On the other hand, as someone who had lived through the excruciating years of board exams and tough competition, I knew this was not an option.

The idea of grades was one used in countries the world over with measurable benefits. Even the British, after whom we shadow our education system, replaced numerical marks with grades over 40 years ago. How could I ignore the mass suicides and murders that have wracked our society in the name of competition? And with growing reliance on team-work, multi-culturalism and extra-curricular talent, was it right to shoot down a system that promoted these concepts?

Even then, I realized the answer lay not in indignantly turning down the man. Many Indian parents today believe that ruthless competition will drive their sons and daughters towards success. As leaders in the business and education world, perhaps our ideas should focus as much on educating our parents as on educating our children? As educationists, we are at a cultural cross roads which we cannot hope to cross without the support and understanding of our parents.

“Be patient, sir,” I said to the man, looking at the laughing students. “Their time is not far away.”