THE HINDU Editorial Vocabulary-December 19, 2016- Topic 2
Almost five decades after India first
formulated its National Education Policy, the Ministry for Human Resource
Development appears to be gearing up for another revision to this policy
document, and not a moment too soon. The state of education, particularly in
the critical primary and pre-primary years, is far from satisfactory. Since the
early 2000s, successive governments kept up momentum on a sustained investment
push into schools in a bid to resolve what was viewed as a supply-side problem.
As The Hindu’s
recent series on primary education, Learning Deficit, highlighted, it was hoped
that through this effort children in elementary education would be provided
with classrooms, uniforms, textbooks and other teaching materials, and a larger
contingent of teachers. Thus, this approach hoped to tackle low enrolment
rates. Led by government schools, public investment in education helped raise
the gross enrolment ratio from 81.6 per cent of children in the 6-14 age group
in 2000 to 96 per cent or more since 2008. Yet it soon became evident that
getting children into school was only the first step, especially when gaping
holes remained in the system. Among these, the barriers to high-quality,
equitably-distributed primary education include: high dropout rates, especially
for girls; teacher absenteeism and low teaching quality; and outmoded
pedagogies and insufficient resources to implement contemporary teaching
methods.
The problem of poor learning outcomes is
of particular concern, for it is a structural issue pertaining to the design of
curricula and ingrained rote learning methods. These have been the backbone of
India’s teaching tradition for over half a century. But will this help create
the kind of workforce that India wishes to develop: nimble, highly-skilled and
ready for the digital age, the global economy and new pathways of occupational
mobility? Or will the sheer weight of an outdated, colonial-era education
system make Indians too sluggish and skill-deprived to cope in a highly
competitive global arena? While efforts of the present and previous government
to boost the quality of learning in higher and vocational education must be
appreciated, policymakers ought not to ignore early childhood education and
primary schooling, the phases during which the most important cognitive
development milestones are attained. The tenth Annual Status of Education
Report found that in 2014 the proportion of Class 3 and Class 5 students in
rural areas who could read a Class 2 textbook was 23.6 and 48.1 per cent,
respectively. Until Activity-Based Learning and “teaching at the right level”,
tools for real learning and skill-absorption, become the norm, hopes of the
country becoming a great power may well remain a dream.
Vocabulary
Sustained: strengthen or support physically or mentally.
Example: This thought had sustained him throughout the years
Synonyms: comfort, help, assist, encourage, succor, support, give
strength to
Evident: plain or obvious; clearly seen or understood.
Example: She ate the cookies with evident enjoyment
Synonyms: obvious, apparent, noticeable, conspicuous, perceptible
Contemporary: belonging to or occurring in
the present.
Example: The tension and complexities of our contemporary society
Synonyms: modern, up-to-date, up-to-the-minute, fashionable, modish, latest
Pertaining: be appropriate, related, or
applicable.
Example: Matters pertaining to the organization of government
Synonyms: concern, relate to, be related to, be connected with, be
relevant to
Curriculum: the subjects comprising a
course of study in a school or college.
Example: Many children continue to study their own curriculum by attending evening
classes.
Synonyms: syllabus, course of study, program of study, subjects, modules
Ingrained: firmly fixed or established; difficult to change.
Example: His deeply ingrained Catholic convictions
Synonyms: entrenched, established, deep-rooted, deep-seated
Cognitive: of or relating to cognition.
Example: Wittgenstein sometimes appears to be committed to cognitive relativism as
just described.
Momentum: the quantity of motion of a moving body, measured as a
product of its mass and velocity.
Example: In contrast, the active medium in the mechanical laser is the intrinsic
angular momenta of electrons and nuclei.
Resolve: firm determination to do something.
Example: She received information that strengthened her resolve
Synonyms: decision, resolution, commitment
Contingent: subject to chance.
Example: The contingent nature of the job
Synonyms: chance, accidental, fortuitous, possible, unforeseeable, unpredictable
Absenteeism: the practice of regularly
staying away from work or school without good reason.
Example: You should keep records of absences and introduce a trigger mechanism that
alerts you to look into regular absenteeism and the reasons for it.
Outmoded: Old-fashioned.
Example: Isn't it time to declare all such vessels outmoded , obsolete and a danger
to peace?
Synonyms: out of date, old-fashioned, out of fashion, outdated, dated, behind
the times
Pedagogy: the method and practice of teaching, especially as an
academic subject or theoretical concept.
Example: The relationship between applied linguistics and language pedagogy
Sluggish: slow-moving or inactive.
A sluggish stream
Synonyms: inactive, quiet, slow, slack, flat, depressed, stagnant
