‘Broadstreaming, not Mainstreaming’ – An Approach towards Solutions for Inclusive Development was delivered at XLRI, Jamshedpur as inaugural address in the conference on ‘Solutions to Inclusive Development’ on January 29, 2010.
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Broadstreaming, Not Mainstreaming
(Excerpt from the book Creative Learning by Vijoy Prakash)
When young infants go to bed, they expect their parents to be with them. This is a good occasion to interact with them. It has been seen that songs and stories narrated to them at this time have great impact on the development of their brains. Earlier, we had folk stories for these occasions. Now, as parents are living in a nuclear situation and are generally extremely busy people, most of them do not remember these stories. As such, they are not able to make best use of these occasions. There is an urgent need to collect such stories or to write new stories and supply them to young couples.
Shampa learns Hanuman Chalisa at 3 years
Shampa was born in a middle class family. When she was a child of 3 years, her mother Sharda Sinha, a teacher educator, used to sing Hanuman Chalisa (40 couplets in the praise of Lord Hanuman), when she went to sleep. She used to start singing, when she was going to sleep and continued till she was fast asleep. As a result, Shampa learnt Hanuman Chalisa by heart, even at the age of 2 years, which is a commendable feat for any child. Today Shampa is a teacher at Teacher’s Training College, Patna. She feels that such techniques used by her mother had a great impact on her life.
(Excerpt from the book Creative Learning by Vijoy Prakash)
Family is said to be the first school, but we have done little to develop it as the first school. Swami Dayanand had identified father, mother and teacher to be the three pillars of education of a child. In Satpatha Brahman it was said,
matriman pitrimanaachryavan purusho ved
(A man is knowledgeable, if he is under the guidance of learned mother, father, and teacher.)
Unless all pillars are equally strong, the child cannot be said to be properly educated. Today couples get married. They also have children. But, they are never trained in the methods of rearing the children. They are never told how they should steer the child in the elementary stages of learning. It has now been established that about 90% of the development of brain take place before the end of 5 years. Since couples do not know how to take care of the child, they depend mainly upon hit and trial methods. Thus, children may not attain full development of brain as per their own potential. As such, they are not fully prepared to take advantage of the learning system, when they enter the school system.
In the year 2007, APCL conducted a programme on “Broad streaming of underprivileged education in Jamsaut Panchayat”. The project tried to identify the special learning needs including content and transaction methodology of the underprivileged sections of society and worked on underprivileged children mainly belonging to Musahar community to formulate proper strategy for ensuring right to education in respect of underprivileged community.
A survey of underprivileged children showed that the children of underprivileged children did not get proper environment at home conducive to motivate them to go for learning. So we have to work at both school and community level. Creative Learning Centres were established and run in the hamlets of underprivileged sections to complement and supplement the learning at school. This has proved very successful for first generation learners and other vulnerable groups. Workshops of stakeholders, VEC members and Panchayat workers were also conducted. Wall writing related to new interactive pictures and social issues related to mathematics, language, social studies were done on the walls of schools. The pictures were so designed that they enhance the self esteem of underprivileged section of society.
The book Abhivanchiton ka Shikshadhikar – Education for Underprivileged, authored by Vijoy Prakash and Prof Shailendra Kr Shrivastava has been published by Rajkamal Publication, New Delhi.
About the book
Modern education system serves the needs of upper and upper middle class only. Confined to their own world realities Lower middle and middle class children don’t get anything get anything except imitating others. We have tried to take education to underprivileged and marginalised, but we are yet to assess the real impact of this education system on them. This book tries to develop parameters of assessment of nature, quality and quantity of education to different communities. At the same time it provides the assessment of education in different communities based on the detailed census of one Panchayat.
Based on the action research the book also suggests a practical model for making positive intervention empowering underprivileged to take better advantage of the education system.It also underscores that underprivileged children are as much valuable capital as are children from well off families. What is needed is an honest and sincere effort to bring them into mainstream. For this purpose the book also suggets modalities for broadsteaming of education for mainstreming of children.
Address of Sri Vijoy Prakash on the occasion of the Book Release Function of the book EDUCATION FOR DEMOCRACY
His Excellency the Governor of Bihar Sri Raghunadan Lal Bhatia and dear friends,
I express my deep gratitude to His Excellency for having spared his valuable time to release our book Education for Democracy. This book was born out of the desire to see a democratic society based on the principles enshrined in the preamble of the Constitution of India. Sir, in last sixty years the shoots of democratic governance has spread and matured in our country but we wanted to see how much deeper has the roots of democracy gone into the soil. We understand that development of democratic values in citizens is the primary condition for the success of democracy in a country. As children are our future citizens, in 2004 we tried to study the orientation of democratic values in 1366 school going children in the age group of 11-18 years in the district of Patna and Samastipur.The result is with you in the form of the book Education For Democracy. Continue reading Address on the occasion of the Book Release Function
More than half a century has passed since India had adopted democracy as a way of governance. We had also visualised evolution of a democratic society through this process. How far have we moved towards realisation of this goal? How does our adolescent mind think about democracy and democratic way of living? Is our education system capable of producing a citizen as enshrined in our constitution? Now the time has come to study and analyse the mind of school going children who are going to run the future course of our society so as to decide the nature of interventions for our march towards a democratic society.
The book provides an in-depth study conducted on the school going students of Bihar (India) who are going to be the main participants of the democracy in the country. It has tried to diagnose various issues critical for the development of democratic way of living. It also suggests special interventions in the form of ‘Education for Democracy’, which can pave way for evolution of a democratic society. In this connection it outlines the nature of Social Science Laboratories to be established in schools and colleges. It also suggests establishment of Family School to prepare citizens for a democratic society. Continue reading Education for Democracy
We are gradually moving towards a knowledge-based society, which sustains on the strength of information to be used in all walks of life. The phenomenal rise in the use of information marks the movement of the society into a new phase of socio-economic order.
In this era of information-based socio-economic order, creativity is going to become an all-important quality. The challenge before us is to design an education system which may enable us to develop creativity in society so that we can acquire the ever-expanding base of information and apply it to the best use of humanity. The book examines the basic concepts of education and suggests approaches and methods for their improvement. Designed as a handbook for teachers, trainers, academicians and parents, this book offers a comprehensive plan for the overhaul of our education system, which will enable it to meet the demands of the present, and the fast-approaching future.
Continue reading Creative Learning: A Handbook for Teachers and Trainers
This paper was presented in the national conference organized by Disability Commissioner, Govt. of India at Patna in April 2006.
Go to the people.
Live with them.
Learn from them.
Love them.
Start with what they know.
Build with what they have.
But with the best leaders,
When the work is done,
The task accomplished,
The people will say
‘We have done this ourselves’.
-Lao-tse in 7th century B.C.
‘Folk’ means ‘related to common mass’. Folk practices refer to those practices which have been in use amongst common mass for a long period of time. These practices evolved through ages on the basis of experiences are repository of people’s wisdom. They have been instrumental in shaping the behaviour of the people and as such have the ability to play a key role in social development. These methods have greater social acceptability and have been tried and tested for a long period. There is a need to study them closely so that we can verify the efficacy of these practices and techniques in light of modern scientific findings and wherever they are found to be compatible with them, they should be recommended for wider use for greater benefits with or without modification.
We should also study the methods of communication of these practices, which has helped them in their acceptability on such a wide scale. Couplets of Ghagha and Bhaddari and other similar poets have been of great help in dissemination of knowledge about environment and agriculture in society. Folk methods of dissemination and transmission of knowledge are relevant even today for transmission of modern scientific knowledge. Thus there is a need to study them also and use them in learning of children with disability. If folk methods are synthesized harmoniously with the modern requirements of learning it would be easier to disseminate on large scale and they can easily gain wide acceptability. Continue reading Lessons for Prevention and Management of Disability
