Ram:
At 8:13 PM -0600 6/22/07, Ram Sarangapani wrote:
C'da,
Thanks for forwarding this rather well-written article. I must say, it
makes wonderful reading and does make one have second thoughts about the
quality of education that most of us have received from India. :)
**** Before you get into raptures on that, allow me to caution you on a
very important point: NOT ALL who might have come out of that dysfunctional
Indian education system are burdened by its uselessness. Some had the good
fortune of learning better, in spite of it. Dunu Roy is a good example.
> have no argument with the first point - I do think it is highly
possible to teach people to perform and >operate complex procedures, if they
are willing to learn and taught well.
*** I am glad.
The IF in "If if they are willing to learn and taught well " has a lot to
do with RELEVANCE ,PREPARATION and the qualifications to TEACH. You couldn't
teach the fundamentals of land measurement or establish gradient to
determine drainage patterns if you did not learn how to do basic arithmetic
or the fundamentals of geometry. And none of that could be taught by Srimati
Priyanka Saikia , graduate of the dysfunctional university of where
-have-you, who got the job by bribing the Babus that lead the non-education
system.
Let me give you an even more stark example:
You, I am sure, heard of that so-called major drainage improvement project
that was undertaken by Guwahati or Assam ( doesn't matter exactly who) which
had to be ABANDONED a few years back after crores of rupees having been
spent on it. I remember writing a letter to one of those fearless watchdogs
of democracy at Guwahati asking WHY they don't say or attempt to find out
and inform the public WHY it had to be ABANDONED? Needless to say, it was
not published. Much later I heard that the system had to be abandoned
because the ENGINEERS were not aware that the system did not have the
gradient to drain.
Obviously these highly trained engineers, who would have done just as well
as you or I, had they been
here in the USA for example, did not know how to survey the terrain.
I will give you another example, of a different kind:
Several years back I gave a short talk at my alma mater, Namti Higher
Secondary School, about how to enrich USEFUL science studies at schools
with EXPERIMENTAL, hands-on techniques, by teaching how to hypothesize, how
to experiment with changing the variables, by observing the results, by
recording them , by graphing them and learning from them. For giving a
relevant example, I spoke about Wl Kobi ( Kohlrabi) outputs in a small
kitchen garden that everybody is familiar with and involve in rural Assam.
The constant would be how it is usually done.
The variables would be like:
Use of mulch ( old newspapers) to control, weeds, a major cause of
nutrient depletion
and productivity loss.
Frequency of watering, a major concern in the dry season when they
are grown.
Type of fertilizers, like raw dung versus composted cow manure
with organic waste.
Density of planting ( they grow them very inefficiently with one
plant per two or three
square feet of space).
So on and so forth.
The teachers were very excited. They connected with the concept instantly
and wanted to do it. I wished I could stay to set an experiment up. But I
go to Namti for one or two days at a time. Never could help out other than
send them a bunch of literature. Don't know if it went anywhere.
How did *I* learn of it? By being involved with our children's science
projects at school.
>The notion that education in India is totally impractical I find it had
to believe. You, me, and most NRIs >have had this didactic education
(including Roy). I really wonder, how, Roy & his group of intellectuals
>managed to get out of that mold?
*** You should ask ME that question. I will tell you someday :-).
>Most Indians too have this background too. Then, how is it that they
manage to do very well in this >country?
*** That is a FALSE yardstick to measure it with. See if you can figure
that out yourself Ram. I like to think you are eminently able to. But if you
fail, honestly, let me know. I promise to help :-).
>On the third point, it is quite easy to take pot shots at the Govt.
machinery. and its incompetence. While >I commend Roy and his group (are
they some anti-dam people:) in taking the trouble to do a better job
>teaching than the education system, I wonder, if Roy can recommend that
method for the whole >country, and if that will be workable.
*** It is NOT a mystery. Many know how to change it. But India's
dysfunctional state is unable to change.
That is where the problem is.
I wonder where your naive beliefs about Indian governance spring from:
Knowledge or ignorance :-).
c-da
Even with that didactic//memorizing by rote background, I came away with
a few of things here: :)
The first, of course, is that people can be taught (often complex things)
even if they have had no formal education.
The second, of course, is that, I find it a tad preposterous, that Dunu
Roy thinks that education in India as "Instead, we have didactic
instruction, memorising by rote, and vomiting out useless information for
futile examinations... "
The third, of course, is that according to Dunu Roy, the Govt. is pretty
useless, ie. whatever they touched (his illustrations here) have been
baseless, miscalculated, and ultimately, Roy and his group, had to go teach
the "practical/down-to-earth" stuff to the affected people, and make the
corrections.
I have no argument with the first point - I do think it is highly
possible to teach people to perform and operate complex procedures, if they
are willing to learn and taught well.
The notion that education in India is totally impractical I find it had to
believe. You, me, and most NRIs have had this didactic education (including
Roy). I really wonder, how, Roy & his group of intellectuals managed to get
out of that mold?
Most Indians too have this background too. Then, how is it that they
manage to do very well in this country? How is it that they have not only
done well in school in this country, but have proved to be one of the
smartest in opening up successful start-ups (not just IT), and doing great.
I don't know. Probably Roy will tell us.
On the third point, it is quite easy to take pot shots at the Govt.
machinery. and its incompetence. While I commend Roy and his group (are they
some anti-dam people:) in taking the trouble to do a better job teaching
than the education system, I wonder, if Roy can recommend that method for
the whole country, and if that will be workable.
--Ram
On 6/22/07, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <
[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
*Knowledge As Weapon*
Ordinary working people have the capacity to learn, to collect
information, to look at it analytically, and eventually use it for bettering
their own lives. This is, or should be, the central objective of
"education". Instead, we have didactic instruction, memorising by rote, and
vomiting out useless information for futile examinations...
Dunu Roy
It was some 30 years ago, in the mid-70s, that we got a glimpse of what
the future might hold. We had just purchased 2 acres of land to build a
workshop on, in the district of Shahdol in Madhya Pradesh. There had been
some argument with the neighbouring owner about where exactly the boundary
lay. So one day we dragged out the iron chain that surveyors use, and began
measuring the land ourselves. A curious shepherd boy must have witnessed the
proceedings, because next day a delegation of solemn farmers from the nearby
village paid us a visit. They had heard that we were engineers, they
explained, so could we teach them how to measure land? Why, we asked,
whatever will you do with it? Well, they explained, the* patwari* (the
government revenue functionary at the village) had been demarcating their
lands and they were never sure whether he was doing it right. So we spent
the next four hours demonstrating how the chain worked and how to calculate
the area. In the process, of course, we began to learn that the chain was
called a* jareeb*, the area was* rakba*, the* khasra* number referred to
the record in the revenue department, their title was the* patta*, and the
* patwari* presided over a* khatauni* in which all secrets were well
documented.
A week later, the same delegation was back, but looking less solemn and
more brashly conspiratorial. Could they borrow our* jareeb*? We handed
over the chain and then, not a little puzzled ourselves, we followed them at
a discreet distance. In due course, we arrived at the village and a curious
spectacle greeted us. On the farms of the village, the* patwari* was
laying out his chain, and wherever he went, the farmers followed with their
borrowed* jareeb* and laid it out in exactly the same manner. At every
halt they would watch the* patwari* and when he began to enter figures in
his notebook, they too would whip out a pencil and scribble on a piece of
paper. Rarely had we seen a more harassed looking* patwari*! At the end of
the day, the delegation was back again, beaming from ear to ear. Thank you
for the* hathiyaar* (weapon), they told us, and handed back the* jareeb*.
Can we, we asked them, see what you wrote? They took out their smudged piece
of paper and showed it to us. It was covered with a series of numbers in
meaningless disorder. But, they grinned, they had taken care not to show it
to the* patwari*!
This theme of knowledge as weapon has come back to us many times in the
last three decades. In the mid-80s, a small party from the Palamau district
of Bihar knocked on our door. Could we come to their village and see what
the proposed dam on the Auranga river was going to do to their area? We said
yes, but provided they were able to wrangle a copy of the DPR (Detailed
Project Report) of the dam. Oh, no problem, they remarked, the irrigation
department* chaprasi* (peon) was from their village. So, three weeks
later, we were rambling across the farmlands of Palamau inspecting the river
and its catchment and comparing it to what was written in the DPR. We were
faced with a battery of questions. Look at that river, exclaimed the
villagers, do you think it can carry as much water as to irrigate all the
lands the department is claiming it will? And can you see the silt in it;
how long will it take for the dam to fill up? The department says that this
village will come under submergence, and that one will not, when we can
clearly see that this village is higher than that one! How can we challenge
their views?
We took four days to instruct a batch of 20 young boys from the
surrounding villages how to measure the flow in the river, the silt load
that it carried, and the slope of the land.With that, they said, they
would be able to take on the project's claims of projected irrigation, the
life of the dam, and the extent of submergence. On the last evening, as we
were packing to leave the next morning, they eyed us suspiciously. Where,
they asked, pointing to the "dumpy" (a kind of telescopic instrument that is
used to measure levels), are you taking that? Well, we said, this is our
instrument and we are taking it back; if you want one you will have to get
it for yourselves. How much does it cost, they queried, and where is it
available? The nearest place, we explained, would be Ranchi and it would
cost about Rs 3000. And then we retired for the night. Only to be woken up
by an exuberant hammering on the door very early the next morning. Here,
they said, is Rs 3000 collected from donations by all the villagers, and you
can go and buy the dumpy yourself; otherwise how will we fight a* yuddh*(war)
without an
* astra* (weapon)?
That the yuddh was joined became clear to us when, four months later, a
parcel arrived with the postman. It contained a sheaf of papers containing
the records of three months of daily measurement. We went to work on the
data and came up with some very interesting findings indeed. The river, for
instance, carried only half as much water in the monsoon months as the DPR
claimed it did. This water also bore a silt load one-and-a-half times that
of the figure reported in the project proposal. 25 villages were actually
coming into the submergence zone, demarcated by following the full reservoir
contour, as compared to the 19 acknowledged by the project authorities. When
all these were factored into the calculations the benefits actually came to
less than the costs! This was going to be one very unviable dam indeed, we
informed the people of Auranga. They, in turn, took the report and
propagated it all over the area through posters and leaflets, while the
English version was duly sent off to the governments, the media, the courts,
and even the World Bank. Today, fifteen years later, the Auranga river
remains unbound.
In the mid-90s, we had another set of visitors, but this time from the
high ranges of Kullu district in Himachal Pradesh. Their villages and
hamlets were being threatened by the declaration of the Great Himalayan
National Park. What exactly was this Park, they asked, and how could they
protect their families? So, two months later, armed with the relevant
documents and reports, we pitched camp in their village. A young bunch of
grazers and farmers listened attentively as we explained how the government
had commissioned a study in the 80s and how this study, conducted by a pair
of specialists from the Pheasant Society in the UK and Canada, had come to
the conclusion that only by declaring the Park as a protected area could the
rare Western Himalayan Tragopan (a ground-dwelling bird) be saved. And then,
as we presented the details of the study, the listeners grew restive. No,
they protested, it is not possible for the Tragopan to be disturbed by our
herds because it nests in late winter and our grazers go up only in late
spring. Even that figure of 25,000 animals is wrong, they objected, our
numbers rarely cross 12,000. And it is not us who destroy the herbs, but the
Nepali labourers from the Terai, who are unfamiliar with alpine ecology and
are hired by the traders in the plains.
We suggested to them then that they should do their own study and compare
their findings with what had been reported by the foreign experts. Very
well, they responded immediately, tell us how to do the study. So, for the
next two days, we demonstrated to them how to draw transects and conduct
animal counts, how to document the diversity of grasses and shrubs, and how
to systematically record their observations.As soon as the snows melted,
six of them headed towards the alpine meadows, following the same route that
the scientists had taken ten years earlier. Two porters who had been taken
along to ferry the supplies to base camp (at heights of over 3000 metres,
one does not run into the occasional tea shop or restaurant!), became so
familiar with the routines of measurement that they eventually became part
of the study team. Six weeks later they returned, armed with a range of
documented observations. A detailed examination of their records showed that
they had successfully challenged every one of the findings of the
government-sponsored study. In addition, their measurements indicated what
was the carrying capacity of the meadows, how ruminants were in fact
controlling weed infestation, and how the herbs could be harvested within
the boundaries of conservation.
This much, then, is certain: people fight their struggles for survival
based on what knowledge they can create. Each one of the reports and studies
cited above (and numerous others that have not been documented in both rural
and urban areas) indicates that ordinary working people have the capacity to
learn, to collect information, to look at it analytically, and eventually
use it for bettering their own lives. This is, or should be, the central
objective of "education". And yet, these are simple (and yet very complex)
tasks that are not undertaken by our educational institutions. Didactic
instruction, memorising by rote, and vomiting out useless information for
futile examinations constitute the fundamentals of what passes for education
in our schools and colleges. Perhaps there is a purpose to it all. Perhaps
another Macaulay is required to explain it to us in yet another Minute. And
perhaps, in some not too distant future, a group of young labourers will
learn to document their own lives to tear this farce to pieces.
------------------------------
*A graduate (and post-graduate) from IIT Bombay, Dunu Roy heads Hazard
Centre in New Delhi.*
------------------------------
# You may be missing other accompanying blurbs, related stories, graphics
etc.
Link to this story as it appears on the site :- *Knowledge As Weapon*
<http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20070621&fname=dunuroy&sid=1>
www.outlookindia.com
------------------------------
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