Another Brick in the Wall

Education is fast becoming a fad-ridden industry, and nowhere is this more evident than in small town India.
Ride through the streets of Patna and you cannot fail to see a plethora of posters, wall writing, and billboards merrily advertising everything from ‘Dharapravah Angrezi in 30 days’ to ‘Cracking the Chemistry paper by Xyz Sir’.
Children are robbed of their childhood and enslaved to textbooks by first generation ‘urban parents’, whose daily chant is ‘get up, brush, study and go for tuitions’.

Teaching Shops
The employees of the so-called ‘English Medium’ teaching shops that masquerade as schools – they do not deserve to be called teachers – actually discourage children from reading books beyond the prescribed texts. I have heard in shocked disbelief that parents in Patna [and I daresay elsewhere] discourage their kids from reading storybooks!
School libraries that are supposed to be storehouses of knowledge of all kinds are reduced to textbook godowns that stock books on chemistry, physics and mathematics and nowadays, computers. General Knowledge is a ‘subject’ to be mugged up and not to be gleaned through leisurely forays into magazines, books, or life experiences. The so-called ‘teacher’ of a teaching factory thinks it is enough for a kid to ‘know’ that Dickens wrote a book called ‘Oliver Twist’, it is not necessary for the child to actually read it and experience it for himself.
If you are a schoolteacher who discourages your student from reading children’s literature, you are responsible for producing a half-baked human being. Worse, if you are a schoolteacher who does not read children’s literature, you are a half-baked teacher. If you are a teacher of English and have not read Harry Potter, or the books of Roald Dahl, or at least Enid Blyton and Amar Chitra Katha, your knowledge is severely limited.

Woefully Limited
Every year, I face a class of ‘English Medium’ students – products from ‘English Medium’ Patna schools. I happen to teach Journalism and Media studies in a Communicative English Curriculum at the undergraduate level. Most of these ‘plus two’ students who aspire to become communicators have very poor communication skills, or social skills for that matter. Their reading, by and large, is woefully limited to the English textbooks. Their comprehension is usually appalling. I have discovered that more than half the students no idea about Enid Blyton, Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, or even Cinderella. They do not read modern authors, not even the Barbara Cartland, Denise Robbins or Mills & Boon! Forget about the ‘more serious’ reading material. They don’t read. Period.

To teats their English comprehension skills, I play a common song like “Country Roads”, and more than half the students cannot make out the words. In a class of 35, there will be about five students who can tell me the names of five English singer/ songwriters or pop groups. These are English medium students who have been studying for 12 years in English medium schools and they cannot comprehend the first fifteen minutes of ‘The Sound of Music’ or ‘My fair lady’. Worse still, more than half the class have never watched an English film!

These students ‘read’ newspapers, but if you ask them what they think of Jug Suraiya, or Karan Thapar or Bagchi Karkariya (or any other regular columnist with the exception of Bejan Daruwalla) and they stare at you open-mouthed. Most of these young people do not have the ability to think for themselves, to engage in discourse. They spout generalities. They are shaky and diffident when the discourse leads beyond the textbook.

Frogs in wells
And to think that parents spend so much of money on an ‘English Medium’ education! English is supposed to broaden your worldview, but what are the end products of these teaching shops? Loud-mouthed brats with the perspective of a frog in a well!

Now ask any parent why education is important. Why do they strive hard to send their kids to a particular school? The answer will invariably be: to give them social graces, to instil a sense of discipline, to make my child a good citizen, so that my child learns values such as honesty, to make my child a well rounded human being. This is why they would pay through their noses, so that their children become world citizens, but with their feet firmly rooted in reality.
But does our school education system value the disciplined, the polite, the well-rounded human child? A child may be polite, honest, excel at dramatics and debates, do well on the sports field, but is he valued if he just brings home average grades in science and maths? Certainly not! Because punctuality, good leadership qualities, and honesty do not fetch ‘marks’. As a matter of fact, in the senior classes, the teachers themselves cast aside all value systems and honesty and allow (or may I dare say ‘encourage’) the students to cheat on project work and practical assignments. To ensure that the students pass, they award the highest possible marks to all students during internal evaluation, regardless of whether the student is a hardworking one or a shirker.

Teacher as salesman

In this mass-produced, throwaway consumer culture, it is not the durability or the reliability of the product that counts, as long as the package is fine, the goods will pass muster. So, it does not matter whether your student actually has an education, it is the marks on the report card that matter. No wonder then, that teachers have lost all respect, after all, they are just over-the-counter salespersons.
If you have the good fortune to have a teacher who believes that her profession is a vocation and not a career, you are blessed indeed.

The Master teacher is knowledgeable. She reads a lot. She has a worldview and knows that there is no such thing as a ‘superior’ or an ‘inferior’ culture. She challenges her students to explore, to experience life, to test the boundaries. She knows her subject thoroughly and strives to ensure that the weakest students are enthused by her teaching. She is impartial with a sense of fair dealing and fair play, and she is not impressed by how ‘famous’ or what a ‘big person’ a child’s parents are.

In the seventies, the rock band Pink Floyd, wrote an anthem, “Another Brick in the Wall.” The lyrics are telling indeed. “We don’t need no education. We don’t need no thought control. Dark sarcasm in the classroom. Teacher, leave that kid alone. Teacher! Leave that kid alone!”

When teachers themselves have forgotten what the true purpose if education is, when they themselves bend the value system for narrow pecuniary and political gains, then all that is achieved by this education are bricks for a wall, not human beings. The products of this ‘marks oriented’ mass produced education are faceless, square entities, devoid of humanity with facts and figures loosely rattling round inside their heads.

Has the teaching shop killed the traditional school yet? The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind…



Author: Frank Krishner

Reaching the last child

Twenty one year old Naheed Parveen has discovered a new passion. Whenever she visits her friends and neighbours, she asks about the health and progress of the small children around. ‘I keep a look out for news of new born babies, so I can motivate their parents to immunise them against polio,” she says.
While the eastern Indian state of Bihar grapples with an alarming rise in the number of poliovirus infections in the past year, unreached children continue to remain vulnerable in certain pockets.
Naheed is one of the 300 community mobilisers under an expanded SMNet programme who help build a bridge between their communities and the programme, helping to break down resistance and ensure better quality operations and reach to vulnerable children.Two years ago, Naheed’s grandfather, a Muslim cleric, had a marked apathy towards the Pulse polio programme. Today, announcements about the usefulness of the vaccine are issued from his mosque in one of Bihar’s ‘vaccination unfriendly’ blocks.
“Two years ago, vaccinators would be chased away from this neighbourhood,” says Najma Parveen, the block mobilisation coordinator who inducted Naheed into the Polio social mobilisation network. “Naheed is a bright girl and a college student. Her grandfather is a respected religious figure. Our vaccination team, who often had to face verbal abuse and sometime physical threats in the past, now reaches infants in the same problem areas, because the Maulana’s granddaughter accompanies the vaccinator.
“It wasn’t easy for a girl with my family background to step out of the house. My father gave his permission grudgingly when I pointed out that the honorarium for the job would help me pay for my college books. My grandfather finally came round to understanding that the polio vaccine did not have any side effects like making babies barren in later life. So he allowed announcements about the polio programme to be made after religious gatherings at the mosque,” Naheed says.
A local woman says firmly, “We only allowed our children to receive vaccination because the Maulana’s granddaughter personally accompanied the vaccinator, and we have her word that the vaccine is safe.”
Naheed says that motivation is an ongoing task. “I also ensure that the new born babies receive the complete immunisation package by accompanying the mothers to the PHC.” In traditional Muslim households, the women refrain from moving out of the locality on their own.
If refusals to the polio vaccine in Bihar have come down to 0.1 percent over the past three months, it is largely because of the consistent efforts of community mobilisation coordinators, Block Mobilisation Coordinators and the SMnet teams.
Community mobilisation coordinators work with the womenfolk in the family on a regular basis, assessing their needs and devising localised strategies for outreach.
Shagufta Naaz, a CMC in the Tripolia locality of Gulzarbagh block overcame the resistance of traditional Muslim families by donning the burkha (hijab). Says Shagufta, “Women in my family don’t usually wear traditional Muslim clothing, as is the case in most middle class educated families. However, I realised that to successfully ensure complete coverage in my area, I would have to penetrate families with a very traditional mindset. When I began using the burkha, I found it far easier to achieve rapport. I was not treated with suspicion. There were 19 refusals in this area four months ago. As of today, there is only one family left uncovered, but I am sure that with a little help from the local community influencers, we will be able to vaccinate the last child within the next two days.”
Shazia, a CMC from the Sher Shah Gali area, holds non-formal classes for small children in front of her house. “Some women asked me if I could teach their small kids, and I agreed. After all, as an educated young person, spending an hour helping children is time well spent. It also helps me influence the women to look after the children better,” she says. Shazia states that several women have begun to have their children vaccinated when their husbands are out of the house. “Even if the husbands resist, the women have begun to understand the importance of protecting their children from the polio virus.”
“Local influencers are an asset to the polio communication campaign,” says Naheed, “the success of a mobilisation coordinator can be measured by the number of local leaders she can network with to come out and support the vaccination campaign. We also support Anganwadi workers to update the list of newborns so that ICDS services can also reach the children.”

Author: Frank Krishner

Meena teaches and entertains

60 children from 13 schools were invited to Abhivyakti 2008 to take part on a special Meena animation film appreciation workshop sponsored by Kalyanpur Cements, one of Bihar’s leading cement brands.

Abhivyakti is the bi-annual documentary and short film festival held at Ravi Bharati, Patna.

“I don’t think that only boys bully girls, the bigger girls in my school also bully smaller ones,” said Aditya Kymar of Don Bosco Academy.
“It is a very bad thing, teasing and making fun of girls. Big boys and naughty ones do it along the roads. If a girl has to pass that way, she will feel frightened. A girl who is harassed should complain to the teacher or her parents,” said Aparijata, a 14 year old girl from St. John’s Academy.

But what happens if the girl being teased belongs to a very weak section of society, and the boys who block her way to school belong to very powerful village families?
The students got together to enact their own version of the Meena film “Whose afraid of bullies”. In their story, the parents were powerless, and the teacher afraid to take action, but the children persuaded them to take the matter to the Panchayat.

The Meena animated series of films that raises several issues is an excellent value education tool, and this has been demonstrated by me several times at various AASRA Charitable trust media workshops for kids. The Meena workshops at the video festival at Ravi Bharati were a bi-annual feature, and we were always thankful to Mr Augustine Veliath, the Child Rights Officer at Patna (now in Delhi) for his unflinching support till 2004.

This year, Kalyanpur Cements, who are known to support local community building initiatives, readily helped us out with the required funds, thanks to Mr Faisal Alam, the Vice President sales and marketing. Mr alam visited the workshop and praised the kids for their presentation and acting skills.

The film “Ladki hi hoga” based on the desire for a male child, had the participants marking out things girls were not allowed to do at home and in the neighbourhood. The list was long indeed. Then the boys listed things that they were not allowed to do, even if they wished to: some said they were not allowed to enter the kitchen, others said that they were scolded if they touched a broom or washed clothes. “Girls can wear jeans, but we are never allowed to wear girls’ clothes,” piped up twelve year old Prem from Nav Deepti school. Aman Sinha from Don Bosco said that his mother insisted that he help with the housework, so he had the freedom to wash, cook, and clean.
The children worked out ways to end stereotyping in their neighbourhood and among friends. “In the modern world, it makes good sense to learn cooking, or else when we go away from home, we’ll face trouble,’ said the boys.

The film “Ek Ladki ki kahani” brought home discrimination because of lack of knowledge and fear, and enabled the participants to talk about HIV AIDS and broader issues of discrimination. The film on dowry, had the children discussing the futility of laws that cannot be imposed because they do not have general acceptance. It also brought about the misconception that city dwellers have that villagers are fools and out-of-date. The Meena film showed that an aware village headman and enlightened citizens could resist the machinations of crooked city dwellers.
The show was compered by Miller school student Alok Kumar. [in photo handing over the memento to Mr Faisal Alam]

The children had loads of fun. There were games, snacks and a wholesome lunch that was part of the proceedings.

Author: Frank Krishner

Alternative Voices

Documentaries from Jharkhand dominated the recently concluded Abhivyakti 2008 festival in Patna.
The smog caused by sponge iron factories over Simdega and the resultant pollution of the rivers and forests caused an uneasy silence in a packed auditorium in Patna. ‘Loha Garam Hai’, a 27 minute documentary on the simmering anger in the tribal regions over the unethical poisoning of water, land and air sparked an animated debate in the discussion session that followed. The film by Jharkhand filmmakers Meghnath and Biju Toppo was one of six films from Jharkhand that were received with enthusiasm by a discerning audience of media students, media educationists and practitioners at the 8th Ravi Bharati Video festival.

The story of two women writers placed within the context of the Adivasi reality, “Buru Gara”, received audience acclaim. The title means “Hill River” and it was an apt metaphor for the quiet struggles of the two women. Dayamani Bara, the first Munda woman journalist and the Sahitya Academy awarded Santhali poetess Nirmala Puthul. Adivasi literature of Jharkhand and tribal women’s literature in particular was the subject of this striking documentary.

“Gaddi Lohardagga Mail” was a piece of nostalgia replete with lilting tribal music that sang of the narrow gauge line that carried tribals from the interior pf Jharkhand to Lohardagga – a train that not only enabled tribal produce to reach the marketplace but also one that aided in the migration of families to faraway places. Bihar Film Development Corporation Chairman RN Dash, shared his reminisces with the audience on the Lohardagga Mail, which made its final run in 2003. The film was produced by Akhra, a Ranchi based media organisation and directed by Meghnath and Biju Toppo.

Jharkhand filmmakers such as AK Pankaj, Sriprakash, Meghnath are trailblazers who have contributed significantly to the evolution of the Jharkhand documentary. The works stand apart for their grass-roots appeal, and they tell the story from bottom –up. They are truly authentic voices.

Director Shishir Tudu’s short film ‘Akshar ki Barsaat’ used puppets kids and a rural setting to bring home the importance for literacy. The music of this film was especially appreciated.

The three-day Abhivyakti festival attracts entries from media students. It is a platform for student and amateur film-makers to showcase their work and get instant and detailed feedback from peers, media educationists, critics and film makers. 12 student films were shown from various colleges in Bihar, Maharashtra, and West Bengal. Student and children’s workshops on film appreciation and regular evening screenings are part of the fare. Other documentaries of note were “Our family” a sensitive and sensitive portrayal of the transgender Aravani community of Tamil Nadu by Anjalai Monteiro and KP Jayashankar and Buddha in Bodh Gaya 2007, a one minute short by film artist Pranav Shahi.

Author: Frank Krishner

Mahila Samakhya in Bihar

Women , Education, Social Change

Jaiman Khatun of Samuhuti village in Tariyani block, Sitamarhi was extremely poor. She joined the Mahila Samakhya savings group in the village and started her account with five rupees. Then she took a loan of Rs.2000 from the group and used it as seed money to sell vegetables and fruits. She was able to pay back her loan with interest to the group. She availed of a second loan of Rs.5000. She used the money to enlarge her business.

When the Panchayat elections were held, the Mahila Samooh rallied behind her and she won as the Ward member of the Panchayat. Now she actively participates in village and Panchayat meetings. She been instrumental in bringing government schemes to her ward like Indira Awas, Old age pension, Antodaya Annapurna etc. She has become a well known figure in her Panchayat.

In April 2006, Bihar Mahila Samakhya Society came into being. This has been a high point in a journey that started about a decade and a half ago.
The education of women and girls has been central to national discourse for over a century. Several enabling interventions in the form of special courses, separate schools and so on came into being. However, it was only in the decade of the 1980s that the roots of continued gender disparities – not only in education but in society at large came to be debated and addressed. The growing women’s movement raised fundamental questions of the ineffectiveness of development initiatives for women since Independence
Mahila Samakhya is an education process that aims at enabling the woman to move from a state of passive acceptance of her lot to where she can speak her mind, articulate her needs, and join hands with other women in order to identify collective strength and to make decisions that affect her life and that of her daughters.
Though MS began as part of the Bihar education project in 1992, literacy in the Mahila Samakhya vision is not an end in itself, but part and parcel of an overall empowerment strategy. The Mahila Samakhya is the cocoon where women wok on their self-esteem and interact with each other, think, and articulate their strengths.
MS presently operates in 2,975 villages under 610 Panchayats in 43 blocks. There are a total of 3,496 Mahila Samoohs with a total membership of 79,779 women.

Around the immediate learning environment are economic, geographic, medical and socio-political factors that act as impediments to the learning process. Without addressing the challenges of this larger environment, where, for instance, women were not allowed to step out of the confines of their homes – the girl children of certain communities would never have accessed even the most basic of education no matter how bright the classroom walls were whitewashed, or how clean the drinking water from the new school hand pump.

When women got together in groups called Mahila Samoohs, and underwent the first steps of the self-realisation process, needs were identified and then vocalised. The very realisation that they had common problems by the nature of their being women helped them to see beyond caste and class lines and take action that would have far-reaching effects for themselves, their children and the whole village.

Education
Bihar Mahila Samakhya Society is intricately involved in the education of women and girls in the state. There are ECE centres (Bal Jagjagi), Village based centres for continuing education and mainstreaming (Jagjagi), holistic residential bridge course programmes (Mahila Shikshan Kendra) being run by the MS women. In addition, the MS is part of special programmes like the Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya and NPEGEL that targets the very poor and marginalised communities.

Participation
The women have graduated from silence to participation in decision-making -- and because of this, priorities have changed. The MS process enables women to see themselves primarily as ‘women’ with common problems and aspirations that transcends caste and class implications. This unity has helped them come together and ease tensions among the men in the village.

Mahila Samooh members have a healthy representation on education, health and water and sanitation committees at Panchayat or village level. Statistically speaking, in districts where Mahila Samakhya has been functioning, 457 Mahila Samakhya members represent the Panchayats and 257 MS members are ward level functionaries. 34 of the Mahila Samakhya members are in leadership positions – thirteen as Mukhiyas and twenty one as Sarpanch

Economic empowerment

The Mahila Samakhya programme has always stressed the role of financial resources in the context of women’s empowerment. Mahila Samakhya programme looks into socio economic issues such as equal wages; a woman’s right over her earnings, women’s property rights, entitlements, income generation activities and so on.

Since poverty is the root cause of many problems faced by women, it is imperative that the Samooh activities lead to a degree of economic independence for the members. It has been the MS experience that financial improvement, however marginal, helps women send their daughters to school and resist practices like child marriage.

Mahila Samooh members are, by and large, women who come from the poorest and lowest strata of society. They face severe economic pressure, indebtedness and unemployment. Hence, the need for a thrift and credit component is felt. The policies and norms for the thrift and credit system evolved through discussions and workshops.

At a very basic level, access to and the possession of financial resources are seen to increase an individual’s power and status. However to attain the Mahila Samakhya objectives, it is critical that these resources are viewed in the context of how this money is accessed and used. Accountability and transparency in financial dealings are especially important because their absence disempowers the Samooh.
Initially, the members took up savings and credit activity for consumption loans, such as emergencies, illness or marriage in the family, education of children and other household expenses. As the Samoohs grew in maturity the lending pattern changed. The women began to take loans for individual or group income generation activities. Mahila Samoohs operate credit activities through informal financial transactions based on group-based lending and saving.

During the past years, learning from experience, Mahila Samakhya Bihar has been able to address social-economic problems by strengthening financial training and Mahila Samooh action on issues of gender and social justice. This has helped to put the economic activities in the right perspective.
Most Mahila Samoohs have become adept at managing money, savings, maintaining accounts, records, and at accessing outside resources.

Health and Sanitation

Health is a major concern and felt need. It has formed an integral part of the Mahila Samakhya training programme and the curriculum of Jagjagi. Discussions on their health status and the lack of access to health delivery systems have helped the Mahila Samooh members to prioritize health as a fundamental necessity.

Women and girls at all levels of MS are aware of the value of information on reproductive health, sanitation, nutrition, safe drinking water, garbage disposal and other hygienic practices. These issues are taken up at different health committee meetings. Health committee members are responsible for raising awareness about issues related to health and hygiene, reproductive health, sanitation, AIDS, immunization, the environment and developing toilet habits. Use of herbal and home remedies is encouraged in the Mahila Samoohs, the Jagjagi centres and the MSK.

It was in 2000 that women’s groups within Mahila Samakhya began articulating their need for sanitation and hygiene. They had come to consider sanitation and hygiene as being critical to the interests of women’s development. The decision to address the problems of sanitation and hygiene as an urgent development necessity grew out of this realisation. Because of its credibility among the rural women, Mahila Samakhya emerged as an active partner in the implementation of the Total Sanitation Campaign.

The MS sanitation programme is distinct from previous Government-run sanitation and water infrastructure programmes in the sense that while Government programmes concentrated solely on supplying hardware – almost always heavily subsidised – the MS programme is based on the belief that the consumer must be the prime mover of service delivery, and must demand the same.

Mahila Samakhya has broken tradition and has encouraged women to take up masonry and encouraged them in the task of toilet construction.
Special emphasis has been laid on toilet construction. As empowering women is basic to Mahila Samakhya, training was given to Mahila Samakhya women as masons, and these trainees started toilet construction work. The women masons have become economically independent and immense confidence can be seen in them. They have become role models, motivating other women to take up this work. Altogether 339 Mahila Samakhya women have received masonry training in the state.

Nirmal Gram Panchayat Award

Under the TLC, to give impetus to the campaign, the Govt. of India constituted the Nirmal Gram Award for Panchayats with habitations completely sanitized and free from open defecation. In 2006 Mahila Samakhya’s efforts resulted in Siafganj, Roshanganj, Savkala and Angra Panchayats of Gaya district and Ranisagar Panchayat of Bhojpur district receiving this award.

Unique Experience

The Mahila Samakhya experience offers a unique case of trying to explore and understand the issues of women’s education and empowerment and the inter linkages thereof in different rural contexts within Bihar. It offers an example of the importance of empowerment of women as a critical precondition to facilitate greater inclusion of women and their daughters into education. Further, it makes available an alternative paradigm to women’s mobilisation and empowerment.

The organisational form and diversity of activities has been an effective vehicle for women’s empowerment, not only in terms of literacy and education, but also in substantially amplifying the role women play as active participants in development activity in the districts where the programme is being implemented.

Education, in the MS perspective, must therefore help women to question rather than accept; to enable them to affirm their own potential, and to sustain processes that would enable women to move from situations of passive acceptance of their situation to assertion and collective action. Building up conscious and independent collectives of women that initiate and sustain social change processes has been the broad strategy and the ‘best practice’ that has enabled Bihar Mahila Samakhya Society and its federated collectives to significantly alter women’s lives for the better.

With Bihar MS and its collectives collaborating in active partnership with government initiatives in the fields of education, health, and rural economic progress, the year under review has seen MS achieve tangible results. The positive approach of the state government has also been an enabling factor, especially in the areas of girls’ education.

(Frank Krishner)

Author: Frank Krishner

Abhivyakti 2008

Patna, Bihar 11 ,12, 13 April

The 8th Ravi Bharati Video Festival

Since the early 1990’s when VHS was a new medium, and the video cassette recorder was making its way into middle class homes throughout the country, Ravi Bharati organised the first All Bihar VHS video festival to encourage local video-film makers in the new medium.
The idea was to enlist camcorder in the cause of social communication; to use the relatively low-cost VHS as an alternative to the expensive, establishment-oriented ‘mainstream’ mass-communication machine.
Today, with computers and convergence media bringing down costs still further, the role of video as a narrator of the realities of the marginalised, the displaced, and the alternative, is evident to many.
Every two years, Ravi Bharati celebrates this with a three day alternative low-cost festival, inviting videos made by enthusiasts, students, children, idealists, social workers, educationists, documentary film makers and assorted activists. In 2004, “Abhivyakti”, the word for expression in Hindi has been chosen as the name of the festival. The films are intended to provoke discussions and ideas, and there is time for discussion after each film

Author: Frank Krishner