1. Hoshangabad Science Teaching Programme was started by an NGO — Eklavya in Madhya Pradesh in 1972 (earlier called Kishore Bharti) in 16 middle schools of Hoshangabad district. It is being implemented for the last 30 years (1972-2002) at the middle school level i.e., Classes 6-8. The programme now covers all the middle schools in the district of Hoshangabad (which now has been broken up into 2 districts of Hoshangabad and Harda) and 99 selected schools in 13 other districts. The List showing number of schools in each district is given on Annexure-A. In these schools Eklavya ran its own curriculum and was given the freedom to conduct its own examination/evaluation at the 8th Class level.

2. The District Planning Committee, Hoshangabad took a decision on 07.02.2002 that the HSTP programme should now be replaced by the Science programme and textbooks of the Government of Madhya Pradesh. This decision was reportedly made on the ground of difficulties faced by children who were forced to study on the Eklavya curriculum upto Class 8 and had to move to the standard curriculum in higher classes. Unhappy with this decision of the DPC, representatives of Eklavya met the Chief Minister to plead for continuation of their curriculum. The Chief Minister held a meeting on 3rd March 2002 with Minister in charge of Hoshangabad district, representatives of Eklavya and officials of the School Education Department. A decision was taken in this meeting that the useful aspects of HSTP programme should be identified and sought to be assimilated in the main curriculum.

2.1. To identify such useful aspects of Eklavya experience the School Education Department invited Eklavya for a discussion on key learning over the last 30 years. It was felt that this Review should be done in a participatory manner. Here an alternative model was evaluated and such alternatives can always question the normative framework adopted for evaluation. So Eklavya was asked to develop their own responses to the four following questions:

• What were the objectives of the programme?
• What has been the work done between 1972-2002?
• What, according to Eklavya has been the key strengths and key weaknesses of its intervention?
• What does Eklavya see/identify as lessons that can be assimilated in the mainstream

2. Given below is a summary of Eklavya’s response to these four issues which was presented by them to the Principal Secretary School Education on 1.4.02

• Development of curricula and teaching learning material
• Teacher training
• Academic support at school level
• Resource group building and mobilization
• Reforming the examination system and evaluation
• Kit material for school
• Academic and Administrative structure
• Extra Curricular inputs

According to Eklavya the major weaknesses have been

• Science teaching lasts for one or two 40 minute periods/day so no clear output is visible.
• No peer support systems emerge among teachers which help in better science education in the local community.
• Not enough has been done to broad base the debate on the basic nature of science education in the local community
• Hoshangabad Science Teaching Programme has no system of reward or punishment as a result it is unable to influence the school organization.

2.1. On the weaknesses as indicated above the following observations are pertinent:

• Since Eklavya is running its own curriculum it could have considered flexibly reorganizing time available for a school day to reinforce its teaching: or else it should have organized its textbooks in a way that they are effectively transacted within the planned academic duration of school.
• One of the stated objectives of Eklavya is to develop peer support system among teachers so it is very surprising that this should not have developed.
• Similarly HSTP had its origin in the Kishore Bharti programme which perceived science teaching as specific intervention to transform socio-cultural life and to link science with society. This seems an area of critical failure as no energy seems to have spilled out or have been effectively incorporated in the design. It appears that activity-based processes only meant laboratory type of academic activities and not bridging text and life or connecting school and society. This has to be considered a major failing because this was to be the distinct feature of its innovation which was to set it apart from the mainstream.

• HSTP attributes a part of the weakness to not having powers to reward or punish. The mainstream system also does not have a system of reward or punishment. Again this cannot be observed as systemic deficiency considering that the purpose of HSTP was to transform through training and intellectual stimulation and not through the colonial system of rewards and punishments which is not associated even with the mainstream system.

2.2. However it is the strengths of the programme that matter for any assimilation and so a closer scrutiny is called for on its reported strengths.

A fair and objective assessment of any enterprise in education can be done only on the basis of the learning outcomes of children. What have been the learning outcomes of Eklavya’s intervention in the last 30 years in Hoshangabad district or how have the children fared? With the presumption that children ought to have done substantially better because of a reportedly superior methodology of teaching and learning, the data was examined. The findings are given below.

1. Do children in Eklavya run schools using HSTP curriculum in Hoshangabad do better in Science in the Tenth Board examination in comparison with children in other government schools?

Eklavya curriculum is limited to teaching in Classes 6-8. Here it has been permitted to have its own evaluation at the Class 8 level which unlike normal government schools permits consultation with text books at the time of examination. Any comparison can therefore be made only at the Class 10 level of children coming from 2 streams, one from government schools using the normal curriculum and those of Hoshangabad using the "superior" Ekalavya curriculum in Science. Table 2 gives the better performers among districts based on the results of the Tenth Board Examination of 2001-2002 in Science. Results show that Hoshangabad (including Harda) is not among the top five districts, nor among the top ten districts, not even in the top fifteen districts in the state.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Table 2

Districts graded on the basis of Percentage of Students Scoring over 60% in Science in Tenth Board Examination 2001-2002

Rank ( in Descending order of Performance)	Name of District	Percentage of Children who have scored over 60% in Science
1	Betul	23.54
2.	Khandwa	22.30
3	Bhopal	21.54
4	Shajapur	21.20
5	Neemuch	20.60
6	Indore	20.20
7	Damoh	19.92
8	Dhar	19.70
9	Khargone	19.37
10	Balaghat	18.70
11	Barwani	18.23
12	Sidhi	18.20
13	Jhabua	18.11
14	Ratlam	17.20
15	Datia	17.11

(Source: Examination Results 2002: Madhyamik Shiksha Mandal: Government of Madhya Pradesh)

Hoshangabad (together with Harda) do not come within the first fifteen districts in terms of performance in Science. This data calls into serious question any impact in terms of learning outcomes from the HSTP. Added to this is the fact that 69.62 percent of children in Hoshangabad scored less than 50% in Science, which to some extent may explain the dissatisfaction, expressed by the DPC.

 

 

 

 

 

2. Has Eklavya’s educational intervention made any significant impact in terms of over-all performance of learning outcomes of children at the School Level in Hoshangabad? Has Hoshangabad emerged as a leading district in performance at the School level?

Irrespective of the lack of impact in learning outcomes in Science, it is worthwhile examining if there has been an improvement in over-all performance of children in terms of learning outcomes as demonstrated from performance of children in examination at the Tenth Board level.

Seventeen districts which have had a pass percentage of over 40% is given below. Hoshangabad (even when Harda is included and averaged) does not figure in this list.

Table 3

Rank	District	Percentage of Children passing Tenth Board
1	Betul	59.37
2	Chindwara	56.57
3	Neemuch	55.95
4	Khandwa	52.54
5	Khargone	48.60
6	Ratlam	48.24
7	Chatarpur	47.40
8	Ujjain	45.70
9	Seoni	44.61
10	Datia	44.14
11	Gwalior	43.86
12	Shajapur	43.44
13	Sagar	43.22
14	Mandsaur	43.15
15	Dhar	42.13
16	Bhopal	40.97
17	Jhabua	40.23

(Source: Results of the Board Examination 2002: Madhyamik Shiksha Mandal)

Table 3 reveals very disquieting features. It clearly shows that the educational initiatives mounted under HSTP over 30 years have not been able to make Hoshangabad even an average performer in terms of learning outcomes as measured from indicators related to School Education.

 

3. Have Children from Hoshangabad done outstandingly well in PET/PPT/PMT examinations?

Though the Assessment Team was reluctant to admit this as an indicator to prove or disprove HSTP performance as parents of children are interested in school results and because such competitive examinations are often more indicative of out-of-school preparation engaged in by students, it was nevertheless examined to see if there was any dramatic difference. The data shows that there is no such dramatic difference. The three districts given below are comparable in terms of educational indicators and Table 4 below shows the PET/PPT/PMT results in these three districts. Results show Balaghat doing better and Sagar doing worse in comparison.

Table -4

District	Session	PET	PPT	PMT	Average	Total Average Result
Balaghat	1996	2.41	4.8	0.65	7.75	8.87
	1997	2.34	5.19	0.80	8.34
	1998	3.44	6.53	0.51	10.54
Sagar	1996	2.45	0.91	1.45	4.91	6.51
	1997	4.42	1.94	0.91	7.28
	1998	4.71	1.45	1.09	7.34
Hoshangabad	1996	2.20	4.26	0.94	7.41	8.01
	1997	2.60	4.34	0.71	7.65
	1998	2.20	4.26	1.18	8.99

However one needs also to compare Hoshangabad performance with districts without HSTP curriculum. The Professional Board Examination results of the district Hoshangabad are lower than a non-HSTP district like Balaghat (same literacy-level district). The results should have been much higher as the reported focus of HSTP was on skill application and comprehension.

 

4. Has Eklavya’s work made any difference to education-related indicators of social development in Hoshangabad?

Table 5

That it has not impacted on social processes in any significant manner is evidenced not only from indicators like increase in literacy (which have not risen in comparison with neighbouring districts that have not had this additional input) but also from other proxy measures like the Gender Development Index. It is unfortunate that while Hoshangabad in terms of HDI based on Index of Deprivation ranks 13th in the state (undivided Madhya Pradesh) it slips in Gender Development Index to becoming the 28^th in the state (Source: MPHDR 1998). Clearly the educational efforts have not had the reach or the scale to impact on any larger societal empowerment.

The above data incontrovertibly shows the inefficacy of Eklavya intervention in curriculum to improve learning outcomes in (a) Science or (b) general performance at the Tenth Board level. The only remaining argument in its favour is the " enjoyment of children" which is an intangible and an inadequate index of the quality of learning.

Even after 30 years HSTP has not shown any significant increase in the learning outcomes of the children when measured by common standards. A child who has a better input designed to stimulate comprehension and enquiry should be able to perform far better than children who do not have such an advantage, as is a common experience in comparing a good private school with an average government one. There is an ethical responsibility of the State government for its schools to ensure that the children attain satisfactory learning levels that are measurable by standard and universally acceptable methods to equip the children to acquire the eligibility to effectively negotiate post-school education. If HSTP is not creating a significantly higher learning outcome even after 30 years than the mainstream curriculum, then its contribution to mainstream schooling does not become evident. (It is ironic that HSTP should be seeking to establish its parity with mainstream outcomes, rather than confidently demonstrating its superiority)

Apart from its inability to intervene meaningfully in Education, it has also proved too weak to contribute to any larger objective of societal change. In Eklavya’s favour it must be said that the problem primarily is with the nature of intervention: intervening in the curriculum and teacher’s training in Science in Classes 6-8 cannot achieve very much on its own. It clearly proves that the failure of the experiment is on account of this structural weakness of the programme.

What is the nature of Eklavya intervention? It intervenes in the curriculum of Classes 6-8 in a variety of ways (as given in Section 4). The entire nature of intervention is limited to the Classroom which includes the text and the teacher (see inner circle of the diagram).

This circle of Text+Teacher exists in another circle of the "school". Eklavya can only have a limited impact on the school because this school itself is enveloped in the larger circle of "government". This government exits in the democracy that we practice within the outermost circle of " society".

The innocence of the Eklavya model is that it seems to think it can achieve meaningful educational change or meaningful social change by merely intervening in the innermost circle. If after 30 years the programme has not been effective, the fault lies less in the implementation and more in the original conception. To put it starkly, Eklavya as an Non-Governmental Organization are "tenants" in a very small part of the government’s public schooling system. Therefore their prescriptions for change based on the small sample would have limited empirical validity for the larger system even if, unlike the data presented here, its performance was oustanding. The issue of illegitimacy of space that Eklavya has occupied in government schools though historical is now an issue that would be dangerous to leave unsettled. Seventy-third Constitution Amendment has clearly passed on the management of Elementary Education to local bodies and any external intervention needs to be with their concurrence. The Government of Madhya Pradesh has been ahead of other states in realising the vision of decentralized management of education. It is these decentralised bodies that have questioned Eklavya’s curriculum.

The fault with the Eklavya-type of intervention is that it is seeking to alter a space that it does not own. Just as a tenant in a small part of the building has no right to alter the design of the building, Eklavya, even if it had performed well would not have the legitimacy to ask for the entire design to be changed on their pattern. This has been the reason why agencies that seek to introduce alternative visions of education "create their own schools" and we have such experiments in Madhya Pradesh also like the alternative schools of Shyam Bahadur Namre in Shahdol. In that sense Eklavya has chosen a " lazy" method of not taking the trouble to create its own schools but take part-tenancy in a part of the larger government system whose policies have to represent the popular or democratic will. There was no other instance of any NGO being given entry in a public schooling system to run its own curriculum in India. When this issue of illegitimacy of presence was raised, Eklavya claimed that it is precisely this fact that makes the intervention unique. It is not so unique anymore. Recently the Government of Goa was reported to have given away a majority of 150 schools identified as having poor quality to a an outside institution linked to an obscurantist ideology. A model in which government public schools are open for entry to any institution to "experiment" their curriculum is in the extreme fraught with such dangers.

Decentralization in fact ought to open up more opportunities for NGOs like Eklavya to better realise their educational vision of connecting with the local context. What decentralization has done is in one sense merge three outer circles of Society, Government and School by allowing for local management. This may not have happened in an ideal way. However in the new post decentralization model (Diagram 2) society that the Eklavya model ought to influence through inside-classroom processes has been brought closer to the school in terms of ownership and management.

It is ironic that Eklavya is having more problems post-decentralization and this has at least partly to do with wrong legitimization at entry-time, through bureaucratic fiat. Now that people’s representatives are legitimate managers of basic education, Ekalavya would have to learn to do business with them. After all, it is their children who are involved. After the Panchayat Raj system was established and powers in the area of basic education delegated to panchayats it appears there has been no effort by Eklavya to even inform not to mention convince Panchayat Raj representatives in Hoshangabad of the nature of their educational intervention.