This is official. Hoshangabad Science Teaching Programme would have been closed, even if it performed well, i.e. if one goes by what is contained in a note circulated by State Government after it decided to close the programme. In fact, the Government order to close down the programme says that the step was taken in accordance with a proposal adopted by the District Planning Committee. Recently a press release from Government mentions that the programme was withdrawn on parents’ demand. Both these reasons are a cover-up and a way to shun responsibility.

Hoshangabad Science Teaching Programme (HSTP) is an innovative education programme implemented by Eklavya in collaboration with the State Government. It seeks to encourage learning by doing, learning by discovery and learning from environment. To achieve this, a set of work books called Bal Vaigyanik have been designed and an appropriate science kit has been made available to the schools. The teachers have been especially oriented to apply this child centred approach in the classroom. An examination system has been evolved in accordance with the goals of science education. Rather than testing memorized information, the examination tests the acquisition of concepts and skill and their application to new situations.

In this period of thirty years, the programme has seen many phases of expansions and revision and a number of studies have been done on various aspects of the programme including learning outcome of children. Every such study, as well as several Central and State Government Committees have found that the programme contributed significantly to science education. Concept acquisition of children is much better.

Despite all this, the State Education Department issued an order to replace Bal Vaigyanik with ‘mainstream textbooks’. The reason given is that the District Planning Committee of Hoshangabad, through a proposal passed on February 7, 2002, had recommended the same. However, the DPC Hoshangabad, on written request by 9 out of 12 voting members, had reconsidered its earlier decision and had decided to leave the matter to the Chief Minister. Thus the February 7 resolution of the DPC was no longer relevant. And, in any case, the DPC decision can not be said to represent parents’ wishes. Moreover, parents’ demand can only be a starting point or reason to initiate an analysis or study, such demands can not obviate the need for an in depth study. It may be mentioned in the passing that after the Feb. 7 resolution, a number of students, ex-students and parents from across the district wrote to the DPC chairperson to review the decision. When these petitions were handed over to the Collector (who is also the Secretary, DPC), he sent them back with a note saying, "why are they politicizing the issue, where is the provision for a referendum?" Therefore it is clear that the so-called ‘parents’ demand’ is a cover-up. When one member makes a complaint in the DPC, it is taken to represent wide dissatisfaction, but when over 1500 people sign a petition, it is ‘politicizing the issue’!

The closure decision is devoid of any educational content or basis and, therefore, the department is giving a populist turn to the whole issue. The academic bankruptcy of the decision becomes clear when one looks at the Review Report prepared by the Education Department.

This Report states two kinds of arguments in favour of the decision. One set of arguments is ‘educational’ and the second set concerns what can be called ‘legitimacy issues’.

The educational issues first. The Report states, "a fair and objective assessment of any enterprise in education can only be done on the basis of the learning outcome of children". Then as a proxy for ‘learning outcomes’ it relies on the 10^th board examination and PET/PPT/PMT results. Fairly objective, these! The Report says that learning outcomes of children in Hoshangabad district have been even below average. This judgment is based, not on any evaluation of the children in acquisition of science concepts and skills at class 8 level, but on 10^th board examination results for the year 2001-2002. Not even a five-year period to keep a check on random variations from year to year.

The proper thing would have been to compare students from comparable situations. For example there are 93 middle schools outside of Hoshangabad and Harda districts where HSTP curriculum is used. The children form these middle schools reach common High Schools. If one really wishes to compare the 10^th board results, for whatever such comparison is worth, the data form these High Schools can be used more meaningfully.

Regarding Professional Board Exam results the Report gives you the data for only three districts, namely Balaghat, Sagar and Hoshangabad for the years 1996, 97 and 98, which show that Hoshangabad is better than Sagar (a university town) and almost comparable to Balaghat. The Report, while acknowledging that the professional exam results "are often more indicative of out-of-school preparation", chooses to use them selectively. The fact is that in terms of selections per lakh population Hoshangabad stands 4^th in Madhya Pradesh (excluding the districts which now belong to Chhattisgarh) after you discount 5 metro districts.

As an aside, the internal consistency of these data is virtually nil. For example, Bhopal, Gwalior and Indore which rank first, second and third respectively in professional exams are placed 16^th, 11^th and beyond 17^th respectively in the 10^th board exam. Which of two exams should be taken as ‘objective’, is a moot question.

Then the Report also uses two surprise indicators of learning outcome, viz. growth of literacy and Gender Development Index. In both these indicators Hoshangabad’s performance is poor and obviously it shows HSTP in poor light.

And, to come to the other set of issues, even if Hoshangabad had performed better in these indicators the Government had to close the programme because Eklavya’s "prescription for change based on the small sample would have limited empirical validity for the larger system even if, unlike the data presented here, the performance was outstanding". Therefore, successful or otherwise, the Government has no use for experimental programmes. Actually what the authors of the report set out to do is very clear from the following statement in the report: "The issue of illegitimacy of space that Eklavya occupied in Government schools though historical is now an issue that would be dangerous if left unsettled." So that is it. The whole sham of review was organized to reach or fortify a foregone conclusion.

The idea of HSTP was to develop a model of science education suitable for mainstream public education system accessible to all and it did evolve a fairly workable model of good science education. Unfortunately, as the Report says, "… 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". Amen.