HSTP
METHOD OF TEACHING SCIENCE FACING CLOSURE
(article
in http://www.thesynergyonline.com/general.htm)
By Deepak Arora
NEW DELHI,
MAY 11: IMPARTING
education and that too of the right kind is one of the core issues governing
the concerns of global think tank. The right to be curious and the right to ask
is a basic instinct in a child. To brush up this curiosity for a creative bent
of mind is what education may be all about. Surely, the Wright Brothers
questioned and thus the first airlift by mankind resulted. Be it the steam
engine, the bulb or the penicillin drug, behind each invention lays the brain
of curious child that cultivated into an inventive brain.
There is a
popular method of teaching science called the Hoshangabad Science Teaching
Programme (HSTP), which was launched by two non-governmental organizations
(NGOs) in 1972 in Madhya Pradesh. This method of teaching is now being put to
an end because of vested political interests that are forcing closure of HSTP,
which is being successfully implemented in over 1,000 rural schools in 15
districts of Madhya Pradesh.
The programme
was launched way back in 1972 in 16 rural schools of Hoshangabad District after
seeking held and approval from the Regional Colleges of Education, Bhopal,
NCERT and the Government.
The programme,
which is being run by Eklavya, is being conducted in all the 650 schools of
Hoshangabad, 250 schools in Haarda district, and one school complex each i.e. 7
to 10 schools in 13 other districts of Central and Western Madhya Pradesh, according
to Mr Kamal Mahendroo and Mr Rajesh Khindri of Eklavya.
The HSTP
spokesperson said that the programme not only grants the need for plurality of
approaches, but also allows the need for space for innovation at any personal
forum that is available to the student. It also gives space for further
development of innovative education.
They said the
students are taught through the doable and interesting experiments. For
example, to teach the concept of gravity the students are asked to throw balls
of different sizes from different heights.
To understand
the concept of a lens, the child is told to take a fused bulb. He breaks the
base of the bulb slowly with a stone so that the bulb doesn't break. He is
asked to take out the wire from inside the bulb so that only the outer glass of
the bulb remains. He then fills in some water in the bulb and tries and read
the textbook with it. In this way each and every concept of science is
explained with the help of an experiment, which the child has to perform
himself.
With the help
of such experiments, Mr Kamal Mahendroo and Mr Rajesh Khindri said the child is
able to understand his actual environment with a deep understanding. With this,
there is not only growth in his curiosity levels, but he also begins to
question what we take for granted. The HSTP is conducted amongst the students
from Class six to eight.
In February
this year, the District Planning Committee (DPC) of Hoshangabad decided to
close the HSTP. However, this step created a lot of tension amongst the students
and the teachers. When the issue was discussed with the Chief Minister, Mr
Digvijay Singh, he appreciated the HSTP and its achievements and recommended
that its positive aspects should be incorporated in the curriculum at the State
level. He asked the DPC to review its decision. Nine out of twelve DPC members
have now asked for a review of this petition.
A review
meeting, which was to be held on March 31, could not be held due to sudden ill
health of the Minister-in-Charge, Mr Ajay Mushran, who was rushed to Jabalpur
and then to Mumbai for treatment. A Cabinet reshuffle of April 18 saw a change
and now the Minister-in-Charge of the Hoshangabad district is Mr Harvansh
Singh, who is also the Forest Minister. However, no meeting has been held till
date to review the issue.
Over the years,
the HSTP method has received kudos from some of the top intellectuals and
political leaders, including the then Prime Minister, Mr P V Narasimha Rao, and
the Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister, Mr Digvijay Singh.
In a seminar called
‘Education for all’ in New Delhi, the then Prime Minister, Mr P. V. Narasimha
Rao, commended HSTP for its achievements in the field of education. The
Ministry of Human Resource and Development evaluated HSTP as one of the best
assets our education system has today.
Not only has
HSTP been honoured with many national awards but also other organizations
working in the field of education in States like Gujarat, Rajasthan and Mumbai
have gained inspiration from it and have initiated similar efforts in their own
modest capacity.
The programme
also has several firsts. It was for the first time in the history of the
educational structure in India that a non-governmental agency was permitted not
only to make pedagogical interventions such as teacher training, curriculum
renewal, textbook revision and evaluation, but also revamping the whole
methodological framework of science teaching.
Their
fundamental objective was to build a whole new world of scientific enquiry
based on small doable, interesting experiments. The basic idea was that
children should be able to do experiments with locally available materials,
observe, tabulate and analyse the results of their experiments and thus build a
solid foundation for acquiring a conceptual machinery that would make them independent
learners.
It was a tough
task to establish a programme, which required professionals from each aspect of
science, and that too in a State where children could hardly read or write.
Whatever little they knew consisted of what they had rote-learned during their
primary schools.
Hence the need
for talented and skilled educationists led HSTP to form resource teams, which
comprised faculty members and students of the University of Delhi, IIT Kanpur,
Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, National Institute of Immunology,
Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology and many other renowned institutions.
The process of
refurbishing the science curriculum was initiated by introducing carefully
written textbooks, which were based purely on experiments. In each classroom
these textbooks were supplemented by a kit, which consisted of easily available
things such as glasses, matchboxes, thread, magnets, buttons, balloons and inch
tapes.
The students
were to form groups and perform each experiment in consultation with their
group members and teachers and then note their findings and conclusions in
their kit notebooks. Various teacher-training camps were conducted in different
parts of the State where these professionals conducted experiments with the
teachers for their conceptual clarity.
Mr Kamal
Mahendroo and Mr Rajesh Khindri alleged that some of the members of the
District Planning Committee (DPC) of Hoshangabad, who are bent upon closing
this programme, have given frivolous arguments based on fictional supposition.
Some of these
anti-HSTP group persons have argued that it is cruel on the HSTP children to be
expected to collect leaves to perform experiments. Perhaps people don’t realize
that children collect and classify leaves to understand the nature, variety and
structure of the plants around them. These persons further alleged that the
HSTP children are moulded in a curriculum, which is different from the rest of
the country and hence the students might face difficulties in the national
competitive exams.
On the other
hand according to a study conducted by Dr. Arvind Gupte where he analyzed the
PMT, PET and VPPT results for the year 1996-98 it was noticed that the rural
students of HSTP in Hoshangabad were far ahead of all the other
non-metropolitans of the state and only some big towns like Bhopal and Indore
were ahead of them.
It was also
noticed that in 2001, 84.5 per cent of the HSTP children in Hoshangabad and
94.1 per cent of students in Harda cleared the science examinations. Moreover
90 per cent of the HSTP curriculum is the same as what is taught to other
students.