The Place of Workbooks in Primary School

The reason usually given as to the purpose of having a workbook was for the students to work in independence of the teachers to follow-up and practice each lesson that was covered inside the classroom, so that the limited time in the classroom can focus on 'mastery'.

This view has it's pros and cons. If students are expected to use the workbooks at home, then it might increase the burden of the children.  However, if the child wants to work independently at school or at home, then workbook are a really wonderful resource to further and supplement the classroom learning.

We also want our students to continously engage with their learning and stay connected, in that sense, workbooks serve an important role. And making our workbook colourful and attactive enhanced students desire to be engaged with it. But as mentioned above, it should not be forced or else it become a burden.

Workbook are really useful for some contents that focus on practice and mastery, especially mathematics. While workbook can also be effectively used for enhancing learning in social sciences and language, engaging them in a real life experience is a much more effective pedagogy for most children to learn language and the social sciences.

Saying that, the whole purpose of having a workbook is to supplement the limitation of the classroom...so a workbook should avoid repeating what is already in the textbook. Even if it's repeated, then it should take a step further.

And for workbook writer and designer, your focus is on making learning vibrant enough so that children would rather engage with the workbook in the face of the various activities available to them.  Make the workbook attactive, vibrant, and interesting -it has to be more interesting than the textbook. Know and organize the competencies you want to focus-on to make life easier for the teachers. And please, by all means, remember that workbooks are not meant to be a replacement of a teacher, so don't prepare the worksheets expected of the teachers.

And dear teachers, workbook are meant for your students to work independently at home (with or without support of parents) or when you're busy in the classroom especially when you're teaching multi-grade. Please prepare your own worksheet and remember, workbook can never replace a well-prepared lesson plan from you. Afterall, a workbook is just a book, while your lesson plan take into account your knowledge and understanding of your students which is the most valuable components of an effective teaching-learning process.

On assessment and the needs

Assessment is often considered a necessary evil today. It is often associated with evaluation, test and examination, and each of these words have become cursed in the education sector. And the reason for that is deeply rooted in misunderstanding and its appalling misuse.

Assessment is a process of gathering and analyzing information from multiple and diverse sources in order to develop a deep understanding of what students know, understand, and can do with their knowledge as a result of their educational experiences (summative). The assessment process culminates when assessment results are used by teachers to adjust their learning-facilitation strategies, and by students to adjust their learning strategies (formative).  

Assessment, teaching, and learning are inextricably linked, as each informs the others. It is a powerful process that can either optimise or inhibit learning, depending on how it is applied. In our current school system, the assessment process is often misused and thus become a burden to the teacher and a bane for the students. 

Assessment is needed in learning simply because we have learning objectives. Assessment in learning is directly derived from the learning objectives; and without objectives, assessment will not have any relevance.  Likewise, until and unless the teacher have a thorough understanding of the aims of education and schooling, and know and understand the objective of teaching and learning a particular subject and its contents, assessment is meaningless.

Education, schooling, teaching and learning have aims and objectives.  We can very well dismiss assessment and keep only the objectives.  But it is in human's nature to want to know where we currently stand, if we are in the right track, or if we have achieved what we set-out to do. If I invest money and time in educating myself, I'll definitely want to know if I am getting my money's and time's worth, and how best to optimized my investment. And the only way to know that is through assessment. 

Assessment is necessary, but it need not be evil.  Assessment is a continuous process, and can be and must be done continuously.  It need not be in the form of test or exam either in written and/or oral format.  Assessment can take any form of interaction, observation and conversation which are very much part of our normal life and can be and must be done as such.

What happens to a destiny unfulfilled?

What happens to 
a dream abandoned?

What happens to 

a destiny unfulfilled?
Does it dry up
like a caked bed of a lake?
Or fester like a sore-
And then run a bloody pus?
Does it stink like rotten body?
Or, maybe it just sags
like a heavy load
Of unfulfilled dreams 
that I'm carrying.

The Basis of Right to Education in India

Prior to India’s independence, education was generally considered a privilege rather than a right. The diarchy system introduced by the British just before independence resulted in education coming under the charge of the provincial (state) authorities from wherein start the need for a uniform national policies on education. 

After independence, the State’s obligation to provide education was constitutionally recognized with the inclusion of a directive principle to this effect under Article 45 in the Indian Constitution as a directive principles. It must be noted that directive principles, unlike fundamental Rights, are not legally enforceable, however, Article 45 come with a time limit that it should be implemented within 10 years!  

Interestingly, the concept of free and compulsory education was adapted from the British law of Free and Compulsory Education (FCE) and was incorporated into the Constitution so that education can be universalized across the country. As per the mandate in the article when it was adopted, education was to be universalized within 10 years, i.e. by 1960.  However, the State and Union budgets continuously treated education as a peripheral subject until the Kothari Commission (1966) changed the outlook drastically.

Since independence, the government have set-up various educational commissions, two national policies, and numerous reforms through programs to universalize education India while education remain under the directive principles, and not a fundamental right. 

It took more than 40 years since the adoption of the constitution for education to be acknowledged as a critical fundamental rights in India when the Indian Supreme Court ruled as such in a few legal cases in the early 1990s. After that, it took the government of India another 10 years to enact the 86^th Amendment to insert Article 21A to the constitution in 2002 to make education a fundamental right as ruled by the Supreme Court. And it took the government 8 years to draft a central legislation that would lay down the practical framework for the implementation for the Right to Education until its final enactment in 2009.

The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Bill (2008) was passed in both the Houses of Parliament in 2009.  The law received the President's assent in August 2009 and it comes into effect in 1^st April 2010. 

The passing of the RTE Act that guaranteed education as a fundamental right was indeed a historical moment for India, but it also come with the acute awareness that it limited universal education only to those children in the age group of 6 to 14 years of age. India still has a long way to go to universalize education for all its citizens.

Despite its limitation, the importance of the RTE cannot be overemphasized. It provides a justiciable legal framework, guaranteed education of reasonable quality based on equity and non-discrimination. It provides for a free and compulsory admission, attendance, and completion of elementary education. It also provides for an education that is free from fear, stress and anxiety.