NCERT Books- Why dictate the reads?

By Dr R L Bhat

There is a strong case for the NCERT to revise, rather rationalize the syllabus it has set for the schools. In its present shape and structure it is a dressing down for the students if ever one was needed. But why dress down the students. They are not to be buried under the book-bags; not to be drowned in the sea of concepts. The Americans may be doing all that in their school, but the Indian schools, Indians teachers and Indian students are just not ready for that. There may be some elite schools who drill the students from the class I in that manner but that is not true of the Government schools which form the backbone of education here, accounting for more than ninety percent of the total schools. It is definitely not done in all the English medium or public schools, as some people may mistakenly presume. The books are not taught because they are not teachable, at least in the circumstances and the level of competence and dedication that obtains here. Where the teachers are to frame extra-exercises they do not, where they are to expound on the hastily introduced concepts they do not, and most of the times they just cannot, given the extent and the reach the books encompass. It may be asked if the texts are so defective how have the students and the teachers coped with it all along?

They for one are helpess. They are to teach what has been prescribed and have little choice. No teacher would like to say that he/she cannot understand what the 'experts' say they do. And experts being experts know all ! Then they have taught with more defective books, with more faulty methods. And, of course, there are the guidebooks and the parents to help. God help the students who do not have these succors. He helps them by giving them greater cramming power, or else picks them out for work on the roads and bunds ! And, of course, it sustains a whole industry of books, guides, self-help compendiums and tutors. So all are happy, while a whole generation of Indians is being spoiled with half-understood concepts, filled with useless knowledge and overburdened ever-bulging book bags. They last does sometimes pinch the peoples rather experts' conscience. Then the NCERT makes its texts a little slimmer, and a lot more mysterious, without revising the syllabus at all. They prune a point here, delete a topic there without taking the symmetry and interconnectivity into view. And, it is the syllabus and the treatments that it must correct.

It would be much better for the lofty National Council of Education and Research and Training to restrict itself to researching and experimenting with education and training methods and leave the whole business of making tests to others. In any case, it is finally the books produced by the private publishers and authors, as guides and help-books that the student is practically forced to study. Those books are exhaustive and substantive because they sell on the base of their being readable, understandable and useful to the students and teachers both. Where the teachers or schools do not 'allow' the guidebooks the teacher still read them on the sly and teach them. So the vast effort on preparing texts is not only a waste of a national effort but is practically a burden on the students and parents, both as to the matter they contain and the costs the extra-books entail. More over, and that probably matters, as much the whole thing is vastly unsettling for the students as the books are frequently steeped in controversies.

Over the last quarter century of NCERT rule over what the student should read, there have been controversies both about the inclusions and deletions as well as the slants. Before the students come to learn a wholesome lesson on they learn the unholy politicking and nit-picking that invariably dogs the books. This country must be singular in that the adults wrangling over their respective agendas--it is always agendas they keep fighting over not the facts, remember!--rarely think of how all that is influencing the impressionable minds of their children. The race appears to be to hoodwink the youngsters to their sides as early as they can, at whatever the cost. And, that is the most unwholesome facet of the whole thing. One group wants the students to learn of their history, the other of theirs, when the student deserves to be told truth, whole of it, and nothing but the truth. Nobody in this country wants to teach the children that k-stands for kafir and m-for momen, nor anything else. The students must be told the truth about their nation, as it is, as it happened and leave them to make their own conclusions. This land is their, all and whole of it, without modification, without tampering on the positive or negative side.

And, who is there that knows the truth? Who knows what is best? Ten years ago, communism was radical and modern. Today it is orthodox and reactionary. Ten years ago socialism was the mantra for all ills. Today it is the root of most, if not all, evils. And, that formulation may yet change. But what will not change, what must not change, is the Indian ethos of openness and debate. It is not the only wholesome thing in this culture but it is, probably, the best feature of this culture. It would not be taught with agendas that seek to dictate what the students should read and how they should think, but with the same openness about the facts of history, culture and ethos. And, with some leisure for the poor student to think and reflect upon the facts after they have been objectively presented. The best way to present the facts with objectivity is not to get writers of this leaning or that slant, this commitment of that creed, to write them but to throw open the whole thing. Let the historians, unfettered and free write the books. Let all the truths be told on the counter and let the readers judge for themselves. If one book would lie, another would correct it. And that is the only way to bring the whole truth about our history to light. Meanwhile, the NCERT can concern itself with laying the syllabus. Not in the inclusive manner it has been doing it, but with thought and discretion. And desist from peddling agendas and burdening the students with its overstuffed texts.

Labour Panel report sparks off fire works

By Subhashis Mittra

The manner in which major trade unions have trained their guns at the Government vis-a-vis the recommendations of the Second National Labour Commission, it seems the contentious issue has all the ingredients of snowballing into a major controversy.

Describing the report of the Commission headed by Ravindra Verma as "anti-labour" and anti-worker", the trade unions affiliated to various political parties have strongly opposed the recommendations on the Industrial Disputes Act, contract labour, retrenchment and strikes and curtailment of holidays.

They have urged the Government to ignore the recommendations, which they feel, will only strengthen the hands of employers.

CPI (M) affiliated Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) said that because of the "united resistance" put up by the workers, side, the Government failed to extract a green signal on the implementation of the report at a recent tripartite Indian Labour Conference (ILC) meet.

The Standing Labour Committee (SLC), which earlier decided the agenda for ILC, did not include consideration of the Labour Commission report. But, the Government unilaterally included the subject as an additional item of the agenda and circulated an agenda paper with the highlights of the commission recommendations. "It did not even frame the issues for deliberations," complained CITU.

The shape of things to come could be gauged from the fact that though Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee appealed to trade union representatives to cooperate for speedier implementation of the report, the trade unions in a spirited- display of unity cautioned the Government against acting in haste. They demanded an exclusive tripartite meet for an indepth debate on the report.

The employers, side, while complaining that the report was not "realistic" and sought to place "unbearable burden" on the employers, surprisingly exhorted the Government to initiate action on the report, even before Diwali, overlooking the trade union objections, CITU Secretary W R Varada Rajan rued.

He, however, expressed satisfaction that ultimately the Government had to yield and put an hold any action an the report and opted to have wider consulations again.

CPI-affiliated All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) felt that the terms of reference of the Commission were heavily loaded in favour of the interest of the employers, the composition of the commission was lopsided and a number of leading trade unions had no representation.

"Its recommendation, as we find, gravely, affects the interest of the toiling masses of the country. In fact, the Commission has prepared the report on the dotted lines in accordance with the dictates of the present Government, some of which were spelt out by then Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha in the last budget, and in confirmity with the policies endangering the capacity of collective bargaining of the workers," reacted AITUC General Secretary Gurudas Das Gupta.

He said while globalisation has not improved the productive capacity of the national economy anywhere in the world, the Commission has upheld the concept of glabalisation in its present form.

The veteran leftist leader charged that the Commission refused to take note of the mounting human distress arising out of unprecedented loss of job, wage cut, decline in the wage level and withdrawal of benefits to workers and employees.

The Commission was set up at a time when labour laws were violated with impunity and attack on the working masses was menacingly an the rise and the growing corporate deliquency had eaten into the vitals of the economy. Most of the factories closed today are the victims of the diversion of funds by the corporates, the trade unions feel.

They are of the view that at a time when there was an urgent need to ensure the enforcement of labour laws to protect the interest of the workers and employees, the commission has chosen the reverse route of suggesting dilution of labour laws to ensure the unhindered implementation of the policy of hire and fire contributing further to the intensification of labour.

Das Gupta said the Commission’s suggestion for withdrawal of the protection provided in the Industrial Disputes Act for nearly 75 per cent of the industrial units would leave the workers at the mercy of the management. "The strike is sought to be virtually banned and the Right to Strike is attacked in different ways," he said.

The choice of the sole bargaining agent through the check off system tantamounts to arbitrary rejection of the democratic process of expression of the will of the workers through secret ballot.

While the Commission believes that there is a lack of work culture all around, a number of recent studies have revealed a rise of labour productivity with no additional increase of wages to workers. The Commission does not note that there has been a decline of real wages.

"Without seeking to ameliorate the growing distress of workers and employees, it seeks to give free hand to employers which will lead to further worsening of the miseries ‘of the working people," the AITUC leader warned.

Das Gupta said though the Commission spoke of participative management and sense of belonging, the reality was just the opposite. If Indian workers can do well abroad, there is no reason why they cannot do the same in India," he argued adding that the change cannot be brought about by coercion, threat of retrenchment, casualisation and outsourcing.

Senior CPI leaders A B Bardhan and V V Raghavan, MP, also met the Labour Minister Sahib Singh Verma to register their objections to most of the major recommendations of the Commission.

Describing the recommendations as anti-worker and anti- people, the CPI leaders said they take away all the protection from the workers and are only to the advantage of the employers.

"The Commission could well have been named a ‘National Commission for Employers’," they said adding that the "pious" pronouncements cannot camouflage the real thrust of the commission.

Demanding that most of the recommendations should be ignored, they sought convening of a full labour tripartite meeting to discuss these issues threadbare and cautioned that there should be no hurry to implement them unilaterally.

They were angry that the report sought to restrict the very definition of a worker and thus remove the protection conferred by the Labour Laws on a large number of actual workers and employees.

Permitting industries to retrench or close down at will, is to hand over the fate of workers lock, stock and barrel to the hands of employers, they observed.

While opposition-affiliated trade unions have condemned the recommendations, the Sangh Parivar affiliate Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) has not spared the Government either.

BMS leader R K Bhagat expressed concern over the recommendation that no prior permission was necessary for lay off and retrenchment in establishments of any employment size and no Government permission was needed for closure of units employing upto 300 employees.

"This will cause a lot of hardship to the workers," he said.

The Hind Mazdoor Sabha (HMS) said the Government was insensitive to the gravity of the unemployment problem that is being aggravated by the thrust on downsizing the workforce by calling it rightsizing.

HMS General Secretary, Umraomal Purohit criticised the recommendation that units with a workforce of 300 and above alone would have to take prior permission for closure.

However, allaying the apprehensions expressed by the trade unions, the Labour Minister said that he has already initiated the process of an intimate dialogue with the representatives of workers and employers, labour experts and professionals to elicit their views on the report.

"It is not that the Government has to abide by every word of the Commission. It may be more or it may be less," he said to assuage the sentiments of the trade unions.

The report, submitted to the Government in the end of June, this year, has been distributed to MPs and is also under active examination of the Labour Ministry, which cannot overlook the strong feelings of the trade unions while accepting the recommendations.

PTI Feature