[Assam] article from outlookindia.com
Chan Mahanta
cmahanta at charter.net
Sat Jun 23 10:19:49 EDT 2007
Ram:
At 8:13 PM -0600 6/22/07, Ram Sarangapani wrote:
>C'da,
>
>Thanks for forwarding this rather well-written article. I must say,
>it makes wonderful reading and does make one have second
>thoughts about the quality of education that most of us have
>received from India. :)
**** Before you get into raptures on that, allow me to caution you on
a very important point: NOT ALL who might have come out of that
dysfunctional Indian education system are burdened by its
uselessness. Some had the good fortune of learning better, in spite
of it. Dunu Roy is a good example.
> have no argument with the first point - I do think it is highly
possible to teach people to perform and >operate complex procedures,
if they are willing to learn and taught well.
*** I am glad.
The IF in "If if they are willing to learn and taught well " has a
lot to do with RELEVANCE ,PREPARATION and the qualifications to
TEACH. You couldn't teach the fundamentals of land measurement or
establish gradient to determine drainage patterns if you did not
learn how to do basic arithmetic or the fundamentals of geometry. And
none of that could be taught by Srimati Priyanka Saikia , graduate of
the dysfunctional university of where -have-you, who got the job by
bribing the Babus that lead the non-education system.
Let me give you an even more stark example:
You, I am sure, heard of that so-called major drainage improvement
project that was undertaken by Guwahati or Assam ( doesn't matter
exactly who) which had to be ABANDONED a few years back after crores
of rupees having been spent on it. I remember writing a letter to one
of those fearless watchdogs of democracy at Guwahati asking WHY they
don't say or attempt to find out and inform the public WHY it had
to be ABANDONED? Needless to say, it was not published. Much later
I heard that the system had to be abandoned because the ENGINEERS
were not aware that the system did not have the gradient to drain.
Obviously these highly trained engineers, who would have done just as
well as you or I, had they been
here in the USA for example, did not know how to survey the terrain.
I will give you another example, of a different kind:
Several years back I gave a short talk at my alma mater, Namti Higher
Secondary School, about how to enrich USEFUL science studies at
schools with EXPERIMENTAL, hands-on techniques, by teaching how to
hypothesize, how to experiment with changing the variables, by
observing the results, by recording them , by graphing them and
learning from them. For giving a relevant example, I spoke about Wl
Kobi ( Kohlrabi) outputs in a small kitchen garden that everybody is
familiar with and involve in rural Assam.
The constant would be how it is usually done.
The variables would be like:
Use of mulch ( old newspapers) to control, weeds, a major
cause of nutrient depletion
and productivity loss.
Frequency of watering, a major concern in the dry season when
they are grown.
Type of fertilizers, like raw dung versus composted cow
manure with organic waste.
Density of planting ( they grow them very inefficiently with
one plant per two or three
square feet of space).
So on and so forth.
The teachers were very excited. They connected with the concept
instantly and wanted to do it. I wished I could stay to set an
experiment up. But I go to Namti for one or two days at a time. Never
could help out other than send them a bunch of literature. Don't know
if it went anywhere.
How did *I* learn of it? By being involved with our children's
science projects at school.
>The notion that education in India is totally impractical I find it
>had to believe. You, me, and most NRIs >have had this didactic
>education (including Roy). I really wonder, how, Roy & his group of
>intellectuals >managed to get out of that mold?
*** You should ask ME that question. I will tell you someday :-).
>Most Indians too have this background too. Then, how is it that they
>manage to do very well in this >country?
*** That is a FALSE yardstick to measure it with. See if you can
figure that out yourself Ram. I like to think you are eminently able
to. But if you fail, honestly, let me know. I promise to help :-).
>On the third point, it is quite easy to take pot shots at the Govt.
>machinery. and its incompetence. While >I commend Roy and his group
>(are they some anti-dam people:) in taking the trouble to do a
>better job >teaching than the education system, I wonder, if Roy can
>recommend that method for the whole >country, and if that will be
>workable.
*** It is NOT a mystery. Many know how to change it. But India's
dysfunctional state is unable to change.
That is where the problem is.
I wonder where your naive beliefs about Indian governance spring
from: Knowledge or ignorance :-).
c-da
> Even with that didactic//memorizing by rote background, I came away
>with a few of things here: :)
>
>The first, of course, is that people can be taught (often complex
>things) even if they have had no formal education.
>
>The second, of course, is that, I find it a tad preposterous, that
>Dunu Roy thinks that education in India as "Instead, we have
>didactic instruction, memorising by rote, and vomiting out useless
>information for futile examinations... "
>
>The third, of course, is that according to Dunu Roy, the Govt. is
>pretty useless, ie. whatever they touched (his illustrations here)
>have been baseless, miscalculated, and ultimately, Roy and his
>group, had to go teach the "practical/down-to-earth" stuff to the
>affected people, and make the corrections.
>
>I have no argument with the first point - I do think it is highly
>possible to teach people to perform and operate complex procedures,
>if they are willing to learn and taught well.
>
>The notion that education in India is totally impractical I find it
>had to believe. You, me, and most NRIs have had this didactic
>education (including Roy). I really wonder, how, Roy & his group of
>intellectuals managed to get out of that mold?
>
>Most Indians too have this background too. Then, how is it that they
>manage to do very well in this country? How is it that they have not
>only done well in school in this country, but have proved to be one
>of the smartest in opening up successful start-ups (not just IT),
>and doing great.
>I don't know. Probably Roy will tell us.
>
>On the third point, it is quite easy to take pot shots at the Govt.
>machinery. and its incompetence. While I commend Roy and his group
>(are they some anti-dam people:) in taking the trouble to do a
>better job teaching than the education system, I wonder, if Roy can
>recommend that method for the whole country, and if that will be
>workable.
>
>--Ram
>
>
>
>
>On 6/22/07, <mailto:cmahanta at charter.net>cmahanta at charter.net
><<mailto:cmahanta at charter.net>cmahanta at charter.net> wrote:
>
>Knowledge As Weapon
>
>Ordinary working people have the capacity to learn, to collect
>information, to look at it analytically, and eventually use it for
>bettering their own lives. This is, or should be, the central
>objective of "education". Instead, we have didactic instruction,
>memorising by rote, and vomiting out useless information for futile
>examinations...
>Dunu Roy
>
>It was some 30 years ago, in the mid-70s, that we got a glimpse of
>what the future might hold. We had just purchased 2 acres of land to
>build a workshop on, in the district of Shahdol in Madhya Pradesh.
>There had been some argument with the neighbouring owner about where
>exactly the boundary lay. So one day we dragged out the iron chain
>that surveyors use, and began measuring the land ourselves. A
>curious shepherd boy must have witnessed the proceedings, because
>next day a delegation of solemn farmers from the nearby village paid
>us a visit. They had heard that we were engineers, they explained,
>so could we teach them how to measure land? Why, we asked, whatever
>will you do with it? Well, they explained, the patwari (the
>government revenue functionary at the village) had been demarcating
>their lands and they were never sure whether he was doing it right.
>So we spent the next four hours demonstrating how the chain worked
>and how to calculate the area. In the process, of course, we began
>to learn that the chain was called a jareeb, the area was rakba, the
>khasra number referred to the record in the revenue department,
>their title was the patta, and the patwari presided over a khatauni
>in which all secrets were well documented.
>
>A week later, the same delegation was back, but looking less solemn
>and more brashly conspiratorial. Could they borrow our jareeb? We
>handed over the chain and then, not a little puzzled ourselves, we
>followed them at a discreet distance. In due course, we arrived at
>the village and a curious spectacle greeted us. On the farms of the
>village, the patwari was laying out his chain, and wherever he went,
>the farmers followed with their borrowed jareeb and laid it out in
>exactly the same manner. At every halt they would watch the patwari
>and when he began to enter figures in his notebook, they too would
>whip out a pencil and scribble on a piece of paper. Rarely had we
>seen a more harassed looking patwari! At the end of the day, the
>delegation was back again, beaming from ear to ear. Thank you for
>the hathiyaar (weapon), they told us, and handed back the jareeb.
>Can we, we asked them, see what you wrote? They took out their
>smudged piece of paper and showed it to us. It was covered with a
>series of numbers in meaningless disorder. But, they grinned, they
>had taken care not to show it to the patwari!
>
>This theme of knowledge as weapon has come back to us many times in
>the last three decades. In the mid-80s, a small party from the
>Palamau district of Bihar knocked on our door. Could we come to
>their village and see what the proposed dam on the Auranga river was
>going to do to their area? We said yes, but provided they were able
>to wrangle a copy of the DPR (Detailed Project Report) of the dam.
>Oh, no problem, they remarked, the irrigation department chaprasi
>(peon) was from their village. So, three weeks later, we were
>rambling across the farmlands of Palamau inspecting the river and
>its catchment and comparing it to what was written in the DPR. We
>were faced with a battery of questions. Look at that river,
>exclaimed the villagers, do you think it can carry as much water as
>to irrigate all the lands the department is claiming it will? And
>can you see the silt in it; how long will it take for the dam to
>fill up? The department says that this village will come under
>submergence, and that one will not, when we can clearly see that
>this village is higher than that one! How can we challenge their
>views?
>
>We took four days to instruct a batch of 20 young boys from the
>surrounding villages how to measure the flow in the river, the silt
>load that it carried, and the slope of the land.With that, they
>said, they would be able to take on the project's claims of
>projected irrigation, the life of the dam, and the extent of
>submergence. On the last evening, as we were packing to leave the
>next morning, they eyed us suspiciously. Where, they asked, pointing
>to the "dumpy" (a kind of telescopic instrument that is used to
>measure levels), are you taking that? Well, we said, this is our
>instrument and we are taking it back; if you want one you will have
>to get it for yourselves. How much does it cost, they queried, and
>where is it available? The nearest place, we explained, would be
>Ranchi and it would cost about Rs 3000. And then we retired for the
>night. Only to be woken up by an exuberant hammering on the door
>very early the next morning. Here, they said, is Rs 3000 collected
>from donations by all the villagers, and you can go and buy the
>dumpy yourself; otherwise how will we fight a yuddh (war) without an
>astra (weapon)?
>
>That the yuddh was joined became clear to us when, four months
>later, a parcel arrived with the postman. It contained a sheaf of
>papers containing the records of three months of daily measurement.
>We went to work on the data and came up with some very interesting
>findings indeed. The river, for instance, carried only half as much
>water in the monsoon months as the DPR claimed it did. This water
>also bore a silt load one-and-a-half times that of the figure
>reported in the project proposal. 25 villages were actually coming
>into the submergence zone, demarcated by following the full
>reservoir contour, as compared to the 19 acknowledged by the project
>authorities. When all these were factored into the calculations the
>benefits actually came to less than the costs! This was going to be
>one very unviable dam indeed, we informed the people of Auranga.
>They, in turn, took the report and propagated it all over the area
>through posters and leaflets, while the English version was duly
>sent off to the governments, the media, the courts, and even the
>World Bank. Today, fifteen years later, the Auranga river remains
>unbound.
>
>In the mid-90s, we had another set of visitors, but this time from
>the high ranges of Kullu district in Himachal Pradesh. Their
>villages and hamlets were being threatened by the declaration of the
>Great Himalayan National Park. What exactly was this Park, they
>asked, and how could they protect their families? So, two months
>later, armed with the relevant documents and reports, we pitched
>camp in their village. A young bunch of grazers and farmers listened
>attentively as we explained how the government had commissioned a
>study in the 80s and how this study, conducted by a pair of
>specialists from the Pheasant Society in the UK and Canada, had come
>to the conclusion that only by declaring the Park as a protected
>area could the rare Western Himalayan Tragopan (a ground-dwelling
>bird) be saved. And then, as we presented the details of the study,
>the listeners grew restive. No, they protested, it is not possible
>for the Tragopan to be disturbed by our herds because it nests in
>late winter and our grazers go up only in late spring. Even that
>figure of 25,000 animals is wrong, they objected, our numbers rarely
>cross 12,000. And it is not us who destroy the herbs, but the Nepali
>labourers from the Terai, who are unfamiliar with alpine ecology and
>are hired by the traders in the plains.
>
>We suggested to them then that they should do their own study and
>compare their findings with what had been reported by the foreign
>experts. Very well, they responded immediately, tell us how to do
>the study. So, for the next two days, we demonstrated to them how to
>draw transects and conduct animal counts, how to document the
>diversity of grasses and shrubs, and how to systematically record
>their observations.As soon as the snows melted, six of them headed
>towards the alpine meadows, following the same route that the
>scientists had taken ten years earlier. Two porters who had been
>taken along to ferry the supplies to base camp (at heights of over
>3000 metres, one does not run into the occasional tea shop or
>restaurant!), became so familiar with the routines of measurement
>that they eventually became part of the study team. Six weeks later
>they returned, armed with a range of documented observations. A
>detailed examination of their records showed that they had
>successfully challenged every one of the findings of the
>government-sponsored study. In addition, their measurements
>indicated what was the carrying capacity of the meadows, how
>ruminants were in fact controlling weed infestation, and how the
>herbs could be harvested within the boundaries of conservation.
>
>This much, then, is certain: people fight their struggles for
>survival based on what knowledge they can create. Each one of the
>reports and studies cited above (and numerous others that have not
>been documented in both rural and urban areas) indicates that
>ordinary working people have the capacity to learn, to collect
>information, to look at it analytically, and eventually use it for
>bettering their own lives. This is, or should be, the central
>objective of "education". And yet, these are simple (and yet very
>complex) tasks that are not undertaken by our educational
>institutions. Didactic instruction, memorising by rote, and vomiting
>out useless information for futile examinations constitute the
>fundamentals of what passes for education in our schools and
>colleges. Perhaps there is a purpose to it all. Perhaps another
>Macaulay is required to explain it to us in yet another Minute. And
>perhaps, in some not too distant future, a group of young labourers
>will learn to document their own lives to tear this farce to pieces.
>
>
>A graduate (and post-graduate) from IIT Bombay, Dunu Roy heads
>Hazard Centre in New Delhi.
>
>
>
>
># You may be missing other accompanying blurbs, related stories, graphics etc.
>Link to this story as it appears on the site :-
><http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20070621&fname=dunuroy&sid=1>Knowledge
>As Weapon
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