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This file was generated by Descript <www.descript.com>

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Anjali: So yes, it's been very nice interacting with you in setting up this and getting to know each other.

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And it has also sort of provoked me to look at my own life and work again.

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And as happens each time one looks at one's life and work, it is with a different lens because some more water has passed under the bridge and many more insights have been gained and so on.

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So, I'm Anjali Noronha.

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It's actually a Portuguese surname, I'm supposed to be pronounced as Noron-ya, which nobody does because I've been born and brought up in the Hindi belt in a born Catholic family.

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And so we are obviously converted from something because Catholics are all converted, but from what I don't know and I'm not interested.

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I'm the youngest of four siblings and I too identify myself as female.

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And I have spent most of my life in Madhya Pradesh, in Bhopal in fact, and some of my life in another place where I started my work, which is a small place called Harda and some of my life in Delhi.

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So I'll start from some of these things.

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In a sense, I look at myself as with one major privilege.

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My father was an ICS officer and he retired as chief secretary in Madhya Pradesh.

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So that's a huge privilege, but that's not a privilege that comes with caste, it's not a social privilege because socially, I am from a minority community and as gender too from a sort of not an equal gender yet…a long way to go.

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But this one privilege of class has probably kept me blind to some of the under-privileges of minorities of caste and gender for a long time.

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I was just not aware of many of those things.

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It is only, I think, as the discourse progressed in the last couple of decades and more literature became available, that I have become conscious of this.

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Also, probably, it has been possible for me to do so much more because I myself am not from a male upper Caste background.

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So while being of a privileged class, but from not so privileged social background, and also the lifestyle that I saw in my family, particularly with my father.

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So I have also been in the last couple of years, trying to look at my Goan roots and the issues of caste in Goa.

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In fact, the first time I visited Goa was already when I was about over 30.

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So, I'm not connected in any way.

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I've not been connected with Goa very strongly, but somehow there is a cultural bonding.

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I don't know either Konkani or Portuguese, which I'm in the process of learning.

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My maternal grandparents would speak ... in fact, my grandmother would speak four languages: Konkani, Portuguese, English, Marathi.

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But she, they did not speak to my mother and her siblings in anything but English.

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So in that sense, my mother and all of us became language deprived.

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So now I'm trying to rejuvenate that and there too, one is finding a lot of issues, for example the access to Konkani is almost not there.

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Whereas, the access to Portuguese is huge.

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More so to Brazilian Portuguese because online classes, online apps.

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And Indian language, and Konkani is turning out to be a very rich language.

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It is written in four or five scripts.

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I don't think the kind of richness that Konkani has, no other language in India has, I think, at the moment, because so many scripts, so many variations in Konkani, then the roots that its structure is fed by many other things, not only Portuguese, Marathi also, and interestingly Oraon and Munda languages as well, tribal languages.

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And so this has generated an interest–I was already working on multilingual education and multicultural education–to try and see if I can research Konkani.

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And I think Konkani is also the only language for which its language speakers politically struggle to make it the state language.

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There have been reactionary struggles like in Tamil Nadu not to have Hindi, but for a strong political struggle, that it should become our state language.

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It has been and yet there is not too much written about ... there is somewhat in fact, that is an interesting part, that in Goa, there's a lot of research, which is not accessible to many of us.

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And another interesting part also is–I'm talking about my current history because I'm at the moment, very engrossed in that–part is that Portuguese colonialism has been very different from British colonialism.

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And all of us, including my father and others here, have grown up thinking British colonialism as the only or the major colonialism.

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So that's another aspect that I've been looking at.

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And all of these interests and my present engagements have been fed by the experiences that I have had.

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I talked about community, about gender which has also been very interesting that my paternal grandmother, she was widow when my father was only 14 and she, at that time, was a legal medical practitioner.

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Which means that as a woman in the Hyderabad Nizam's court, she was practicing as a medical practitioner and she was able to, as a widow, educate my father, send him to Britain to do the ICS exam and to do a post graduation there.

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And my maternal grandparents were settled here in Madhya Pradesh, but they sent her to Calcutta in those times, this must have been the 1930s, to do her BA honors in English literature.

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And yet my father did not allow my mother to work and we children often used to tell her [because she became totally an engrossed housewife and a mother and she learned music and for school education, she was trained school teacher [for school education she was trained].

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we all used to say, why didn't you do something?

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Why didn't you continue working?

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She said, it was not possible at that time.

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So with that background, I didn't have to struggle much about gender.

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It was never a question wherever I wanted to study because also being the youngest, some struggles had been already undertaken by my oldest siblings, like marrying into another community.

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My sister has married a Hindu, my brother has married a Hindu, but again, upper caste.[ I have married a person from a muslim family - though neither of us believe n organised religion]

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So my father in a sense was very practically, my sister was very young when she wanted to get married.

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So he said, you cannot get married before you are 18 and after you are 18, I cannot stop you from getting married.

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He had that kind of practical sense.

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So I never ever felt [discriminated] ... I went to a private school.

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My siblings went to government schools because my father was posted at the district level at that time, they all studied in government schools.

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At high school level, some of them also were enrolled in private mission schools.

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So I had all my education in a private school.

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And then I wanted to go to Delhi to study economics.

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So there was no resistance.

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Of course, there was a pressure from my sister to become an engineer because it would give me a better career, but my parents were not particularly career conscious or [forced] that you must do this or that.

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And the other thing is also that my father mixed with a lot of [different kind of people] people.

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He liked mixing, in fact, one part of our socializing was elite and another part was very down to earth [ordinary]

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. 
After he retired, [I sometimes think about that,] he had bought some land before he retired a few years before he retired, agricultural land and he actually stayed in the village, where he had bought the land.

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It was not too far from Bhopal, so he would come [to Bhopal] at weekends.

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But at that age to live in a one room house, all by himself, because my mother said, I cannot stay [ in a village] She was in fact more sort of proper, and she's the one, when my daughter was born, she said, you should give up your job.

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You should look after your daughter.

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So this whole issue of gender, it's not only education that opens you out to[it] , in other very subtle ways later on, I realized that there was a strong gender aspect and is a strong gender aspect in our family and our social circles.

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The only thing I felt while growing up was - the only concern that I had, which my brothers didn't, was I must come back before dark.

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Whereas, for them, there was…they had to come back by dinner time.

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If they were coming even after that, if they were going out to dinner, then they just had to inform that we'll come back late.

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So apart from that, education and whatever we wanted to do was not so much of a question.

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Because I think that my getting drawn to this kind of work and staying in smaller kind of places was also influenced by my father's lifestyle and ability to do some of these things.

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So I went to Delhi, I did my BA honors in economics and I had not taken economics [earlier] . I did science in high school and I could have joined engineering, but didn't.

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One of the things was also, we had this impression that the science people have to work much harder.

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So if one went into humanities, it would be easier.

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It's not really the case.

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Gayithri: You realize it once you are there, that it's not really true.

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Anjali: When I was studying economics, what I had expected from a study of economics, that it would help me to engage with issues of development.

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I was disappointed with the course because there was a little bit of economic history and economic development, but the Delhi University courses are heavily econometrics based, mathematics based course…was even at that time, is more so now.

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So then after I did my graduation, then I was not very clear whether I should pursue post graduation and if so in what and what I should do and what would take me to ... and at that time, there were a number of people who were doing rural development, rural health work, and one was reading articles about them.

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So I wanted to explore that aspect and was looking around, and it was just happenstance by which somebody I knew, connected me to Kishore Bharati, which was the organization, which set up Eklavya.

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And they have a rural campus that's an organization you can visit.

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So I visited, I stayed, I liked the people, the interactions there.

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These are the kinds of things that draw a lot of youngsters more than the subject, even when they're drawn to a subject, probably seven or eight times out of 10, it's the teacher and the relationship with the teacher or peers who are taking the subjects.

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So similarly, I was a young person and there was a welcoming kind of an atmosphere.

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And I was coming with all my upper middle class biases of the poor are poor because they don't work kind of thing.

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And I still remember this one person from a village, he was also upper caste, Joshi, and there used to be these wells and pumps where we used to wash our dishes . So after dinner, one night, this conversation started and we were up till almost morning at the washing dishes place and very patiently and very sort of painstakingly also, he, with counter questioning and explanation, explained to me how the dice is loaded against the poor.

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[And the poor are not poor because they’re lazy but because of a host of other things - exploitation, climate vagaries etc.]

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So that was a very seminal thing in my life, changing my perspective, that I see even today in a lot of middle class and a lot of engineers and other people [who] are leaving traditional careers and going into reforming the rural area and things like that as if they know everything…because that is one of the drawing, the motivational aspects to this kind of work.

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So they think that we have got very good education.

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Now we must give back to society.

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And so that was a very seminal [change] …which is then reflected in many of my social science texts that I wrote . So through that, one felt that one was learning a lot and it was a nice atmosphere.

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And this Kishore Bharati had developed a science teaching program, which was in state schools and they were doing other ring well [ an irrigation program where the wells had concrete rings put in them to prevent them from caving in] and other kinds of work there.

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And about the science program, they were seeing it had been about 10 years since they had started, or maybe seven, eight years since they had started the science program.

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And it was running at a whole district level.

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And the people who were working there were also conflicted in terms of interests that, are we going to be continuing to work with the government all the time and people's issues are much more important and so on.

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So there was this very rich discussion happening of that this program is also important, but it requires another kind of effort.

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And this kind of organizational structure of Kishore Bharati may not be able to sustain that.

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So we should see ... and just doing science at education will not be enough for the kinds of assumptions of reforming school education.

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So we need to do something differently.

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And the discussion about setting up another organization was starting at the same time when I had just finished my graduation.

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So though, I was not very clear of going into education from before that, I found these discussions interesting.

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The other thing, it was not very long before that I had left science.

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So I was definitely not interested in science education at that time, but this new opening was developing that the new organization would then work on other subjects.

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And the science teaching program was at the middle school level.

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So Eklavya would work on curriculum development from primary school to high school with other subjects.

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So I felt that maybe there, I could contribute something since I had a social science background.

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So there were many people from Delhi University who were involved, from a science background.

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So they said, if you want to do anything, graduation is not enough.

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You should do a post graduation as well.

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So that took me to then do my post graduation after that one year's break from Delhi school of economics.

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and while I was in Delhi school of economics, this whole discussion about setting up Eklavya used to happen in the Delhi University coffee house, because there were certain professors and their PhD students who were interested in this.

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So I was regularly involved in many of those discussions and also coming to Kishore Bharati and participating in some of the trainings and things like that.

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So through those discussions, I said, this is definitely worth a try.

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Let me see if I can work for a year or so in social science curriculum development and let's see what happens and one can see.

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So I started with that one year, and then I spent about 37, 38 years with Eklavya.

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Of course, I'm not a person who can stick with one thing alone for a long time.

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So right from the beginning, I was always doing two or three things.

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So Eklavya's contribution unlike what is known, because the science education program was already developed by Kishore Bharati.

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So there was maybe one or two more revisions, some changes in that, but the main contributions in Eklavya were in school curriculum was in social science and in primary education.

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And I was involved in the development of both.

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And then the expansion of the primary education program, the social science program didn't expand in terms of actual field work, but then it became a resource program for other states and so on.

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So I was involved in some of that.

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And then later on, then I worked for teacher education and in developing new programs, the language program and multilingual program.

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Also, the pre-primary education program.

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Eklavya as an organization, gave space for those who wanted to ... In fact, particularly in the first 20, 25 years, in its charter itself, the way it was formulated was that, if someone has a dream and wants to do something new, there's a space in Eklavya.

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It was not constrained in terms of, this is only what Eklavya would do.

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Unfortunately, situations and society changed, so it didn't remain exactly the same.

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Till I was there, this kind of space ... Of course, one had to struggle and argue one's case and so on, but that space which I find, not many organizations give.

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That was my background and a little of an introduction to what I've been doing.

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Gayithri: Yeah.

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More recently, what have you been working on, if you can actually tell us a little more.

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Anjali: Recently, what I'd like to talk about is that in these 30, 35, 37 years, there were phases of different focus, of work.

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I would rather talk about what were the highlights of those phases, and what one learned and what were the challenges and what are the reflections on them.

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Gayithri: Would love that.

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Anjali: Eklavya started in '82, and I joined from before it was registered.

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The first, about 10 years were in developing the curriculum programs.

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The assumption was ... The structure was like this, that we have permission from the government.

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We will get permission from the government to ... The program that we develop, to try them out in the government schools.

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We didn't have our own schools.

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Then create a model and then share the learnings from that.

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Then those kinds of programs then become normal mainstream programs of the government schools.

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That's an assumption that carried us till 2002, but after that, that whole assumption was ... Then we had to reinvent ourselves.

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From '82 to 2002, one can think of it in two kind of phases.

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One was the curriculum development in which it was at a very pilot stage.

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Eight schools, 10 schools, 25 schools.

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It was important because in situ kind of research and piloting the program was the mainstay.

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In that phase, I don't find many people in India doing that kind of work that we did in Eklavya, in that phase, which is that there's a curriculum and there's a textbook.

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Critiquing that, what is there.

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Then what should be the alternative?

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What the primary education program and the social science program in Eklavya did was, actually developed alternatives to the mainstream program in terms of both content and pedagogy and curriculum.

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And right from the basic assumptions.

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In terms of, how should language ... What do we expect from the development of language, or language in the curriculum?

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What do we expect from social science in the curriculum?

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What is the kind of person that a person studying this social science course should be?

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I was working on, right from '82, on critiquing, reviewing and developing alternatives to, you may have also studied, what was called civics.

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I went into the history of civics, which is more of a colonial subject that, where colonial citizens need to be obedient citizens.

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They have to display civic behavior.

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It had already been about, more than 30 years since independence, and we still called it civics.

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The content was also in the same direction.

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Even today, it tends more to be in the same direction of developing disciplined citizens.

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Whereas, in a democracy, it is critical citizenship that needs to be developed.

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Questioning, knowing, having enough information.

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What is the policy?

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Is it being implemented or not?

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What are the problems?

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Does the policy need change?

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Does the implementation program need change?

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Developing that mindset among students is what should be.

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It should not be called civics, it should be called a citizenship curriculum.

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A critical and creative citizenship curriculum.

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The elements of that, and therefore the way we looked at ... a citizen cannot even vote sensibly unless they have a reasonable understanding of economics.

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What the policies are doing, like today, the farmers are struggling.

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Why are they struggling?

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Their group, will it benefit or will it not benefit from certain laws, and so on?

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If you see our books, you can, maybe intersperse.

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I'll send you some of the examples, sixth, seventh, and eighth.

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In sixth, we started from the village and the town level, which is very concrete.

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Then in class eight, there was an introduction and understanding of the national level.

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This kind of understanding based on, that the children cannot immediately ... A word like democracy, they have to unpack it at that age.

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Contextualizing abstract contexts and concretizing them is the kind of pedagogy that we use, not only in ... We had to continue to call it civics because the government wouldn't change the name, but within that we ... Now it is called something else.

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It is called social and political life.

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That is the kind of, post-2005, that influence came in at the national level.

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In history and geography as well, the approach was contextualization, concretization into very specific things of very abstract phenomena because social science is a very abstract ... You can't do an experiment and learn from observing it in social science.

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That was the main approach.

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In doing that, one had to actually go to villages, look at our chapters, for example, farmers and laborers.

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It's important to understand that who are the farmers who are on the streets and who are the farmers who are not.

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What is the farming structure?

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The marginal farmer, the agricultural laborer.

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Different policies will impact different categories of a certain, this thing, differently.

00:31:00.835 --> 00:31:21.980
Whether it's industry or it is agriculture, we broke them down in two categories and actually made stories.

00:31:22.660 --> 00:31:23.550
These are not fictitious stories.

00:31:23.550 --> 00:31:26.870
The only thing fictitious there is the name.

00:31:28.610 --> 00:31:29.090
Names of people.

00:31:29.660 --> 00:31:33.909
Otherwise, we actually went and found large and small and other farmers.

00:31:33.950 --> 00:31:36.100
Talked to them, saw their experiences.

00:31:36.260 --> 00:31:37.300
What they owned.

00:31:37.670 --> 00:31:42.580
How they accumulated surplus or how they went into debt.

00:31:43.320 --> 00:31:52.179
Then made it into a story which was comprehensible to a 12, 13, 14-year-old.

00:31:52.179 --> 00:31:58.290
This pedagogical aspect, so I say ... This is not something that we took from anywhere.

00:31:58.969 --> 00:32:15.480
For example, in the science curriculum, you find the world over, there will be very little difference in a chapter, say on volume, or on electricity, or on plants.

00:32:15.480 --> 00:32:15.550
It'll-

00:32:15.550 --> 00:32:17.582
Gayithri: Correct, or respiration, for example.

00:32:17.582 --> 00:32:18.003
Anjali: Yeah.

00:32:18.003 --> 00:32:18.425
Yeah.

00:32:18.425 --> 00:32:18.846
Yeah.

00:32:18.846 --> 00:32:42.149
Whereas, this, all our history, geography, and citizenship curricula are absolutely our own research, and written by us, revised with collaboration with teachers and experts.

00:32:42.149 --> 00:32:47.230
In that sense it's a very ... Then it influenced, and we worked in, working with different states.

00:32:47.230 --> 00:32:51.509
It's not that once we publish books and then those books are sold everywhere.

00:32:51.959 --> 00:32:54.709
They cannot be because they are contextualized.

00:32:54.709 --> 00:33:04.190
We work with teams there, who then contextualize, teams of teachers and university people, who develop similar chapters there.

00:33:04.650 --> 00:33:09.890
I have examples of what we did in Ladakh, for example.

00:33:10.370 --> 00:33:19.870
In Ladakh, similarly starting from their own context, then going up to the nation.

00:33:20.900 --> 00:33:38.240
The commonality was that, for Madhya Pradesh or Rajasthan, what we did for our books, so we took some of that for the national level for them, but for the local Ladakh and Kashmir level, we had to do the research with them.

00:33:39.710 --> 00:33:44.906
Also, this helped us develop a frame of social science curriculum development.

00:33:44.906 --> 00:33:45.123
That was a very rich period.

00:33:45.160 --> 00:34:01.740
Then the second period was '95 to 2002 when the nation was seeing through the DPEP.

00:34:01.890 --> 00:34:09.980
From the District Primary Education Program, there was a lot of controversy, also about foreign funding coming in, and things.

00:34:09.980 --> 00:34:19.170
It gave an opportunity because the main aspect of that was to decentralize curriculum development and build capacities in states.

00:34:21.090 --> 00:34:27.170
Otherwise, the NCERT textbooks are only adapted into the state textbooks being a concurrent, this thing.

00:34:27.180 --> 00:34:33.174
If the state makes their own textbooks, the quality is not well-researched and things.

00:34:33.799 --> 00:34:46.809
'95 to 2002, lots of states, we designed their curriculum and so did Madhya Pradesh.

00:34:46.809 --> 00:35:01.580
That was a very rich phase for us, because again, you see, Eklavya has been the only non-government organization which has had the permission to develop curricula in government schools.

00:35:01.750 --> 00:35:08.129
Lots of organizations, today work with government schools, but they don't have their separate curriculum.

00:35:08.740 --> 00:35:16.710
Now this may not be the best thing to do, but I'm just sharing that, that was a situation which allowed us to do a lot of things.

00:35:21.000 --> 00:35:44.400
In other states, people would work with the teachers there for a state, kind of ... It was not at the ... In this '95 to 2000 phase, what happened in terms of a systemic change, at least for that period was that it was not only Eklavya, even the SCERT itself, it didn't come up with textbooks for across the states.

00:35:45.580 --> 00:35:51.908
It also took an experimental area, of a block of 200 schools where they developed their curriculum and tried it out.

00:35:51.908 --> 00:35:52.098
We developed our curriculum and we tried it out.

00:35:52.120 --> 00:36:11.040
Then we sat together and discussed each other's experiences, and together then made something else.

00:36:11.940 --> 00:36:13.820
Selected some from here, some from there.

00:36:14.160 --> 00:36:16.100
Worked on the exercises and so on.

00:36:16.680 --> 00:36:20.549
That kind of process didn't happen in any other state.

00:36:21.120 --> 00:36:32.170
From experiment, the culture of doing experimentation and then instituting it across the state, that was attempted in

00:36:33.410 --> 00:36:44.760
... 
A certain transparency was also brought because even the SCERT had to present its findings and its experiences to national experts, and so did we.

00:36:45.850 --> 00:36:48.009
That was a very, very rich period.

00:36:48.009 --> 00:37:03.420
Unfortunately, it has not been documented because mostly, we doers are very bad documenters, and some other researchers have to do the ... Now we are trying to be that as well.

00:37:03.430 --> 00:37:12.970
That was till 2002 when the government decided that this special permission of an NGO working in this thing, we will not allow.

00:37:12.970 --> 00:37:15.460
We will have only one.

00:37:15.460 --> 00:37:16.509
It was a pushback.

00:37:16.580 --> 00:37:24.179
That experimental culture, all finished in a jiffy after those five, seven years.

00:37:27.549 --> 00:37:29.195
Then we had to also reinvent ourselves that, if we don't have that ... Our whole assumption, our organizational assumption was gone.

00:37:29.195 --> 00:37:29.569
What do we look at?

00:37:45.509 --> 00:37:46.750
We went through two years of mandan, and looking at ourselves.

00:37:46.770 --> 00:37:49.600
During that time, publishing a lot of children's literature.

00:37:50.720 --> 00:37:58.879
That's when the out-of-school support came up, because we had also realized that ... Before that, the assumption was that school is enough.

00:37:59.789 --> 00:38:04.459
If we reform schools ... When you talk about inclusion, then everybody's included.

00:38:04.619 --> 00:38:06.130
All children will come to school.

00:38:06.369 --> 00:38:23.050
They're not in school because they're bored of school or they're not learning in school, which is an assumption, now we know it is a lot to do with caste and with economics and things like that, and discrimination that, children are pushed out of school.

00:38:23.870 --> 00:38:31.760
Those things, in this first 20 years, we had not looked at caste or pushing out factors or anything at all.

00:38:32.200 --> 00:38:38.400
We were into our own bubble of curriculum development, a worthwhile exercise.

00:38:38.559 --> 00:38:47.730
I don't look back and say, "Oh, we wasted our life," because that also is a very important aspect, but not enough.

00:38:48.580 --> 00:38:48.860
Gayithri: Yeah.

00:38:50.170 --> 00:38:50.430
Anjali: Yeah.

00:38:50.480 --> 00:38:50.780
Tell me.

00:38:51.170 --> 00:38:51.390
Gayithri: No, no.

00:38:51.810 --> 00:38:52.680
Please continue.

00:38:56.990 --> 00:39:10.602
Anjali: That's when we found that the culture of, during this period from '95 to 2002 when we were working in Shahpur Block, which is a tribal block, we found, because then there was pressure on us to do a control and experimental sample evaluation.

00:39:10.602 --> 00:39:24.710
We found that the influence of our work in government schools, because we were not able to impact.

00:39:25.690 --> 00:39:35.149
We didn't have control over the government system in terms of the selection or the criteria for making teachers work, or children to become regular in class, and so on.

00:39:36.729 --> 00:39:42.730
We were only working on curriculum and its implementation.

00:39:44.930 --> 00:39:46.355
There was not very much difference.

00:39:46.540 --> 00:39:51.200
There were good teachers in control schools and there were good teachers in our school.

00:39:52.059 --> 00:40:05.650
Then we found this pattern of irregularity, particularly among the poor and the lower caste, and that element of exclusion.

00:40:05.650 --> 00:40:13.499
At the same time, organizations like MVF were also working on child labor, and getting child labor back into schools.

00:40:13.819 --> 00:40:16.560
There were other organizations in the south, working with Dalits.

00:40:20.250 --> 00:40:23.270
Also, in a sense, Paulo Freire.

00:40:23.270 --> 00:40:29.050
No, not Paulo Freire, I'm forgetting the writer's name, but Letter to a Teacher.

00:40:30.910 --> 00:40:33.800
That influenced me personally, a lot.

00:40:34.260 --> 00:40:39.700
When students say that, "We are ready to learn all the time, but teachers are not available."

00:40:41.530 --> 00:40:52.220
That out-of-school time, particularly with a dysfunctional school, it increases the underprivileged of, and the marginalization of the underprivileged.

00:40:55.030 --> 00:41:08.140
This out-of-school support or the post-school, kind of time, either in the morning or the afternoon, that what middle class children get from the home, that was lacking.

00:41:08.150 --> 00:41:17.940
Again, there the conflict becomes much less because in government schools, one of the comparisons would be that your curriculum is bad.

00:41:18.170 --> 00:41:30.960
It is just making children play and all that, because there's some other curriculum elsewhere, and people are becoming engineers and doctors from there.

00:41:31.320 --> 00:41:36.620
Populations can't see, parents can't see that kind of abstraction.

00:41:36.950 --> 00:41:39.139
Whatever it is, everywhere it should be the same.

00:41:39.250 --> 00:41:42.820
If your curriculum is there, then why don't you make it across the state?

00:41:43.270 --> 00:41:45.680
Why only in these few schools?

00:41:45.680 --> 00:41:55.590
In out-of-school support, there was lot of community support that, children are learning, we'll send them.

00:41:55.590 --> 00:41:57.480
Community involvement was much more.

00:41:59.969 --> 00:42:04.990
We avoided this kind of conflict as well that, "What are you doing in out-of-school support?"

00:42:05.200 --> 00:42:06.440
because that was an extra.

00:42:06.860 --> 00:42:07.140
Gayithri: Yeah.

00:42:07.300 --> 00:42:12.220
Anjali: Also, on hindsight, I find, and one of your questions dealt with that.

00:42:13.080 --> 00:42:20.379
That, as civil society our space is really in that non-systemic-

00:42:22.839 --> 00:42:23.039
Gayithri: Setting.

00:42:23.069 --> 00:42:45.180
... Anjali: kind of setting, because if we want to reform the government school system, then somewhere we need to get into the government school system, either through universities and research or through becoming a teacher and then a teacher educator and teacher education institutions, and forming a lobby there.

00:42:46.490 --> 00:42:50.799
For example, in the U.S., The U.S Maths Teachers' Association.

00:42:51.070 --> 00:42:54.039
It's their curriculum which no state can avoid.

00:42:55.280 --> 00:43:07.249
It's not a state ... Whatever they develop as a curriculum, it may not be instituted as is in a particular state, but no state can ignore it.

00:43:07.660 --> 00:43:15.009
They have to look at it, and it becomes a lobbying point which teachers as professionals have done.

00:43:15.319 --> 00:43:19.740
Becoming a teacher yourself, none of us are teachers in the NGO sector.

00:43:20.040 --> 00:43:26.900
Becoming a teacher yourself, then developing professional bodies of teachers or teacher educators.

00:43:27.299 --> 00:43:37.150
Then over 20, 25 years the system will improve if that is sustained over 20, 25 years.

00:43:37.330 --> 00:43:42.200
This coming from outside and doing some curriculum development.

00:43:42.200 --> 00:43:46.029
We also worked for more than 20 years, but it doesn't have the same impact.

00:43:46.609 --> 00:43:49.430
Because the accountability of the system goes.

00:43:52.109 --> 00:43:54.576
They don't own the curriculum.

00:43:54.576 --> 00:43:54.687
That is my personal reflection.

00:43:54.710 --> 00:43:57.820
I'm sure many of my colleagues even wouldn't agree.

00:43:57.820 --> 00:44:16.350
Some of them may agree, and whereas if we developed this out-of-school curriculum ... For me, like Letter to a Teacher and other very inspirational aspect which I follow even now is The Wallace Foundation in the U.S.

00:44:16.570 --> 00:44:18.009
I don't know if you've come across it.

00:44:18.189 --> 00:44:18.509
Gayithri: Yeah.

00:44:18.740 --> 00:44:19.240
We have.

00:44:19.299 --> 00:44:19.680
Yeah.

00:44:19.680 --> 00:44:42.980
Anjali: They work in this out-of-school and the arts space, and developing leadership in schools and supporting systemic ... Developing them into systems, because then we realized that we were suffering from the same maladies of the government school system because we don't have people.

00:44:43.790 --> 00:44:56.810
When we recruit someone to teach in the post-school time, then we will have some very good teachers and we'll have some indifferent ones just like in the government school system.

00:44:57.230 --> 00:44:59.570
It's a culture which generates that.

00:45:00.009 --> 00:45:04.310
Whereas, when we were only working with the government school system, we were blaming the government school teachers that, they don't work, and so on.

00:45:07.650 --> 00:45:11.439
This, developing this system is much harder work.

00:45:11.440 --> 00:45:12.850
It's not only curriculum development.

00:45:13.090 --> 00:45:14.330
It's much harder work.

00:45:17.289 --> 00:45:23.390
You have to develop the system, you have to implement it, you have to keep quality control, and no one organization can do it on their own.

00:45:23.550 --> 00:45:25.730
The network of organizations is required.

00:45:25.730 --> 00:45:40.823
That is a whole new phase which, in the present circumstances in India, maybe these kinds of opportunities will come back again, in another few years' time, or some other balance will come in.

00:45:40.823 --> 00:45:49.410
At the moment there doesn't seem to be opportunity to do that kind of work, at the moment.

00:45:52.369 --> 00:45:58.150
Last thing during this phase was also a lot of work that we did in teacher education.

00:45:58.360 --> 00:46:00.660
I personally did, too.

00:46:01.440 --> 00:46:06.344
This is something, particularly pre-service teacher education, we had neglected.

00:46:06.344 --> 00:46:22.679
We had, in fact the science people and others would say at that time that the pre-service teacher education doesn't really do much in practice.

00:46:23.539 --> 00:46:27.349
It's in-service, and you have to do it with the curriculum.

00:46:28.760 --> 00:46:29.829
It is actually both.

00:46:29.829 --> 00:46:33.170
When you change a curriculum and textbooks, you have to do.

00:46:33.170 --> 00:46:52.670
That's why it's now called professional development, which is both pre-service and in-service, but both going in tandem, because the kind of pre-service education which develops a good teacher.

00:46:52.880 --> 00:47:03.764
One, it should be for a minimum ... It should be at a university level for a minimum of four years, the argument I've given in some of the teacher education institutes.

00:47:04.029 --> 00:47:12.010
They themselves, the teacher educators and policymakers themselves say, "Arrey do saal se zyada kya teachers banane mein karenge?"

00:47:12.040 --> 00:47:21.970
Once I gave this argument that, "In making an engineer, you're willing to spend four to five years, who deals with totally inanimate objects.

00:47:23.160 --> 00:47:46.130
For a doctor who only deals with the body of a person, you are willing to spend eight, 10 years to make a doctor, but a person who, day in and day out is dealing with the lives of 30, 40, 50 children, you are not willing to invest in even a post-graduate."

00:47:48.070 --> 00:47:56.869
Proper graduation, the primary school teacher here, with a D.Ed is ... Now things are changing in policy.

00:47:56.870 --> 00:48:03.959
I was part of that as well, the NCTE, The National Council of Teacher Education Curriculum Framework Development.

00:48:03.959 --> 00:48:17.099
As policy, it has come in that teachers must have four-year graduate-level education to become a teacher, but implementation will take time and commitment.

00:48:17.159 --> 00:48:21.250
Let's see how that goes.

00:48:21.250 --> 00:48:29.656
Earlier, it was post-school two years and you become a primary school teacher eligible to teach up till class five.

00:48:30.100 --> 00:48:39.440
And so with those teachers, if you develop a very good curriculum and materials, they are not able to.

00:48:39.910 --> 00:48:43.240
If you were in their place, you would not be able to teach that curriculum properly.

00:48:43.490 --> 00:48:49.700
They have no resources to be able to improvise off hand.

00:48:49.750 --> 00:48:49.840
Gayithri: Modify.

00:48:50.620 --> 00:48:50.790
Yeah.

00:48:51.099 --> 00:48:51.599
Anjali: Yeah.

00:48:51.599 --> 00:48:53.259
And they don't have the...

00:48:53.259 --> 00:49:05.699
They’ve not been sort of invested into, have the wherewithal to be able to make those choices as well, because that is what a three to four-year, five-year...

00:49:09.499 --> 00:49:22.260
And everywhere, we talk about Finland and we talk about Cuba, everywhere graduate or postgraduate for four, five, six-years education is what is required to make a good even pre-primary school teacher.

00:49:23.950 --> 00:49:25.200
So unless that investment...

00:49:25.610 --> 00:49:32.070
And we didn't do that at that time.

00:49:32.100 --> 00:49:42.440
Today also, the structure of Eklavya doesn't allow it to become for example, but there are other universities, universities are taking up those courses, that is happening in India.

00:49:42.910 --> 00:49:52.870
So that was the post 2002, and many of us have been working on teacher education.

00:49:53.060 --> 00:50:02.549
I myself was involved in the MA education course, which was developed and it's still going though it has its hiccups.

00:50:03.099 --> 00:50:22.220
It's a dual mode course that's I think till now, as far as I know in India, that's the only dual mode course, which is the residential program happens for six weeks in a year and the rest is through online assignments.

00:50:22.220 --> 00:50:40.840
And so developing some of the papers in that course and teaching parts of a paper, I was involved in that process, because that's the only good, I would say, teacher educators course, an MA in education.

00:50:41.600 --> 00:50:45.860
The M.Ed courses somehow become very mechanical.

00:50:46.600 --> 00:50:52.100
So a good M.Ed course, I'm not very aware of.

00:50:52.130 --> 00:51:02.550
This issue of M.Ed and MA education, because unless you have good teacher educators based in universities, you're not going to be able to develop good teachers.

00:51:02.850 --> 00:51:07.009
So that to me is the major challenge for the system.

00:51:08.190 --> 00:51:22.920
And for culture and for out of school support, I think there's a huge, huge space there which needs to be occupied by people and organizations like us.

00:51:24.870 --> 00:51:25.180
And-

00:51:26.150 --> 00:51:26.400
Gayithri: Yeah.

00:51:26.400 --> 00:51:26.640
No.

00:51:26.640 --> 00:51:27.869
Thanks a lot for sharing.

00:51:27.889 --> 00:51:38.970
This was definitely a lot, and thanks for condensing it within the time that we have to be able to really speak to some of these.

00:51:40.509 --> 00:52:23.399
And of course, one thing that comes to my mind and we also wanted to talk about this is how do you see that all of this work kind of touched the underprivileged or the marginalized, be it your work in critical citizenship education, or be it your work in curriculum development, or even with teachers when you were trying to build their capacity to build these systems of support, how do you see that this was interacting and maybe benefiting the marginalized in these contexts?

00:52:23.400 --> 00:52:34.340
Anjali: So one example I would take from our Shahpur experience, which is tribal block.

00:52:34.880 --> 00:52:44.130
And the nature of the curriculum, our primary school curriculum had a lot of hands-on work in which...

00:52:44.550 --> 00:52:57.910
And again, the contextualization, then children found their lives represented in the classroom and could associate better with that.

00:52:57.910 --> 00:53:29.100
So the children who could come to school and be regular, and the underprivileged and the more sort of suppressed classes, they found some voice in that through our trainings with teachers, which would sensitize and talk about some of these issues of the children who may seem slow, how to connect with them, how to be more empathetic and things like that.

00:53:29.720 --> 00:53:39.470
So the teachers who became like that through our interactions, their students definitely were impacted.

00:53:39.850 --> 00:53:51.859
The other thing is that we also had, I didn't talk about the evaluation part, the examination part of our curriculum that was a very crucial thing.

00:53:51.870 --> 00:54:09.920
We also had permission to hold different examinations, that the question paper, even the structure, for example, in many schools, you don't have a separate practical exam, but right from the science program, there was a separate practical exam.

00:54:09.940 --> 00:54:12.080
In social science, we didn't propose also.

00:54:12.080 --> 00:54:22.800
We couldn't figure out what could be practical in that, but in both science and in all our programs, it used to be first of all an open book exam.

00:54:23.470 --> 00:54:27.770
So there was not so much pressure to memorize.

00:54:27.770 --> 00:54:50.250
Now, in the science program, it was just to remove that pressure because there was no referencing with the open book, no referencing kind of question, that open page so and so, is something that we did for the social science program.

00:54:51.190 --> 00:55:02.136
Maybe I'll try and send you some of the video clips that I have if you'd like to put in some of that in the final video.

00:55:02.136 --> 00:55:05.149
So that was an aspect.

00:55:05.179 --> 00:55:10.490
So in the primary education, we had a practical and an oral exam as well.

00:55:11.420 --> 00:55:36.540
So what started happening, which became one of the reasons for resistance in the local area, because as you might be aware, in tribal areas also, there are small populations of upper caste people who are in the dominating position.

00:55:37.400 --> 00:55:38.300
Gayithri: Privileged position.

00:55:38.540 --> 00:55:38.670
Yeah.

00:55:38.750 --> 00:55:39.120
Anjali: Yeah.

00:55:39.510 --> 00:55:39.850
Yeah.

00:55:40.080 --> 00:55:50.040
So they would take the higher numbers and the ranks in the merit list and things, children of their society.

00:55:50.590 --> 00:56:02.100
And because of this oral and practical exam, the composition of marks was such that some of the tribal students started coming up.

00:56:04.100 --> 00:56:04.965
And that became a challenge.

00:56:04.965 --> 00:56:06.940
They said that this...

00:56:07.450 --> 00:56:14.150
So when such a thing happens, the main thing is the standard of this exam has gone down.

00:56:16.390 --> 00:56:20.550
So it is letting mediocre students come up.

00:56:20.550 --> 00:56:23.199
Same arguments as they have in the reservation.

00:56:23.739 --> 00:56:41.049
So that is another thing the underprivileged got to voice their writing because we didn't emphasize so much on correct spellings and a certain kind of grammar, but more on expression.

00:56:42.020 --> 00:56:50.475
So we got some, we still get some very beautiful expressions, which many of our class' children, you can see that the expression will be quite stinted.

00:56:50.475 --> 00:57:05.240
Whereas in some of these people, what is it called, the metaphors that they use and the experiences that they use, they really enrich that.

00:57:05.650 --> 00:57:23.470
So particularly in expression, also in social sciences, because we gave different kinds of questions, which were open ended, so gave much more freedom for expression than they were referencing question.

00:57:23.970 --> 00:57:30.650
So to that extent through the curriculum, they were impacted.

00:57:31.200 --> 00:57:44.959
But in terms of taking causes of marginalization and exploitation upfront, it was not possible to do it in the system.

00:57:45.440 --> 00:57:50.009
It requires a political framework within which you can do it.

00:57:51.080 --> 00:58:09.130
So if it is say a dalit organization setting up their out of school support, and there are a few organizations who work solely with DNTs or tribals or Dalits.

00:58:09.740 --> 00:58:17.669
And their expressions, again, their lives, their expressions, there's much more freedom of what can come out.

00:58:18.210 --> 00:58:58.920
So again, the argument I was making for our kind of people working in that out of school space, perhaps we could directly influence the lives of the marginalized in an out of school space more than we did through the schools, because after privatization and increasing privatization, also, what has been happening is that government schools are left mostly only with dalit and tribal students, particularly boys, and some girls, whereas the teachers continue to be upper caste.

00:58:59.150 --> 00:59:14.450
In that, again, you had mentioned, maybe I can respond to that issue here, the studies that we did on inclusion and exclusion and on teachers, and what are the findings in that, and how...

00:59:14.800 --> 00:59:23.440
So generally, you'll find people in the middle class saying, arrey kahan abhi, there's no caste discrimination now and things like that.

00:59:24.320 --> 00:59:28.670
So this is what we captured in the inclusion and exclusion study.

00:59:29.220 --> 00:59:44.050
And so one is that, that is when we found that there were hardly any upper castes, in some schools, absolutely none in the government schools.

00:59:44.050 --> 00:59:48.220
Gayithri: Anjali, just to back up a little, can you tell a little about the study and then...

00:59:48.930 --> 00:59:49.150
Yeah.

00:59:49.150 --> 00:59:50.070
That would be helpful.

00:59:50.070 --> 00:59:50.399
Thank you.

00:59:50.399 --> 00:59:50.405
Anjali: So this was a national study.

00:59:50.405 --> 01:00:01.320
Both of these were national studies done in five or six states in India with a common design, a common framework.

01:00:02.010 --> 01:00:06.010
The first one was one on inclusion and exclusion.

01:00:06.510 --> 01:00:10.259
So what are the school practices actually on the ground?

01:00:10.599 --> 01:00:22.696
And are they providing equal space or are they still discriminatory?

01:00:22.696 --> 01:00:23.063
And if they're discriminatory, then in what ways?

01:00:23.063 --> 01:00:26.130
So in that, when you don't have...

01:00:26.150 --> 01:00:30.799
The sample was in Madhya Pradesh, we did in four blocks.

01:00:31.150 --> 01:00:48.529
Actually went to about five schools in four blocks selected by purposive sampling, and found what was happening in school.

01:00:48.560 --> 01:00:54.279
So a whole day's observation from before assembly till after school closed.

01:00:54.690 --> 01:00:54.930
Gayithri: Got it.

01:00:54.970 --> 01:01:02.350
Anjali: So observing both the informal spaces, the midday meals, and the in classroom processes-

01:01:02.350 --> 01:01:02.670
Gayithri: Practices.

01:01:03.170 --> 01:01:03.360
Yeah.

01:01:03.360 --> 01:01:11.050
... Anjali: and also generating some situations in which the responses would show some of those things.

01:01:11.050 --> 01:01:23.729
So since we had been working in curriculum all this while, it was also very rich learning experience for us, how to do this kind of a study and do multi-

01:01:24.789 --> 01:01:25.129
Gayithri: Site.

01:01:25.240 --> 01:01:34.350
... Anjali: multimodal kind of study, not just questionnaires, but questionnaires, group discussions, observations, activities, and then put them together.

01:01:34.350 --> 01:01:47.059
So the first thing we found is that, how do we look at discrimination when the upper caste are not there at all?

01:01:47.979 --> 01:01:47.999
So-

01:01:47.999 --> 01:01:48.429
Gayithri: Rather the lower caste are not there at all.

01:01:48.429 --> 01:01:51.082
The marginalized are not even on the table?

01:01:51.082 --> 01:01:51.442
Anjali: No.

01:01:51.442 --> 01:01:52.886
In the government schools.

01:01:52.886 --> 01:01:55.580
Gayithri: Oh, in the student population.

01:01:56.770 --> 01:01:57.130
Got it.

01:01:58.500 --> 01:01:58.670
Got it.

01:01:58.670 --> 01:02:02.880
Anjali: This is only in government schools, so that was a limitation of the study.

01:02:02.910 --> 01:02:07.630
We did not have it in the design.

01:02:07.680 --> 01:02:16.530
I mean, we raised that issue, but it's much more difficult to get permission from private schools to do this study.

01:02:16.530 --> 01:02:21.310
So in the government schools now, there are only marginalized castes and tribes left.

01:02:22.199 --> 01:02:23.980
So then how do we see?

01:02:24.139 --> 01:02:28.028
So in some schools where there were OBCs, so one could see because there's that brahminism across caste.

01:02:28.028 --> 01:02:28.054
It's a mobilizational aspect.

01:02:28.054 --> 01:02:28.157
But the OBCs would practice untouchability with the dalits in the school where there were OBCs.

01:02:28.157 --> 01:02:35.238
So they would, particularly in the midday meal, they would bring their own food.

01:02:35.238 --> 01:02:37.255
They would not have the midday meal which the dalit children were having.

01:02:37.255 --> 01:02:47.579
Sometimes there were issues of who's cooking the food.

01:03:01.910 --> 01:03:03.890
Then also what water people drink, who brings the water.

01:03:04.779 --> 01:03:08.160
If the teacher wants water, then who brings the water.

01:03:08.480 --> 01:03:10.819
So all these got captured.

01:03:11.179 --> 01:03:29.670
And also the toilet issue, because government has spent crores and crores of rupees building toilets, and toilets are important particularly for females teachers the whole day there and students also.

01:03:30.099 --> 01:03:38.623
But the toilets are built in most of the schools, in very few schools were they functional, because who would clean them then.

01:03:38.623 --> 01:03:41.339
And there was no...

01:03:41.499 --> 01:03:46.800
I mean, from the maintenance fund, they would probably employ dalits to do it.

01:03:47.350 --> 01:03:56.700
So then sometimes they would make dalit students do that, to do the cleaning of the toilets.

01:03:57.730 --> 01:04:00.860
So these three or four sites we found.

01:04:01.380 --> 01:04:06.720
And then of course, how they're seated in class, who gets more opportunity to respond.

01:04:06.929 --> 01:04:07.199
So the report is there.

01:04:09.329 --> 01:04:17.830
So these aspects we found, this was, I think, about seven, eight years ago that we did this study.

01:04:17.840 --> 01:04:22.750
So this was one.

01:04:22.750 --> 01:04:25.669
And the other was similar teacher study.

01:04:27.520 --> 01:04:38.460
This was not teacher education study, but teacher status study, because there, in the intervening period, there was a lot of para-teachers, underpaid teachers.

01:04:39.139 --> 01:04:53.035
Now, also there are guest teachers, there are contract teachers, but now the government has categorized in the sense that they've made kind of a tenure-track like you have in the US for the school teachers.

01:04:53.300 --> 01:05:00.069
So they enter as contract teachers, but they have certain milestones in that to become permanent.

01:05:00.680 --> 01:05:21.270
So there, we found discrimination in a roundabout kind of a way that in spite of the recruitment exams being taken, there were huge numbers of seats which were vacant.

01:05:22.359 --> 01:05:29.270
So now what happens is, earlier what used to happen was that if the reserved seats are not-

01:05:29.270 --> 01:05:29.320
Gayithri: Taken.

01:05:29.320 --> 01:05:32.770
... Anjali: filled, then they would become general seats.

01:05:33.520 --> 01:05:35.150
Now that has been disallowed.

01:05:36.160 --> 01:05:38.730
So the seats continue to be vacant.

01:05:39.589 --> 01:05:58.600
So particularly in science, mathematics, and English teachers for the high school level, the reserved category seats are going vacant in huge numbers, and it's a vicious circle.

01:06:00.110 --> 01:06:02.260
Rural schools don't have those teachers.

01:06:02.360 --> 01:06:09.070
They are not able to opt for science and mathematics, and therefore they're not able to qualify.

01:06:11.410 --> 01:06:40.020
Earlier when these seats could become general seats in all professions, then some of the principals used to dissuade post class 10 tribal and dalit students from taking science, even if they had good marks, because they would want those seats to be vacant so that then they got converted into general category

01:06:41.880 --> 01:06:49.369
So this discrimination, as time progresses, it becomes subtle.

01:06:49.529 --> 01:06:49.919
It doesn't go away.

01:06:49.919 --> 01:06:57.419
It'll find newer and newer ways of...

01:06:57.419 --> 01:06:57.969
like privatization is one way.

01:06:58.150 --> 01:07:02.210
Universalization push came before privatization.

01:07:02.210 --> 01:07:05.149
Till the '70s, '80s when we started our work, there was no universalization.

01:07:05.149 --> 01:07:10.060
There were lots and lots of children outside school.

01:07:10.660 --> 01:07:17.870
And the landlords would say, "If you take all these children into school, who's going to work on our fields?"

01:07:18.910 --> 01:07:27.870
Then the '80s drive the new education policy, '80s drive for universalization, put everybody in school, operation Blackboard.

01:07:28.430 --> 01:07:47.109
And immediately after that, encouragement for privatization, making private schools simpler to set up and having kind of a mindset and a discourse right across that government schools don't work, government teachers don't work, or don't send your children to government schools.

01:07:47.420 --> 01:07:56.140
The same people will aspire to government jobs, but not their children in the same school, the same hospitals.

01:07:56.790 --> 01:08:07.590
So here now in Madhya Pradesh, when we started, only about 10% or less of the children went to private schools.

01:08:08.140 --> 01:08:13.010
Now about 40% of children are going to private schools.

01:08:13.720 --> 01:08:17.229
So that is another way of discrimination.

01:08:17.229 --> 01:08:26.499
You have segregated populations, and they have access to better facilities and other things.

01:08:27.319 --> 01:08:27.609
Gayithri: Yeah.

01:08:28.520 --> 01:08:28.790
Yeah.

01:08:29.210 --> 01:08:37.849
I think one thing that you mentioned, again, we just touched upon and we moved on was the room for expression.

01:08:38.309 --> 01:08:43.100
And in that context, we know that you've worked on multilingual education.

01:08:43.640 --> 01:08:57.079
And there has also been, like, this has come up again in the recent NEP where they have emphasized on bringing the home language or decentering English as the medium of instruction.

01:08:57.849 --> 01:09:12.470
So do you want to comment on your work in the multilingual education and how that kind of supported the marginalized voices in the learning settings?

01:09:13.340 --> 01:09:17.170
Anjali: Again, it is to do with the movement of the discourse.

01:09:17.190 --> 01:09:32.653
When we started, I mean, this was recognized that the medium of instruction and the school language is different from the language of a lot of marginalized children.

01:09:32.653 --> 01:09:37.630
But the solution that was thought of at that time was mother tongue education.

01:09:38.720 --> 01:09:48.089
That in the initial years, and that's what our policy also says that the people have a right for education in their mother tongue up till primary classes.

01:09:49.520 --> 01:10:02.379
So now that creates a conflict because it is also perceived as a way of preventing mobility of the deprived classes.

01:10:02.380 --> 01:10:06.640
So it was not multilingual education which was propagated at that time.

01:10:06.809 --> 01:10:17.030
There was a three-language formula, but the medium being your own mother tongue, which may be an oppressed mother tongue.

01:10:18.580 --> 01:10:23.580
Of course, then the practicality so materials and other things to be created in the mother tongue.

01:10:23.580 --> 01:10:26.450
So that never actually got implemented.

01:10:26.480 --> 01:10:29.800
Then you have the region language, and then you have English.

01:10:30.940 --> 01:10:31.764
In one sense, we've always had multilingual education.

01:10:31.764 --> 01:10:38.359
We've always had the three-language formula.

01:10:39.529 --> 01:10:47.950
In policy, English as a medium was never accepted even before this policy.

01:10:49.060 --> 01:10:51.533
But in practice, there was a...

01:10:51.720 --> 01:10:54.940
Because mobility happens with the English.

01:10:55.650 --> 01:11:03.509
So multilingual education actually would require multimedia of education.

01:11:03.509 --> 01:11:21.680
And only in one place when I was studying in school, the central schools used to have a double medium of education at least in the Hindi Belt, which is social science was taught in Hindi, and science and mathematics was taught in English.

01:11:23.250 --> 01:11:32.320
So you had a double medium, because you require some more space than only the teaching of a particular language to learn the language properly.

01:11:33.920 --> 01:11:35.720
So that is one way.

01:11:35.800 --> 01:11:53.389
Other things which I have seen in Hong Kong is right from pre-primary, even in the same subject, some units being taught in one language, other units in another language.

01:11:53.929 --> 01:11:58.860
But for that, there at least, they had native speakers of that language.

01:12:00.910 --> 01:12:14.809
For example, if certain units were to be taught in Chinese, in Mandarin, then the teacher of science was a native speaker of Mandarin.

01:12:15.070 --> 01:12:19.120
And there would be another teacher who would be a native speaker of English, for example.

01:12:20.030 --> 01:12:24.450
So that again requires much more resources.

01:12:26.100 --> 01:12:27.420
So that is the bottleneck.

01:12:28.250 --> 01:12:35.709
The new education policy, the 2020 policy, is not very clear on most of the things.

01:12:37.369 --> 01:12:41.059
It is seeing a lot of contradictory things altogether.

01:12:41.900 --> 01:13:09.519
So how this multilingual education is different from a three-language formula, a close reading of the policy on language does not give you a clear idea, particularly about the medium of instruction, because if they say that they will allow local languages to be...

01:13:09.540 --> 01:13:32.450
Because there's an equal push for standardization of Hindi as a medium, the pressure on Hindi has increased quite a bit all over the country, and the pressure, it might also happen in the present decade, that Hindi becomes a national language when India has never had a national language.

01:13:34.440 --> 01:13:37.280
There's that kind of pressure.

01:13:37.610 --> 01:13:49.980
So with that kind of push, what is the nature of multilingual education which is actually being promoted by the NEP is not clear at all.

01:13:49.980 --> 01:13:51.890
And where are the languages of the underprivileged?

01:13:53.090 --> 01:14:07.179
Because when we did more recent work again in an informal space because we didn't get space in formal schools to work on multilingual education, we found this hierarchy of languages.

01:14:07.759 --> 01:14:26.970
So there's English, then there's Hindi, which is our regional language in this area, then there's our local kind of languages, regional languages like Bundelikhandi, Nimadi, Malvi, Chhattisgarhi, these kind of languages.

01:14:27.310 --> 01:14:34.720
And then there's the tribal and DNT languages, that is at the lowest, which is Gondi and Korku and Bhili and Pardhi.

01:14:38.399 --> 01:14:45.710
So the Bhundeli and Bhojpuri and these kinds of speakers, they also promote Hindi.

01:14:47.710 --> 01:14:55.639
They may just speak their own languages at home, but in the classroom, they don't allow Gondi or Pardhi speakers to express themselves.

01:14:56.930 --> 01:15:01.340
Yeah, so is the pecking order is very clear.

01:15:01.960 --> 01:15:10.640
Gayithri: Yeah, and I think your own narratives, from where you are coming, your struggles with Konkani kinda also map that some ways.

01:15:10.640 --> 01:15:24.280
Anjali: Yeah, and in this space where we worked, we found that the children were not necessarily...

01:15:24.420 --> 01:15:33.960
When we put it as really multilingual education in terms of working in all languages and the acceptability became more than in mother tongue education.

01:15:34.520 --> 01:15:35.139
Gayithri: Mm-hmm [affirmative].

01:15:36.170 --> 01:15:44.549
Anjali: So we would put it as, that yes, we teach English as well because they see us as coming from English background so that you are not learning our language.

01:15:44.580 --> 01:15:48.199
You are telling us to learn in our own language so that you get all the cream.

01:15:48.580 --> 01:15:49.960
Then no, we will teach English.

01:15:49.960 --> 01:15:54.230
And then I realize that we must all, as teachers also learn their language.

01:15:55.310 --> 01:16:06.920
So because we have a certain social status, if we start attempting to learn their language, they feel that the social status of their language is also improving.

01:16:07.570 --> 01:16:15.460
Whereas if we don't learn their language and only tell them that you must preserve your language and you must also learn English, it's not the same thing.

01:16:15.740 --> 01:16:24.820
So, that acceptability of own language in a multilingual framework becomes much more than in the mother-tongue education framework.

01:16:24.830 --> 01:16:28.343
Gayithri: Valuing in what you allow students to express and be comfortable with.

01:16:28.343 --> 01:16:38.190
Anjali: And it becomes much digital also because you find different language speakers in the classroom.

01:16:38.530 --> 01:16:43.689
So you are learning different languages, you're being able to comprehend.

01:16:43.700 --> 01:16:52.170
So one thing that I need to do at the moment, because for the last two years, I've been trying to learn Portuguese on Duolingo.

01:16:52.990 --> 01:16:57.360
And first, because there's a theory that, focus on one language at a time.

01:16:57.360 --> 01:16:59.890
So for about a year I learned only Portuguese.

01:17:00.370 --> 01:17:03.369
Then I had earlier taken an A1 course in French.

01:17:03.369 --> 01:17:06.579
So I said, "Let me pick that up as well."

01:17:06.579 --> 01:17:11.000
And there is a certain gaming and systemic element in Duolingo.

01:17:11.360 --> 01:17:12.950
It's quite interesting.

01:17:13.480 --> 01:17:18.809
So I need to work on kind of a self-ethnographic research and that.

01:17:19.230 --> 01:17:38.930
Because now I'm actually doing Portuguese and French on Duolingo, and I've been taking support from online classes from some Brazilian and now I've joined a Goa university online class in Portuguese.

01:17:38.930 --> 01:17:47.915
And then there's a WhatsApp group which has started on Konkani and whereas I'm finding my memory and things going down at this age and all.

01:17:48.180 --> 01:17:51.270
I'm finding that it's not very difficult.

01:17:51.320 --> 01:18:02.479
So I'm wanting to reflect because the structures of say the European languages, Portuguese and French are pretty similar.

01:18:03.379 --> 01:18:13.759
So maybe it's that reason Konkani has various aspects so when I am looking at all of these things, meta-linguistically, I'm not finding it impossible.

01:18:15.549 --> 01:18:20.499
So I can understand now quite a bit in Portuguese and in France.

01:18:20.960 --> 01:18:29.550
But expression, I have to grapple because you know which one to take there also close options and things like that.

01:18:30.430 --> 01:18:38.630
So I'm also finding that learning a new language takes quite a bit of time, at least three years.

01:18:38.630 --> 01:18:48.639
And particularly if you don't have opportunities for interacting with the language like the tribal children have.

01:18:48.940 --> 01:19:03.670
So the empathy, learning a new language, perhaps that making it compulsory for teachers to learn a new language would also increase empathy for the students who don't know Hindi.

01:19:04.410 --> 01:19:13.110
They think if they can't express in Hindi then, they're not expressing even in the third year of school education, then they're dumb or something.

01:19:13.120 --> 01:19:17.410
So it's quite an interesting...

01:19:18.730 --> 01:19:23.580
In a multilingual frame, you can learn multiple languages at the same time.

01:19:24.080 --> 01:19:28.159
And particularly younger children will definitely, it won't be all that difficult.

01:19:28.160 --> 01:19:33.430
But I don't know political and social commitment in the policy.

01:19:33.560 --> 01:19:36.090
I've not seen them taking off anywhere yet.

01:19:36.570 --> 01:19:37.660
Gayithri: The NEP you mean?

01:19:38.520 --> 01:19:42.309
The learning aspect of NEP.

01:19:44.120 --> 01:19:48.439
Anjali: COVID has sort of made it problematic.

01:19:48.910 --> 01:19:49.180
Gayithri: Yeah.

01:19:50.700 --> 01:19:53.550
Anjali: The, all the online education and things like that.

01:19:54.410 --> 01:19:54.870
So-

01:19:55.600 --> 01:19:58.166
Gayithri: Maybe one last thing I don't want to take a lot of your time.

01:19:58.290 --> 01:19:59.839
I know it's also time for your dinner.

01:20:02.670 --> 01:20:07.560
What would be your comments on how some of this work has shifted due to pandemic?

01:20:08.700 --> 01:20:10.290
What do you see on the ground?

01:20:10.310 --> 01:20:14.559
What do you see is going on in your communities and circles of work?

01:20:17.639 --> 01:20:39.219
... Anjali: So, one of the things is that, this fear that has taken up a lot of mental space of everybody and impacted children.

01:20:39.290 --> 01:20:45.900
Children didn't get COVID poor things, but they've not been able to get out, go to school.

01:20:45.950 --> 01:21:08.150
My grandnephew got admitted in class one, he was homeschooled till class one and he got admitted in class one in 2020, just before the pandemic, the lockdown started.

01:21:09.570 --> 01:21:11.630
And he's not seen a day of school.

01:21:13.230 --> 01:21:29.262
So only online classes and the teachers have been so silly that they have not shared contacts of the students among themselves so that even offline, they make friends and things like that.

01:21:29.262 --> 01:21:29.270
I don't know what is the reason for it.

01:21:29.270 --> 01:21:37.080
So it's just those online classes and then clustered at home.

01:21:37.080 --> 01:21:40.340
So it is having that kind of impact.

01:21:40.840 --> 01:21:48.640
And at the same time, it is open this whole online, like we are interacting.

01:21:49.280 --> 01:22:09.129
In my last quite a few years, because Eklavya structure is number of field centers and central office and so the decision making groups are spread across in different centers.

01:22:09.139 --> 01:22:14.650
So we would then setting up meetings because all used to be physical meetings.

01:22:15.520 --> 01:22:37.049
And I fought a losing battle that why can't we have more frequent 2 hour meetings on Zoom on this thing rather than innovating and the discussions also the decisions get delayed.

01:22:37.490 --> 01:22:48.159
So no face to face, face to face hona chahiye, I said kya hoga face to face mein, koi zoom mein dekh rahe hai ya nahi bhi dekh rahe hai, aawaz sun rahe hai.

01:22:48.159 --> 01:22:49.480
That is the main this thing.

01:22:50.040 --> 01:22:56.049
So it didn't start and after the pandemic, then that is your only medium.

01:23:00.509 --> 01:23:03.020
I don't know how good it'll be for children.

01:23:06.180 --> 01:23:15.320
Because I was one of the more anxious and panicky types in this whole pandemic.

01:23:15.419 --> 01:23:17.220
Others have been more relaxed.

01:23:18.190 --> 01:23:22.693
And as one got to know more about the virus, then I also became more relaxed.

01:23:22.693 --> 01:23:25.910
But even today, one doesn't know if...

01:23:26.299 --> 01:23:30.190
Because exactly the same situation was there before the second wave.

01:23:30.190 --> 01:23:38.030
People are traveling, having holidays, giving up on masks.

01:23:38.490 --> 01:23:42.599
And so it's all up to the virus, whether it would...

01:23:42.599 --> 01:23:55.080
But on a different this thing what the pandemic has done has really questioned our development model.

01:23:57.280 --> 01:24:00.222
And if we continue on that, we are going to...

01:24:00.350 --> 01:24:02.920
Like other things have become more frequent.

01:24:03.640 --> 01:24:09.940
These kinds of pandemics may become more frequent in this kind of lifestyle.

01:24:10.889 --> 01:24:22.200
And so this accumulation, and then the implication on education that if those two can be worked on together, what is the kind of education?

01:24:22.200 --> 01:24:23.493
What is the kinds of careers?

01:24:23.493 --> 01:24:25.219
What are you expecting?

01:24:25.630 --> 01:24:42.190
People are amassing going after wealth, giving up totally on health and dying at 30 and 35 and 40, even after going to gym and everything just dropping that dead like that.

01:24:44.000 --> 01:24:48.120
Not having even the time to enjoy the money that they earn.

01:24:48.570 --> 01:24:57.550
So all it's doing is fueling the waste and the market and things like that.

01:24:57.850 --> 01:25:05.390
So if a more self sustainable lifestyle, and an education for that, we have models for that.

01:25:05.390 --> 01:25:06.070
We have Nai Talim and Tagore School.

01:25:08.389 --> 01:25:11.470
If those become models of education in schools.

01:25:12.290 --> 01:25:18.200
Because I'm not very sure of this whole electronic waste also that we create.

01:25:19.370 --> 01:25:32.440
I had some electronic stuff, TV, and I think I found that the resale value is nothing, it's become total like mud.

01:25:32.440 --> 01:25:36.810
Raddiwaala said I'll give you 20 Rupees for a laptop.

01:25:40.929 --> 01:25:51.150
So, how much of even this online we do and more small because the Mohalla classes is what worked to some extent.

01:25:51.890 --> 01:26:03.099
So the decentralized small models where yes, and I must say this because that is again, something that I got involved post retirement.

01:26:03.269 --> 01:26:13.280
And I felt that that is one element that should be an integral part of education, which has been neglected, is plants and plantation.

01:26:14.520 --> 01:26:18.050
And growing food and flowers boats.

01:26:18.050 --> 01:26:26.270
Because the very act of growing and taking that risk and feeling sad the day your plant dies and feeling happy when you see…

01:26:27.930 --> 01:26:33.480
Like last year, I had a chili plant full of flowers, but not a single chili.

01:26:34.540 --> 01:26:38.309
And this year I'm getting chilies there.

01:26:38.400 --> 01:26:40.049
And I'm so happy.

01:26:40.109 --> 01:26:46.020
I have a few bhindi plants, so only a few came up.

01:26:46.520 --> 01:26:53.769
So you also observe it gives me one or two bhindis on a particular day.

01:26:54.360 --> 01:26:57.026
So then I have to wait, I can’t make sabzi with one or two bhindis.

01:26:57.240 --> 01:26:58.639
I need at least six or seven.

01:26:59.209 --> 01:27:02.270
So, but it's my bhindi it's grows on my plant.

01:27:02.280 --> 01:27:08.440
So something which I buy I've kept it separately, my chilies and my this thing.

01:27:08.790 --> 01:27:17.059
So that love for nature, actually nurturing that and, you learn so much more teachers learn so much more.

01:27:17.100 --> 01:27:23.530
Each plant requires different amount of light, even that all my chlorophyll lesson came alive now.

01:27:25.580 --> 01:27:30.490
Because it somehow has registered that if you keep a plant in the sun, it'll dry up.

01:27:31.300 --> 01:27:35.630
So there's a large tree, which provides too much shade.

01:27:35.670 --> 01:27:40.120
So my plants were not getting enough sun and the leaves were yellow.

01:27:40.120 --> 01:27:41.590
And I said, "What is happening in there?"

01:27:41.590 --> 01:27:50.570
And then somebody who was more professional said, "Oh, it's not being able to make its chlorophyll because it doesn't have sun."

01:27:51.040 --> 01:28:02.360
So this, this growing food, it'll also give more empathy about saving food, about not wasting it.

01:28:04.049 --> 01:28:06.849
And it can cover half the curriculum.

01:28:07.780 --> 01:28:20.540
Just having a garden patch in the school, your midday meals, nutritious food for midday meals and this kind of empathy.

01:28:20.540 --> 01:28:26.480
A lot of science, all the biology part of science can be covered, a lot of mathematics.

01:28:26.790 --> 01:28:33.389
So, if that kind of a new model of plant-based education.

01:28:34.110 --> 01:28:58.199
When somebody's doing non soil and growing such beautiful stuff on his terrace on large containers, even that size of feeds and he doesn't take any soil, it's compost and ash and something and Cocopeat and no soil.

01:28:59.349 --> 01:29:03.190
Why should I need soil to get such good plants?

01:29:03.750 --> 01:29:07.240
So, and again, management, what to sow when.

01:29:08.150 --> 01:29:18.190
So with these three or four I felt I like bhindis so if I can grow different plants at different times, then I'll get more-

01:29:18.190 --> 01:29:18.389
Gayithri: Is it successful?

01:29:20.309 --> 01:29:23.000
... Anjali: I think that that is the future.

01:29:23.449 --> 01:29:32.889
It'll solve a lot of things that we have plant-based education and plant-based kind of life, I'm a non vegetarian to the core.

01:29:32.889 --> 01:29:36.179
So in my plant-based, there'll be animal this things also.

01:29:36.179 --> 01:29:37.549
Gayithri: Plant by the side?

01:29:37.549 --> 01:29:37.739
Anjali: I'm.

01:29:38.950 --> 01:29:52.849
Yeah, but both together, so this whole thing of climate change and other things, I think it requires a movement to do that and do away with plastics.

01:29:53.179 --> 01:29:53.429
Gayithri: Yeah.

01:29:54.190 --> 01:29:54.480
Anjali: So-

01:29:54.490 --> 01:29:56.105
Gayithri: Yeah, thank you so much.

01:29:56.105 --> 01:29:58.357
... Anjali: You said you can also support.

01:29:58.357 --> 01:30:06.310
So if you can promote this and support small endeavors, which go into small plant based kind of education.

01:30:07.680 --> 01:30:11.400
And then disseminate their knowledges, then that would be very good.