Between Labour and Learning: How Kerala’s Education Reforms Left Caste Untouched

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The Education Reform programs in Keralam in 1990s

It is in the context of implementation of District Primary Education Program (D.P.E.P) in 1996 that the content, method and purpose of education became a subject of contestation in Keralam for the first time after the state formation. The earlier concerns were mainly focused on the question of administration and management of educational institutions and in establishing schools in every village in the state . By the 1970s itself the latter goal was already achieved at least in the lower and upper primary level. Between 1971 and 1991 only four new lower primary schools were started, which shows that the question of availability of educational facility was no more a major concern. The major concern in the 1970s was the increasing drop out rate parallel to the increase in enrolment rate. It was the children from same section of population, that is, the children from lower caste communities that ‘caused’ the increase in both enrolment and dropout rates.

The first attempt to address the issue of increasing dropout rate by the state government in 1980 was known as ‘whole promotion scheme.’ According to this measure all the students were promoted from the first standard to second standard without considering the evaluation results. This was extended up to the tenth standard where 90% of the students, irrespective of their academic abilities, got automatic promotion. This was actually an administrative solution for an academic problem. At this period, the policy makers did not consider that the problem of drop out might be related to issue of curriculum or pedagogy. It was during the revision of curriculum in 1997 that academic questions were brought into the table as part of the implementation of the DPEP project.

The objectives of the District Primary Education program, a World Bank funded central government project, did not directly include reforms in curriculum or pedagogy. The program’s main objective were to enroll and retain all the children in the aged group of 6 to 11 in primary schools, promotion of girls’ education, and reduction of disparities of all types in the primary education sector. The first phase of the project, which began in 1994, included three supposed to be backward districts from Kerala. In the second phase which began in 1996 three more districts were added to the program.

In 1997, the state government decided to develop a new curriculum for the primary classes as part of the DPEP with the view that the objective of the program cannot be achieved merely by improving the infrastructure facilities and administrative reforms. The input from the left oriented non-governmental organization the Kerala Sasthra Sahithya Parishath was crucial in this decision. The State Council for Education Research and Training took initiative of conducting workshops and training programs for the development and implementation of a new curriculum. New text books for class I to class IV were introduced in all the six DPEP districts in 1998 and the government decided to expand this reform to all schools under the state board in Kerala.

The SCERT report on the workshop for curriculum development which was held in 1999 reflects the major concerns regarding the existing curriculum and the need for a new curriculum with new objectives and programs in the education sector. The approach paper for this workshop criticizes then existed curriculum for its content, methods and objectives. The document notes that teaching and pedagogic approaches still continues as it was in the time when only a few upper caste children were part of the education system. The year old curriculum does not consider the social and cultural context of the children from other sections of the community who are now enrolled in schools. It does not develop democratic consciousness or social awareness among children. Neither it is useful for satisfying the productive needs of the society nor is it useful in developing skills for jobs in the primary sector like agriculture or industry.

The approach paper someway traces the genealogy of current education system to the colonial period. The paper explains: The education program in the colonial period was a tool in reinforcing the colonial domination. The education report in 1964- 66 had noted the importance of restructuring this system. Even though various governments and expert committees have taken some initiatives in this direction, many elements of colonial system still remain in the educational practices in Keralam. These elements help a minority to sustain their domination using the power of knowledge.

This description or the following criticism of the existing system does not clearly explain the nature of the elements of the colonial system which is stated as remaining in the current system. In other words it does not answer to the question ‘what is colonial in the present educational system.’ Even then we could see some indirect reflection on this question when the paper analyses the relation between education and material production processes. The report states: The current education is an intellectual practice which does not have any relation to the social life or the world of labour. The integration of physical and mental labour will help increasing the quality of the both. Learning can be rejuvenated through experiences from productive labour. Similarly learning will help increasing the productivity of laborers. This relation (between mental and manual labour) is an organic relation. Hence, the various parts of knowledge (that is physical and mental) are branches of the same tree.

The approach paper criticizes the current system for its focus on the development of one form knowledge which is part of the mental labour and recognizes manual labour also as part of the educational practice. The report mentions that “the emphasis should be on learning the dignity of labor and developing capabilities to do mental and manual labour”. Under the title ‘Learning Objective’ the paper explains the proposed content for a new curriculum. According  to  this  proposal  students  should  learn  language,

mathematics, environmental studies, physical work, health and hygienic life practices, various art forms and moral values. The idea is to develop capabilities of mind and body. In the proposed curriculum, training in physical labour is a part of curriculum from the primary stage to the higher secondary stage. For the secondary stage, for example, it mentions that “the student learns a particular vocation / physical labour, which will be useful for social life. This would either help the student to get a job in that trade or to develop further skill and knowledge about that trade”.

According to the proposed plan in the approach paper, from the secondary stage onwards students will slowly decide whether to move into a career that will require physical labour or to a vocation which mainly involve mental labour. In the secondary stage they will undergo basic training in both the above and in the higher secondary stage students will select one of the three streams: academic, academic/vocational, or vocational. The paper explains these three streams as follows: 

Academic courses will be in environmental sciences, social sciences and in language studies. The knowledge the student will learn through these courses will be useful either for admission in professional courses or for higher studies in the subject. The second stream, the academic/ vocational courses, will be useful to find self-employment or jobs in various trades and also to develop knowledge for further improving the chances in one‟s own trade. The main subjects in this stream will include commerce, mass- communication, printing and computer software. The last stream will be fully vocational training which will be useful in industrial or agricultural trades.

The draft approach paper is not the only document that emphasized the equal importance of the development of manual and mental labour in the educational practice. The draft curriculum for the secondary schools formulated by SCERT in 2002 focuses on ‘activity- oriented’ learning where physical work is part of the curriculum. The draft suggests that workshops, agricultural field and technical institution around the school should be part of the school and students should work in these places. Even the language study should be based on physical activities. The Education commission report submitted to the government in 2004, also gives impetus to activity oriented learning. The report suggests that “the student centered activities would be more physical and involve concrete ‘materials’.” The report is in the view that the current system of education is reason for the increasing disrespect to manual labour in Keralam.

What is important here for our purpose is the invisibility of caste as an analytical category in this analysis. The approach paper discussed earlier points towards the need for questioning the discrimination based on class, caste, gender and religion, and further the history of these discriminations is traced to the colonial period. But the critique fails, or refuses, to identify the colonial model as colonial-Brahmanical model. It underscores the problem of the hierarchy of the mental and physical labors but does not trace its genealogy into the caste hierarchy and caste practices.

In a close examination we could see that the reform discourse still retains a concept of separate existence of manual and mental labour even while they are both part of education system. The reformers want to create ‘awareness’ among the students about the dignity of manual labour. But it does not mark this as a Brahmanical idea or a form of present day casteism. For all practical purposes, the new curriculum retains the hierarchical series of knowledge where the most intelligent student seek mental labour, the average student becoming part of supervising job and the below average student becomes a worker. And in practice this clearly paralleled the hierarchical series of caste in the order of upper castes – middle castes – lower castes from top to bottom. The report on vocational schools in Keralam has pointed towards this caste hierarchy in indirect terms. The report states: Only 5.47% of the parents of Vocational Higher Secondary School (VHSC) students have an income of Rs. 8000/- and above per month. Only very low percentage (8.85) of parents with high educational qualification prefer to send their children to VSHC. Further only a small percentage of parents with technical education send their children to VHSC. Most of the parents belong to the low income group and come from the lower strata of the society.

The report does not take caste as a category in its statistical analysis. But from other government reports and studies, it could be extrapolated that the majority of the lower strata of the society, mentioned in the above report, is constituted by the lower caste groups in Keralam. This shows that creating awareness among students itself will not challenge the hierarchical practices in the field of education. It is not easy to challenge the preference of parents without challenging the hierarchy in which ‘jobs of mental labour’ are positioned superior in status to the ‘vocations of physical labour.’

It is also interesting to note that the reformers claim the authenticity of their arguments regarding activity oriented education program and the importance of manual labour based on theories of child psychology. This is because education is still conceptualized as a process for constructing a critical mind and in this sense it is important to understand how mind works. A number of books were published by Kedrala Shasthra Sahithy Parishath explaining the theories behind the reform ideas. The book Vidyabhyasa parivarthanathinu Oraamukham (An Introduction to the Educational Reforms), maps each stages of educational practices to a particular school of psychological theory. According to this work, the education policies in Keralam until 1980s is based behavioral theories of mind, the reforms in 1980s reflects the knowledge construction theories of Jean Piaget and the reforms after 1990s suggested by the current reformers anchor its arguments in social construction theories of Lev Vygotsky, all of which are theories of mind in general sense.

(to be contiuned)