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The year 2003 has just begun and even as a number of educational establishments spread across the nook and corner of the State is ready to begin their new academic session complete with the SCERT prescribed common text books, students and parents alike are beginning to feel the pinch of unavailability of the prescribed text books in the market. As touted by so many voluntary organisations, the common text books have been prescribed in line with the concept of a common syllabus for all the schools to follow.
Common syllabus is very fine and yes it should have been introduced and implemented many moons back, but common text books? Sorry, for as we see it, there is a gulf of difference between common text books and common syllabus. As this column has already noted before, common text book is nothing short of monopolizing education. The ultimate purpose of any educational policy mooted and implemented by the relevant authority should be to benefit the students and no one else but where does common text books place the children and students?
To provide the opportunity to the students to choose what is best, any educational policy framed should have room for competition, competition amongst the students, amongst the schools and yes competition amongst the authors and publishers. But this concept of competition is blown to smithereens when common text books are prescribed for students and schools to follow blindly. What happens if a different author and a publisher come out with a far better text book which conforms better to the laid down syllabus and that too priced at a competitive rate? Should the students be forced to forgo such a text book because it has not been prescribed?
We have been talking about quality education for quite a while, but no one seems to know how to go about it. Quality education will not be realized merely by giving free coaching classes to students but through scientific, objective methods and believe us nothing can be more harmful to education than monopolizing education, which common text books certainly do.
As it is, the Democratic Students Alliance of Manipur has already set a deadline to the publishers to make the text books available in the market by February 15. We do not doubt the sincerity of the publishers in trying to make the text books available in the market on time, but the worrying point is all this trouble has come about just because some people in positions of power and authority have come to the conclusion that quality education can be realized through prescribing common text books.
We received an interesting letter from a Class XII student (it will be published on Thursday) who says, "There is no harm in following the same syllabus but the same ditto books, that is quite unjust and a breach of right to education." Here is a student who has spoken her mind because any decision pertaining to education directly affects her and not the policy framers. As we have been maintaining, let there be a debate to decide whether the practice of common text books should be carried into the next academic session or not.
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