CHAPTER 4
IMPROVING LEARNING ENVIRONMENT AND CLASSROOM
PROCESSES- SCHOOL LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT
4.1 Introduction
Schools are institutions created for teaching and learning through a series of
activities. Activities such as plays, celebrating festivals, group work,
classroom study, examination etc. pave the way for interactions and creation
of learning community. The head teacher and teachers, behind the scenes,
plan and carry out the activities, which build up the environment of the
school. Each school creates its own environment reflecting its own physical
and psychological dimensions. Curriculum reform can only be realised if
school provides enabling physical and psychological environment to all the
learners. With respect to secondary stage of schooling efforts for curriculum
reform have been initiated in many states/UTs, this also requires to look into
the concerns related to school ethos and providing orientation and training to
head teachers, teachers and district level functionaries to take initiatives for
required change corresponding with the curriculum reform at the secondary
stage.
4.2 Concerns related to school environment1:
A brief description of the concerns related to school environment is as under :
Physical Environment: Physical environment of the school is a crucial factor
for organising activities and ensuring learners participation. However, schools
with dilapidated building, overcrowded and unattractive classrooms or those
with faulty designs or without space for play can be seen. Large number of
schools in rural areas particularly in dalit and tribal habitations are devoid of
minimum facilities. Such conditions may affect the teachers’ productive
output and classroom management. With continued effort of school teachers,
administrators and community through careful planning, school and
classroom spaces can be made attractive and used effectively as pedagogic
resources. This can be done in many ways. For instance, classrooms can be
made lively by displaying learner’s work on the walls. The walls of secondary
classes can be used for displaying information related to new inventions and
work in the area of science and mathematics, biographies of famous scientists,
mathematicians, women achievers, social scientists, artists, etc. A corner of
This chapter draws insights from the National Curriculum Framework-2005
developed by the NCERT and approved by the Central Advisory Board of
Education in its meeting held on September 6-7th , 2005
Note:
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classrooms may be used for organising learning materials. Likewise, physical
layout of the classroom can be altered through rearrangement of desks, chairs,
etc. so that children sit together in small groups or in a large circle and do
activities. With regard to class size, a ratio higher than 1:30 is not desirable at
secondary stage of school education. On an average teachers and children
spend around 6 hours a day and over 1000 hours a year in school. Obviously,
setting norms and standards relating to space, building and furniture are
essential for ensuring school quality. Norms related to creating physical
infrastructure at the secondary stage have been discussed in details in the
Framework of RMSA (MHRD, 2009).
Nurturing an Enabling Environment: Schools need to nurture an enabling
leaning environment. It means an environment where learners feel secure
without fear; where they are encouraged to talk and ask questions, and where
the relationships are governed by the principles of equality. In such an
environment, school and classrooms become places of interacting minds
where students are neither subjected to unfair treatment nor denied
opportunities on the basis of their gender or membership of caste or tribe or
minority group. However, children’s identities based on membership of caste,
gender, religion and linguistic group continue to influence their treatment
within schools. It is essential in this context that we build a school culture that
values students’ identities as learners and creates an environment that
enhances the potential and interests of each learner. It means that school
practices must reflect the values of equality, social justice and respect for
diversity as well as the rights of children.
Participation of All Children: Participation of all learners is a means of
preserving our culture of egalitarianism, democracy, secularism and equality.
Learning through participation in the life of a community and the nation at
large is crucial to the success of schooling. Enabling democratic participation
provides for empowering the weak and marginalised. It should become part of
school curricula and be integrated into the learning processes.
We must recognise the rights of the child. The Convention on the Rights of
the Child (CRC), where India is a signatory, identifies the right to
participation, the right to association or to organization, and the right to
information as the key principles. The CRC does not confine only to the
protection of children and the delivery of services but also ensures that
children have the right to determine the quality and the nature of the
programmes and services. The CRC, in fact, provides for children’s right, to
express their views freely in all matters affecting them. The right
to
participation is linked to the realisation of other primary rights such as access
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to information, the freedom of association and the right to formulate opinions
free from influence and coercion. Organised participation of children and
youth, especially the disadvantaged, gives them strength. Coming together
enables them to find collective ways to solve problems and also to develop a
collective voice.
A policy of inclusion in our education system is essential. This becomes
crucial when we think of participation of all learners, especially the
differently-abled, marginalized and children with difficult backgrounds.
While we appreciate excellence and ability, it is a necessity that we give
opportunity to all learners and recognise their abilities. Learners with
disabilities need assistance or more time to complete their tasks. While
planning activities, it is better that the teacher discusses with all learners in the
class and ensures that each child gets an opportunity to contribute. Excessive
emphasis on competitiveness and individual advancement which is commonly
seen in private schools has a harmful effect. It adversely affects peer relations
and undermines values such as cooperation and sensitivity to others.
Teachers, certainly, need to reflect on the extent to which the spirit of
competition to be pursued in the school system.
Schools often undermine the diversity of capabilities and talents of children
by categorising them as the stars, the average, the below average and the
failures. Such categorisation and labeling divide children into achievers and
those who are unable to perform. The fear of not having the right answer not
only keeps many learners silent in the classroom but also denies them an
equal opportunity to participate and learn. While we recognize that making
errors and mistakes is an integral part of the learning process, we also make
effort to remove the fear of not achieving ‘full marks’. The community of
parents needs to be informed that instead of stressing on tuitions or learning
perfect answers, they need to encourage learners to read story books, play, do
reasonable amount of home work and undertake revision. School heads and
school managements need to de-stress their curricula and advice parents to destress learner’s life outside the school. The ideal of common schooling
advocated by the Kothari Commission continues to be valid as it reflects the
values enshrined in our Constitution.
It is important that school
administrators and teachers realize that when boys and girls from different
socio-economic and cultural backgrounds and different levels of ability study
together, the classroom ethos get richer and more inspiring.
Discipline and Participatory Management: Maintaining discipline in schools
is usually the prerogative of teachers. Frequently they engage children as
monitors and prefects, and delegate the responsibility of maintaining order,
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and ensuring control. Punishment and reward of play an important role in
school practices. Disciplining learners using corporal punishment and verbal
and non-verbal abuse of learners can be seen in many schools even today.
Such practices humiliate learners in front of their peers. Teachers need to
reflect on the rationale of such practices or the rules and conventions that
govern schools, and examine whether they are consistent with our aims of
education.
Inculcating the habit of self-discipline has greater meaning today. Discipline
should enable freedom, choice and autonomy for both teacher and learner.
Involving learners in evolving rules is necessary, so that they understand the
rationale behind a rule and feel a sense of responsibility in ensuring that it is
followed. This would pave the way for learners to learn the process of setting
codes of self-governance and the skills required to participate in decision
making and democratic functioning. Similarly, they can be encouraged to
evolve mechanisms for conflict resolution between teachers and students, and
among students. School authorities can be unreasonably strict about
punctuality, which can demoralize children, their parents and also teachers. In
fact, a system for participatory management of the school involving children
and school teachers and administrators need to be evolved.
Space for Parents and Community: The school needs to explore opportunities
for active engagement by parents and communities in the process of learning.
This can be done in many ways. For instance, parents and community members
could come into the school as resource persons and share their knowledge and
experiences in relation to a particular topic. Schools should allow community
to transfer oral history (e.g. folklores, migration, environmental degradation,
traders, etc.) and traditional knowledge (sowing and harvesting, traditional
crafts etc.) to children; influence the content of subjects by providing local,
practical and appropriate examples; support children in their exploration and
creation of knowledge and practise of democracy; monitor the realization of
children’s rights as well as violations of these rights; and participate in setting
criteria for vocational training. There can be an understanding that school
space can be shared with the community for local events. Community
involvement can also be sought for maintaining the school and its facilities.
Curriculum Sites and Learning Resources: Though curriculum reform
implies change in many areas but the popular perception, it means changing
textbooks. Improved textbooks need to go beyond factual information and
focus on elaboration of concepts, activities, spaces for wondering about
problems, and exercises for reflective thinking and group work. Textbooks
need to be accompanied by other materials. Subject dictionaries, for instance,
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can relieve the textbook from technical terms. Supplementary books,
workbooks and extra reading material are important sources for learning.
Supplementary material could set learner’s attention to the world around them.
Fine examples of such materials can be found for the study of environment,
introducing learners to the observation of trees, birds and the natural habitat.
Likewise, atlases of stars, flora and fauna, people and life patterns, history and
culture, inventions in science and work in mathematics etc. enrich learner’s
understanding of earth, natural phenomena and subjects like science, history,
geography, economics etc. Handbooks for teachers are equally important and
should reach them well in advance.
School Library: School library needs to be conceptualised as an intellectual
space where teachers, children and community members can find the means for
deepening their knowledge. It should be possible for a teacher to conduct a
class in the library or for holding discussions or listening to a story-teller using
its resources. Facilities should be provided for students to borrow books. A
school library should also have the facilities of the new information technology
to enable children and teachers to connect with the wider world. It is time that
India moves towards equipping every school with a library. Creation of a
school library network and linking the network with the existing community
and district libraries should become the focus of futuristic planning.
Educational Technology: Educational Technology (ET) has been used as a
medium to disseminate information. If ET has to become a means for
enhancing curricular reform and encouraging learning, it should enable teacher
educators, teachers and children not merely as consumers but also as active
producers. Opportunities for hands-on experience in making a video film or a
video game or an audio-recording of an interview must be available to them.
Providing children access to multimedia equipment and ICT, and guiding them
to make their own productions give them new opportunities to translate their
creative imagination into a visible form. It is a different form of learning.
Interactive learning, two-way interactivity rather than one-way reception,
would facilitate meaningful integration of computers with the school
curriculum by enhancing access to ideas and information. ET could realise far
better potential if topics are taken up but developed into non-didactic
explorations, giving learners freedom to relate the knowledge to their
experience.
Tools and Laboratories: Equipping schools with tools for art and craftwork is
essential for making the school space a creative space for children. The
heritage crafts require a variety of tools such as looms, lathes, embroidery
frames etc., depending on the craft. The same is true for the arts. Integration of
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the arts and heritage crafts into curricular planning provides opportunity for
promoting a culture of active engagement with one’s material and human
environment. This would pave the way for nurturing children’s creative
imagination and skills. Schools in rural areas are poorly equipped with science
labs or equipment for mathematical activities. Absence of adequate labs and
equipments denies children equal opportunity for learning. While elementary
schools can benefit from a science and mathematics corner, secondary and
higher secondary schools require well-equipped laboratory.
Other Sites and Spaces: Sites of curriculum that are located outside the school
(e.g. the local monuments and museums, rivers, hills etc.) are important
resources. Teachers need to be empowered to plan the school schedule in a
manner that allows imaginative use of such resources. However, restriction of
classroom activities to what is written in the textbook or a rigid school
schedule or annual routine does not allow teachers to use such resources.
Teachers and educational administrators should join hands to free the school
system from such rigidities. This requires breaking away from the prevailing
mindset and moving towards a flexible school calendar.
Need for Plurality and Alternative Materials: The pluralistic and diverse
nature of Indian society makes a strong case for preparing a variety of not only
textbooks but also other materials. No single textbook can meet the diverse
needs of different groups of students. For promoting learners’ participation,
their creativity and learning, a variety of materials becomes an essentiality.
Organising and Pooling Resources: Pooling resources such as teaching aids,
books and other materials are essential. Teachers and resource persons need to
be acquainted with a range of materials available and ways of using them.
Other forms of materials such as maps, picture folders and equipments can be
shared among schools if they are placed at the cluster centers as a resource
library. Schools should benefit from the existing schemes and also explore the
possibilities available at the local level for augmenting their teaching and
learning material. However, success depends on planning the teachers do on
the use of such materials for enhancing participation and understanding.
Though laboratories have always been talked about as a part of science
teaching, they are not available at the scale required. To provide all children
with the necessary hands-on experience of equipment and experiments given in
the science curriculum, at the cluster level a resource center (cluster lab) can be
set up. Likewise, crafts lab too could be developed at the cluster or block
levels.
Time on Task: Reflection and careful planning are essential for effective
management of instructional time. Total number of days for the curriculum
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should be 200 days as recommended in NCF-1988. The school annual
calendar is currently decided at the state level. This practice could be
decentralised to the district level allowing flexibility based on local activities
(harvest, festival etc.), school events and climate/weather. Timings of the
school day could be decided at each school level in consultation with the gram
panchayat, keeping in mind the distance children need to travel. Flexibility
does not mean that we compromise on the time spent in school, and on
learning in the school.
The school day, week, month, term and year need to be planned as a mixture of
routine and variation. Careful planning can enrich children’s time spent in
school. Morning assembly, for instance, can be used for reading the news,
headlines, performing physical exercises and singing the national anthem.
Activities such as listening to a story, speech by a guest, sharing an interesting
project undertaken by a class etc. could become part of morning assembly.
Duration of a period in the school timetable is equally important. Though most
documents suggest a period of 45 minutes, this is often compromised into 30 to
35 minutes. In fact, a period should serve as an organisational unit for textbased lessons. Activities such as craft or art works, projects, lab work, crosssubject integrated learning require longer periods (a double period). Adequate
time for practicals and experiments need to be allocated in the time table.
Teacher’s Autonomy and Professional Independence: Teacher’s autonomy
and professional independence are essential for ensuring a learning
environment. The prevailing system of administrative hierarchies and control,
and centralised planning for curriculum reform constrain the autonomy of the
headmaster and teacher. Not only they receive orders and information, but
equally the voice of the teacher should be heard by those higher up who often
take decisions that affect the school life. Relationships between teachers and
their heads and principals must be informed by equality and mutual respect,
and decision making must be on the basis of dialogue and discussion. There is
a need for building up an atmosphere that encourages collaborative efforts
among teachers. There must also be mechanisms for conflict resolution. The
need to find time for staff interactions for reviewing and planning the calendar
of activities on a daily, weekly, monthly and annual basis is far greater today,
than ever before.
Encouraging Innovations: Encouraging new ideas, innovation and
experimentation is an essentiality to ensure quality in curricula reform. How do
we support this, so that it becomes part of school practice. For a start, there is a
need to create structured spaces within schools, and at the level of the cluster
and block where teachers are encouraged to share and discuss classroom
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practices and experiences. There is also a need for documentation and research
of identified ‘good practices’ and also the diverse practice that teacher’s use in
different classroom contexts. Adequate funds for this purpose need to be made
available at the school as well as at the District and State level for the
institutionalisation and dissemination of these innovations. Creation of an
enabling environment that nurtures and supports such initiatives is an
essentiality.
School Management and Leadership: The current ‘top down’ practice of
academic planning in schools needs to be replaced by a system of planning
from below wherein each school prepares an ‘institutional plan’ and evolve a
‘development programme spread over a period of time’. The academic
planning needs to focus on improving the physical resources, addressing the
diverse needs of students and enlisting the support of larger community. The
framework for planning upwards, beginning with schools and subsequent
consolidation at the cluster and block levels, would generate a decentralised
district level planning.
Headmasters are seen as the administrative authority within the school.
However, their potential role in providing academic leadership in schools has
yet to be adequately realised. Capacity building for this must receive attention.
They should actively involved in the process of school-level planning and
participate in the decision about the programmes they need and how they
should be integrated into regular school activities.
The role of national level institutions is to plan, design, monitor and evaluate
the Initial programme for school leadership and management for teachers and
provide guidance to state level institutions in its implementation. The state
level institutions are expected to implement the school leadership and
management programme as per the guidelines provided by the national level
institutions i.e. Nodal Centre. For implementation, the following strategies are
suggested here under.
4.3 Strategies
All the above concerns related to learning environment and classroom
processes are the concerns of the school community which involves school
principals, teachers, other staff members and also students. Although every
school has its own ethos still it is observed that present day school practices
e.g. time table, discipline, classroom teaching-learning are rigid and do not
generate interest and motivation in students. The emerging curriculum vision
which demands flexibility, contexuality and plurality for quality education will
be realised in an enabling learning environment and interactive classroom.
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Therefore, in this context dialogues with state / district functionaries, teacher
educators, capacity building of head teachers/principals and teachers on
various aspects of school management, school environment and classroom
process are the strategies which need our urgent attention under RMSA. There
is provision for recurring annual grant for schools under RMSA, a part of
which can be utilised to improve the school ethos and learning environment2.
4.4 Plan of Action
S.No.
1.
2.
2
Programme/Activities
Development
of
the
training
package
for
strengthening Leadership
Capabilities
of
Head
teachers /Principals/Vice
Principals of secondary
schools.
Nodal
Agency
Modalities
NUEPA
NCERT
and
IGNOU
, Jointly the sub committees
under NRG on Planning and
Management and Curriculum
Reforms will take up this task.
Capacity
building NUEPA
programmes incorporating NCERT
the follow-up mechanisms IGNOU
for
the
Head
teachers/Principals/Vice
Principals.
Through the networking of
various organisations at the
National, Regional and State
Level
capacity
building
programmes will to be planned
and operationalised on a mass
scale jointly by the sub
committees under NRG on
Curriculum
Reforms
and
Planning and Management.
Chapter 6 of this document deals component of in-service professional development of teachers
.
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